Not only that, but their Secretary Jan Cooper did such a good job, that I even registered as the worldwide name research point for a surname. I challenged them with three of my more unusual surnames in my ancestry, and they only had one of them (Dewey). I chose to register Yarrow (the other was Moden, and in hindsight, I could probably have tested a few more like Tingey).
My GOONS badge
I’ve been aware of their work (which began in 1979), and have often seen them at talks, but this was the first time I’d actively talked with them.
Minutes after becoming their newest recruit, I discovered that I had joined the ranks of a number of genealogy chums who are also fellow GOONS surname registrants. All were hugely positive of the Guild, and of the supportive approach between members, and registrants.
Armed with the induction pack and a detailed guide titled ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom‘, I shall endeavour to record and data crunch all Yarrow name-bearers that I can find, or that find me. I shall be absorbing the guide over the next week, and start my data trawling.
In the meantime, if you’re a Yarrow, have Yarrow ancestors or relatives, or have information about Yarrow surname bearers, then I’d like to hear from you (feel free to leave comments below).
I’ve just set up @YarrowGOONS on Twitter, to help me reach out and connect with the surname connection.
Day Three – the final day of the 2014 Who Do You Think You Are? Live show at London’s Olympia.
I’m writing this at the end of the third and final day of Who Do You Think You Are? Live. I’m home, and can honestly say that I throughly enjoyed myself.
Some of the Family History Society stands at lunchtime on Day 3 of WDYTYA? Live 2014
I arrived at about 9:45 this morning, after yet another wonderful walk through Hyde Park in the sunshine (still definitely Winter mode). Whilst there was no queue outside Olympia, I managed to get in just before the mass of visitors who were walking over from Olympia station arrived at the doors.
I must confess that I didn’t make it to Michael Gandy’s talk – I chose it as I briefly have a family that lived in London for about 10 years, and occasionally through history a marriage turns up in its parishes. The queue was long, and so I decided to bail, and regret missing it based on the comments I’ve since heard and seen on twitter.
However, I am very glad that I finally caught a Celia Heritage talk though, as her talks and work has always come with such positive praise. Plus, I’ve really been enjoying reading Wills and even the Probate Calendars that I’ve found on Ancestry.co.uk.
I’ve got copies of Wills that hint at family feuds, and ones that detail every spoon and bowl. Those latter ones don’t seem like much now, but as Celia’s talk suggested, it wasn’t just the better-off people that wrote them.
Through case studies from her own tree, Celia was able to show how it is important to view the full Will, as they carry so much information about relationships (not just siblings, spouses, and children, but cousins can turn up too), and locations. She also highlighted the importance of looking around at the same surname in roughly the right area, and seeing whether you can find some potential connections in Wills – in a hope that their Wills will mention your branch and help link it all together.
The Babbage Breakthrough
It was my first venture to Who Do You Think You Are? Live (2011), when I dragged along a selection of my handwritten notes, expecting to find a whole new swathe of ancestors in some monumental research breakthrough.
I soon found it wasn’t really that kind of event, and that I should use the show to learn about new techniques, new technology, and discover about new resources that can help my breakthroughs, and for the years since, I’ve stuck to this notion.
Devon Family History Society stand at WDYTYA? Live 2014
So it was a surprise to find myself sitting alongside the very helpful Terry Leaman – Vice-Chairman of the Devon Family History Society looking at a baptism list of my Babbage relatives.
Thankfully, my iPad has Reunion 10 (Mac only genealogy software) on it, so I was able to jump straight into the right tree and check my current research against the results – it matched – and with a few extra children in their records, and a completely new set of baptism dates for all of them to add to my research. A quick print-out and donation later, and I was off to sit down and add the data to my files.
#WDYTYAlive #tweetup
There were a few tweet-ups this year, and I managed to get in on one of them, and serendipitously right in the foreground of the commemorative photo. As ever, it was great to meet new people, finally meet some not-so-new Twitter/blogging chums, and to once again see friends made at previous shows.
Here’s one tweet-up photo from genealogist Luke Mouland..
If you’re intrigued as to quite what a ‘tweet-up’ is, or concerned about what people do at a ‘tweet-up’, then essentially it’s an impromptu small-scale flashmob, organised via Twitter, where people turn up to meet those sometimes anonymous/faceless Twitter users, or to meet up with Twitter users that you’ve got to know well. Tea, coffee, or alcohol is usually consumed.
Bonding over genealogy (and a hotdog)
Just prior to the tweet-up, I sat upstairs reading emails, when a retired man asked if he could sit at my table to eat (as there were no other free tables). Of course I didn’t refuse, and so we got chatting. He said that he’d travelled from Essex and that this was the second day for him, but his first ever visit to a show like this. He said he’d been meaning to come to something like this for ’20 years or more’, but just hadn’t found the right show.
He said he’d been enjoying the talks on day one, and was going to spend his second day looking around the stands.
We talked for about 15 minutes in all, about the WDYTYA? TV show (he isn’t a fan of celebrity culture, and we both kind of nodded in agreement), and we talked about all the great innovations, and how we’d both done our stints sifting through microfiche, film, registers, and transcripts for hours looking for names that were never there.
I’ve no idea who he was, but just for those 15 minutes, the world got a little bit smaller, and that wonderful ability of genealogy to bond people together, proved once again to have worked at ease without boundaries. I left him finishing off his hotdog, and made my way over to the IWM demo I’d booked….
I’m really keen to get using this site, and was also keen to find out about tagging people in a photo (which could be a war memorial), and also about the educational programme that I hope is sitting behind this site, and the opportunity for it to become a key resource in classrooms and universities.
I also met up with Steve Bardouille and Ola Dada from the team at Famberry – a relatively new, but fairly well established in the US company, that is specialising in creating secure spaces and tools for people to privately build family trees in collaboration with a closed or invite-only audience.
They’d been talking to a few different people at the show, and wanted to meet with me to find out what thoughts I had about what I’d want to see from their product as a family history researcher, as they are keen to grow their UK audience.
2015 at Olympia, London?
As the show had moved forward a weekday, there was no opportunity for Sunday visitors. This had let me to wondered whether the would-be Sunday visitors would turn up today, and it certainly seemed to be the case. It was much busier than Thursday and Friday, and at a guess, it was a busier Saturday than last year.
Day 3 of Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014
Day One’s (Thursday) visitors seemed to be on par with this year’s (and previous) Friday visitors, so I’m not entirely sure that the change has done the show any favours (last year saw 13,941 visitors). Couple this with the end of the District Line rail service from Earls Court to Olympia during the week (it only ran today), and it feels like it’s getting difficult for the 3 day show to stay at Olympia.
After speaking with a couple of reliable sources on stands, I realised that there was no mention of next year’s show. Usually by now, we’ve heard that the following year’s show dates, and last year I remember seeing a stand selling tickets to this year’s show. But nothing.
Is there something going on? Is the show to end? Or are we to shift location? Hopefully not London Excel (I find it dreadful to get to – another show I go to, has just switched to there, so I’m no longer attending). Maybe, as rumour rumbles, Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2015 will be in Birmingham? We’ll just have to wait and see.
I thought i’d try to get the answer myself from the WDYTYALive team’s twitter account, but maybe they can’t confirm anything just yet. I’ll let you know if I get a reply.
Hey @WDYTYALIVE there seems to be a quiet concern over whether there will be a 2015 show. Any news? #wdytyalive
In better news (well, for me at least), I found Olympia’s wifi was finally flawless. I can only hope that it’s the same quality/system at Earls Court 2, where I’m visiting on Tuesday.
So, in conclusion, I really enjoyed the show. I really enjoyed all three days. I enjoyed my hotel stay and beautiful Hyde Park ‘commute’. As ever the SOG workshop speakers were brilliant, and the mixture of stands really helped to fuel my time in-between the talks.
Thank you, to the team at Who Do You Think You Are? Live, to the team at the Society of Genealogists, and to the team at Olympia.
Day Two of the 2014 Who Do You Think You Are? Live show at London’s Olympia.
After a late night at the annual FindMyPast dinner, i creaked out of bed and headed across a beautifully sunny (but assuringly still Winter) Hyde Park for the second of three days at Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014. I’m quite enjoying this ‘commute’!
Sunshine beams into Olympia for day two.
I got to Olympia just a few minutes after opening, but there was no queue. A small queue remained at the cloakroom and the workshop ticket desk, but both were fast moving.
Her talk covered how to approach family history for magazines and newspapers, how to pitch to editors, and how to get writing.
She highlighted that when writing, you should always think about the reader. The audience. Who are they? Will they want to read this? She also advised that when writing an article, you should start with your best anecdote, and end on one too.
Do mention the War
After Cassie’s talk finished, I then spent time exploring the stands over in the new Military History section on the upper floor.
Audrey Collins talks ‘Discovery’ at The National Archives stand at Who Do a You Think You Are? Live 2014
Here I found The National Archives (with Audrey Collins talking about on-site ‘Discovery’), and the exciting looking Lives Of WW1 from the Imperial War Museum.
Lives of WW1 talk at Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014
I was fortunate to attend the Keynote from Lives Of The First World War with Melanie Donnelly and Luke Smith, expertly compared by Else Churchill and her roaming mics. They were able to explain the initial test conducted in 2011 on Flickr, and the subsequent development of the project to the now, 2-day old, showcased product.
It’s yet to be publicly launched – they quoted May 2014. It certainly looks like a great resource for creating what is essentially a memorial Facebook-style profile of people who lived and died in the First World War, complete with photos, audio, video, documents, stories, and community.
Eric Knowles at Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014
Was pleased to spot the legendary Eric Knowles again, deep in conversation with a hopeful heirloom keeper.
I’m now off for a ‘tweet up’ at the Hand and Flower pub opposite the event venue…. so I best leave that out of today’s blog post!!
Day one of three, from the 2014 Who Do You Think You Are? Live show at London’s Olympia.
Today has been the first day of Who Do You Think You Are Live? 2014 at London’s Olympia.
Day One of Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014
This is my fourth year here, and for the first time, I’ve booked a hotel, and I’m going to be here for all three days of the show.
Hopefully I can find enough to keep me entertained, and looking at the workshop schedule, this is going to be fairly easy.
The first year that I visited (back in 2011), I hadn’t booked myself onto any talks/workshops, and so found the whole event initially interesting, but not able to sustain my interest for a whole day – and I considered skipping it the following year.
Thankfully I didn’t, and I’ve been coming back ever since.
Angels, Cushions, Books, and Sin
I arrived at about 10am, complete with case (which, together with my coat, I swiftly consigned to the cloakroom).
I soon spotted Jackie Depelle, and her now infamous WDYTYALive themed hat, and after a quick hello, found my way to my first lecture session ‘Write Your Life Story’ with Michael Oke of Bound Biographies.
He explained how he fell into publishing through helping an elderly man write his life story. He went on to explain how best to get your own life story down – highlighting the need to record all the tiniest pieces of information you can, in order to help the reader remember you, or to picture or connect with the person or people you’re writing about.
Whilst leaving his session, I thought I’d died, when I bumped into these two angelic nurses…
Angel nurses from spiritofremembrance.com
With (a pricey) lunch out of the way, it was time for my second lecture – this time from Dr Colin R Chapman on Sin, Sex & Probate.
Dr Colin R Chapman on Sin, Sex & Probate, at day one of Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014
Dr Chapman talked through the hierarchical structure of the church, and explained that the records held by each level could be detailed and fascinating – but particularly a Bishop’s records (for the juicy gossip). He pulled some examples out from Norfolk, Essex, Cheshire, and Oxfordshire, to illustrate the range of ‘sins’ that we’re legitimate crimes – including defamation, not returning to church after giving birth to say ‘Thanks’ to God, punching a man whilst in a graveyard, and eating meat in Lent.
He pointed out that the church courts dealt with sins, and the civic courts dealt with crimes.
All in all, a fascinating topic, and I’m considering buying a copy of his book (of the same name), if only to read further examples, and help steer me to somewhere where I might find my own ancestor’s scandal.
I hasten to add, it’s the first time I’ve ever had to ask for a ticket for Sin, Sex & Probate!
I managed to pop along to the FindMyPast stand twice, catching the tail end of David Annal‘s fascinating talk on census returns and how you can use search wild cards to get better results, and examples of poor handwriting and missing relatives.
Also, appearing later, was the turn of Myko Clelland of FindMyPast, who once again under-dressed for the show (see pic below), whilst searching for Cushions in Shoreditch (of the surname kind), to help illustrate the collections, new image viewer, and new tree builder (I’ll be giving this a spin when I get home).
Myko Clelland (FindMyPast.com) talks cushions at Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014
All in all a good first day. Tomorrow has a tweet-up to attend, more lectures, shopping, and no doubt catching up with more genealogy friends.
Sarah Millican wins 67% of the ‘favourite Who Do You Think You Are? UK series 10 episode’ vote, but where did the rest of the celebrities rank? Plus, rumours for series 11 in 2014.
A few months back, I ran a poll on this blog, where you could vote for your favourite episode from the 10th Series of the UK version of Who Do You Think You Are?, with voting split between the first and second half of the series.
Having collated all of the votes together, for all 10 celebrity episodes, there is a clear winner.
Comedian, Sarah Millican, won the poll with 67% of the votes.
Her voting surged after she retweeted the link to the poll.
In her episode, she aimed to find out about her family’s history in the South Shields area of the UK, and also to see if she could find something her family could be proud of. Well, Sarah, (if you’re reading), you can be proud of your poll glory too.
Her nearest rival to this glory came from actor Nitin Ganatra who scored 11%, and in third came actor and singer Minnie Driver with 7%.
If you’re the kind of person who likes pies and charts, you’re in luck:
Gary Linekar and Nigel Havers languished in joint last place, both with just one vote each. Nick Hewer managed to muster two votes – a score that would surely get him fired.
Who Do You Think You Are? UK Series 11 for 2014?
Whilst I’ve yet to see confirmation that the 11th series of Who Do You Think You Are? is coming this year, it was reported by the Irish Independent in November, that comedian and writer Brendan O’Carroll – who is most famous for playing Agnes Brown in ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ – has filmed his episode.
Brendan O’Carrol as Agnes Brown in ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’. Photograph: Alan Peebles/BBC
This week’s Surname Saturday themed post covers my paternal Barker family, who I’ve traced back to a village in the county of Hertfordshire, England.
Today’s Surname Saturday themed post crosses the border into Hertfordshire, and visits a small village where my Barker ancestors lived.
My progress in researching the family history of my Barker family is somewhat incomplete. Of course, a family tree is never really complete, but what I mean to say is that it is not very well documented.
This will no doubt be down to the fact that researching Hertfordshire is not as convenient for me as Cambridgeshire, and also because I have stumbled across name duplication from different family groups.
It’s been more of a ‘i’ll come back to this puzzle later‘ approach. That’s probably why blogging about it here today is actually a good thing – as I do get messages from distant relatives who have read the blog and find myself getting back on the trail.
Meet the Hay-binders!
From what I do know, the most recent Barker in my ancestry was my Great Great Grandmother, Mary Ann Barker, who was born in 1854, in Barkway, Hertfordshire. She was the third of at least nine children of William Barker and Mary Head, who had married in October 1847. In all, it appears that she had 3 brothers, and 5 sisters.
Joseph Barker (b.c 1849)
Louisa Barker (b.c 1850)
Mary Ann (as mentioned, b. 1854)
Harriet Eliza Barker (b.c 1856)
Henry Barker (b.c 1859)
Elizabeth Barker (b.c 1861)
Esther Barker (b.c 1864)
Thomas Barker (b.c 1866 – d.1913)
Frances Barker (b.c 1869)
William Barker (born around 1823 in Barkway), is noted as a ‘Hay Binder’ at the time of the 1861 census, and his wife Mary is noted similarly as ‘Hay Binder’s Wife’. The rolling countryside around Barkway would no doubt have been great for hay, but by 1880 he had turned his hand to being a carpenter.
William is deceased by the time that Mary (his daughter) marries for the second time in 1896. Mary (née Head), his wife, appears to survive until at least 1911, when it looks like she is living alone as a widow at the Clock House in Barkway.
Barkway Parish Church would have been very familiar to the Barker family.
Thomas Barker
Note that the only death date I have of Mary’s siblings is for Thomas, her younger brother who died in 1913. He was my Great Great Great Uncle.
I only have this information due to a recent connection with distant relative (2nd cousin, twice removed, apparently!) Peter Barker, who is Thomas’ grandson. He kindly sent me the following photo of Thomas – it being the only photograph I have of a Barker relative.
Mary’s little brother, Thomas Barker (1866-1913). Image: Peter Barker.
Sadly, Thomas died in July 1913 at London’s Royal Free Hospital when he was in his late 40s, from blood poisoning, which was as a result of his injuries of being run-over by a cart. He was a carman.
Finding Esther…
William was baptised at the parish church in Barkway on 16th March 1823. He was the second of at least seven children of Joseph Barker and his wife Esther. It’s worth noting now, that I am uncertain of the identity of Esther, as I have two possible candidates, but the dates are out.
Esther #1 may have been ‘Hester Hawks‘ who married Joseph Barker in 1809 – but then there was either a very long pause before marriage and first child (12 years), or there’s 12 year’s worth of children hiding somewhere.
Esther #2 may have been ‘Esther Elizabeth Nottage‘ (‘spinster’) who married Joseph Barker (noted as a ‘bachelor’) after the baptism of William (himself, the second child) in November 1823 at nearby Braughing. Were there two illegitimate sons, and a marriage in a different parish to hide the shame?
I’m stuck.
My only slight glimmer, is that on the same day that William went to church to be baptised in March 1823, he was joined on the day by John and Anne Nottage for their son’s baptism (also a William, albeit Nottage).
My Downton Abbey Moment
By the time of the 1871 census, Mary Ann becomes a kitchen maid for a wealthy land owner John H Phillips – a Justice of the Peace (JP) for Hertfordshire, and Deputy Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire. He is also noted as farming 400 acres, and employing 19 men and 7 boys.
Here, she is one of several staff members, including a Lady’s Maid, a Page, Butler, Nurse and a housemaid.
Research by the kind volunteers at Royston and District Museum, brought up several references to John Phillips and his family’s brewery, but none of Mary herself. As a kitchen maid, it was unlikely that she’d be well documented, but it was worth a look in case a photograph might have been lurking.
However, what is likely, is that this is where Mary Ann learnt her skills in servitude, and hopefully earned herself a good reputation. The heads of the household may have written her a suitable reference that helped to take her down to London by 1880, where she appears as working in the now famous Abbey Road in St John’s Wood.
It was there in London, that she met my Great x 2 Grandfather George Burnell of Somerset, and their lives (and mine) grew into a new branch of the Burnell tree.
I’ve been crunching data again, and following on from my previous infographics, this time it’s the turn of my own surname – Martin. How do the life statistics stack up?
There’s a few things evident from this infographic:
The average life-span of a Martin descendant is lower
Winter weddings are popular with Martins
Winter children are common with Martins
Martin men most commonly die around agricultural calendars (May and September)
Maybe the last three are connected? Is data showing that the agricultural occupations of the male Martin name-bearers was central to their home lives?
As for the age of death for men, fitting in with agricultural calendars – there may be some truth in this, similar to the parallel decline in UK heavy industry and the increase in male life expectancy in the 1980s.
As for me, well, it looks like that statistically i’ve got about 16 years left, will have one child, still have time to marry, and will probably die at one of my birthday parties (May).
I look forward to skewing the figures (the good way!).
I’m going to renew my search for family photographs of the siblings of many of my Great Grandparents, and their nieces and nephews. This will see me contact a number of distant cousins.
Here’s a few photos that I’ve got a tantalisingly poor photocopy of a photocopy of a…. etc, and really want to capture a hi-res scan of the photos included in what was a self-published 90’s family history book. The original author (a very distant cousin), is unwilling to go back through his notes, so I shall try the closer cousins instead.
The main photo i’m after, is a wedding photo of my Great Grandparents Alfred Newman and Clara Gilbert in 1909, which you can see in the photo below:
My Great Grandparents’ wedding on 2nd June 1909 – the only photo I have or have seen (of at least a 2nd generation photocopy) is on the wish list.
As you can see, it’s in a bad way, and as I also have another (high quality) group Newman-only photograph, I should be able to identify quite a number of the Newmans in this photo if it was also of a higher quality.
Fingers crossed!
2. Killing off my wicked Great x4 Grandmother
Yes, she’s back.. or rather, she’s still out there somewhere. As per 2013’s resolution, Mary Clarke ended up in court and eventually prison for neglecting, abusing, and playing the role of wicked step-mother to her husband’s children (he was also found to have caused neglect) during the 1840s. Whilst my Great x3 Grandmother Caroline Clarke (featured in the wedding photo above) escaped this, by being the much older first-born who went into service, the rest of the family ended up in poverty – including stints at the workhouse, where I think some of the children were also born.
Mary vanishes after 1881, by then a widow… but I will find her.
In a way, I will be relieved to find how she met her end, and feel like I personally, also get to put an end to it, as the court session report in a newspaper, which includes direct quotes from her and the abused children, is quite harrowing.
3. Spending 3 Days at Who Do You Think You Are? Live
I’ve booked my ticket for the entire 3 day show at this year’s Who Do You Think You Are? Live show in London’s Olympia in February (not long to go!).
View across Olympia lower court at Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2013.
This will be my first time that I’ll have stayed for longer than a day, and so I hope to be able to meet lots of people who i’ve come to know through my research, through the contacts that i’ve made at the wonderful genealogy magazines and companies, as well as taking part in the #TweetUp, and attending lots of the workshops and panel sessions.
Right, i better book my hotel!
4. Sorting out the babies
There are two concentrations of births and deaths of infants in amongst the available certificates, and I want to work out which child belonged to which family. Parish records for Stretham and its neighbouring hamlet of Little Thetford aren’t necessarily revealing which Yarrow child belongs to which couple.
So I have been collecting more and more stories, and have even drafted a few thousand words for a book, but my ideas and thoughts of this book has since become hazy.
What goes in it? Who does and doesn’t get their stories in it? What level of reader?
I’m currently sitting in the frame of mind that I’d like to write a book that contains a lot of visual content – which might be expensive in both rights, and in print, but I want to do a good job, and inspire people like me – who are motivated by shape, space, imagery (my interest in genealogy was very much sparked by finding a handwritten tree, and a load of glorious Victorian photos of mystery relatives). I want something that’s going to be picked up many times, that has big images running alongside text.
Reading how others have written up their research, has been fun and thought-provoking.
I don’t imagine that this will be easy, but working for a publisher, and having been a designer, and being friends with a number of people who have been published and have self-published, I hope to find a route through it. I’ve also tried to read family history books, including this one ‘Keeping Up With The Joneses’ by my friend’s aunt, Valerie Lumbers.
Firstly though, I need to focus on what the book is. And re-visit that couple of drafts i’ve written to see what can be pulled out and polished to help the book begin.
Last year, after posting my resolutions list, it seemed to spark interest amongst others including Valmay Young (hey Valmay, how did you get on?). Let me know if you’re taking part this year by leaving me a comment below, and perhaps a link to your list.
Have a very happy new year, and I wish you every success in your research this year.
Catching a time-travelling grandmother? Killing off a child-abusing step-mother in 1841? Writing a book? …..Take a look back at how I’ve fared with my 2013 Genealogy Resolutions.
Last year, I made a list.
I’m not normally a resolutions type of guy, but I thought that it would be fun to do to try to help me focus on my research. It worked a little, but not as much as I would have liked, as I find it easy to go scrambling off on a tangent and chasing branches through different records. Before long, you find yourself about 7 surnames away from where you started.
However, it was overly productive, so I plan to have another 5 resolutions for 2014.
I planned to crack my mystery Bowers connection. With my Gt Gt Gt Gt Grandfather Henry Bowers seemingly appearing out of nowhere, as a teenage groom at Wicken, I wanted to find his family. His subsequent Bowers family clearly have a Burwell connection, but whilst there are plenty of Bowers in both villages, and they seem to mingle, I’ve yet to find a mention of Henry.
In a bid to get further with this, I’ve looked at the parish records for Wicken and Burwell, alongside the census records, to try to see if there are any cross overs that would suggest that the Wicken Bowers family were living with Burwell Bowers on census nights, or appearing as witnesses etc at church events. This is a long, slow, arduous task, but one that I’m determined to complete. – INCOMPLETE
2. My time-travelling Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother
Elizabeth’s headstone in Stretham churchyard, suggests that she was buried alive when compared to dates in burial registers.
My Great x5 Grandmother, Elizabeth Yarrow (née Wright) seems to defy time by dying and being buried on a range of dates within a couple of years – thanks to a lack of death certificate (it was 1837, the year the certification was compulsory, but she seems to be missing), a headstone, and two differing parish burial registers. Her demise remains a mystery, with the only lead for her London death, turning out to be a small child of the same name. – INCOMPLETE
3. Writing that book
Writing a book when you’ve been researching an entire family tree for so long, can be hard. Sure, there’s plenty of material – heartbreaking stories, funny instances, and wonderful photographs and sources, but where do you stop and focus?
That conundrum aside, I’ve continued to collect material for this and hope to use 2014 to flesh out the ideas and the stories. – IN PROGRESS
4. Visiting places familiar to my ancestors.
With the benefit of living amongst the villages that my family have lived and worked in over at least the last 430 years, it means that I’m always visiting places that they would have known, and seeing the landscapes they would have worked.
I managed to make several trips to places they would have known, including one to try to find the location of my Great Grandmother’s (Daisy Burnell) birth in The Stables, Abercorn Lodge, Abercorn Place, London. No obvious sign of the Lodge itself, or the stables (even though they might have been absorbed by something else), so I assume that they have since been redeveloped into something else, but I enjoyed a sunny afternoon visiting the area, and imagining what it might have been like back in the 1880s when she was born. – ACHIEVED
5. Killing off my wicked Great x4 Grandmother
My step-child-abusing wicked Great x4 Grandmother, Mary Bailey (née Clarke) went to prison for her crimes in 1841. After serving her time and living a short family life, she ended up back in the workhouse twice, which is where I last saw her, as a widow. She continues to roam, and I won’t rest until i’ve bumped her off. – INCOMPLETE
As you’ll see from above, there’s quite a few incomplete ones there… so to help sort that out, I’ve just borrowed a friend’s research tool to help speed things up…
I’ve found that genealogy is easier when you fly a TARDIS into research brick walls, although I my Great x11 Grandmother loves my iPad Air.
2014’s resolutions…
Tune in tomorrow for my top 5 genealogy resolutions for 2014.
If you like this idea, then leave me a comment and/or link below to your resolutions blog post.
Have a wonderful end to 2013. And I wish you a prosperous, family filled, 2014!
History Repeating 