Tag: new year resolutions

My Genealogy Resolutions 2019

So, it’s that time again where I pick out some particular things I’d like to achieve in my family history research during the next 12 months.

This is the 6th year that I have written Genealogy New Year’s Resolutions, so fingers crossed I will get to do some of them. Last year’s resolutions were not very successful, with life getting in the way of my research (how dare it!).

Still, without further a-do, here’s my resolutions for 2019:

1. Scan all my BMD certificates

This one is a carry-over from last year. I have a large collection of certificates, and there are many that are scanned, but not all of them. Last year’s effort was prompted by scanning them all and adding them as attached media in my MacFamilyTree software (putting the document right there amongst the data).

A photograph of Mary Crisp (née Tingey, later Martin and Watling), with copies of her marriage certificate to John Crisp, and the birth certificate of their only son, William Crisp.
A photograph of Mary Crisp (née Tingey, later Martin and Watling), with copies of her marriage certificate to John Crisp, and the birth certificate of their only son, William Crisp.

I realised that spotting the unscanned ones was hard, so I finally bought myself a pack of little green dots, and can now go through and dot them in the corner if/when they’re done – as each one is stored in a plastic A4 wallet. This will make this process much easier.

2. Get Talking

I do a lot of tech talks in my other life of working with search engines, but I don’t get to do talks about genealogy. I really want to change that – after all, I’ve been working in genealogy for about 23 years, and only about 7 years in my chosen tech niche.

I was recently voted by a lovely audience in Norwich as being able to clearly explain a really technical subject. I’ve had my eyes on the three big forthcoming genealogy conferences in the UK, and whilst two of them have already chosen not to have me on stage, I’m going to try pitching to the more techie one.

If this fails, then I’ll be looking to do some genealogy talks at smaller events in the area (let me know if you want to book me!). Fingers crossed!

3. Put the Littleport Society catalogue online

This one relates to my membership on the committee of The Littleport Society – a heritage society for the large fenland village of Littleport just north of the city of Ely. I’ve been on their committee since summer of 2015 (after 10 years doing their website), but now I’m working on digitising and cataloguing their collection.

Collective Access logo

I aim to get a searchable catalogue online in 2019 using Collective Access, in a bid to showcase the Society’s vast collection, celebrate the community’s history, and increase awareness of this history-rich area to a huge online audience.

4. Still start writing that book

Okay, ‘that book’ has been trundling along in my head for a long long time now, and I know that most people claim that they have at least one book in them. The stories I want to tell have begun to gain structure and so I need to put finger to keyboard and start writing them.

My mother, and first cousin twice removed (my late-grandfather’s cousin), have both already asked me to write things up for them about specific family groups, so it’s about time that I started doing this, and use those to evolve into a book.

5. Collect more photographs

This is one of my favourite resolutions, and it looks right back to what started my interest in researching – the faces to the names. From the loaned Victorian photos from my Great-Great Aunt that were on the dining table at my parent’s house in 1995, to the photographs emailed to me just weeks ago by my third cousin twice removed, it is wonderful to picture your relatives however distant. I want to print more of the photos as well as collect them, allowing me to build up a physical collection too.

 

Have you set yourself any genealogy research resolutions for 2019? Did you have any last year? Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll stick with me in 2019. Happy New Year!

Andrew

My 2018 New Year Genealogy Resolutions

With 2017 safely filed away, it’s time to set myself some Genealogy Resolutions for 2018. I might even still remember what they are by June.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I’ve been giving myself Genealogy Resolutions for some years now.

Having scored a reasonable 3/5 score for 2017, it’s time to declare my 2018 ones… so here goes:

1. Scan BMD Certificates

With the recent digitisation pilots from the General Register Office, in theory, the number of digital certificates that I hold will not increase rapidy, unless I order more marriage certs as these are not included so far in their pilot.

I’d like to get that 50% of my certificates scanned.

This has been more prevalent in the last few weeks, as I’m busily tidying up data and citations, having migrated from Reunion11 to Mac Family Tree.

2. Find Simpson Bishop’s death

Having discovered a few months back, that Simpson Bishop, my 4x Great Grandfather became an American citizen in 1886, having emigrated at the end of the 1870s, and seemingly ‘abandoning’ his 3rd wife and their children back in Lancashire, UK.

James S. Bishop naturalization card for Woodford County, Illinois, USA.
James S. Bishop naturalization card for Woodford County, Illinois, USA. I’ve read the associated paperwork, but it doesn’t give much away.

I’d like to find his death in the USA.

He died between 1886, and presumably before the 1901 census, when his abandoned wife finally states she’s a widow. The whole emigration and naturalisation came as a surprise – as I had assumed for a long time that he’d died like generations before and after him, just a few miles from where he was born in Cambridgeshire, England. How wrong I was.

3. Source more family photographs

2017 saw me acquire and source a vast number of ‘new’ photographs. Many of these were because of the death of my uncle at the end of 2016, and the subsequent mammoth task for my parents and I to clear his house.

However, January 2017 also brought me in contact with a distant cousin, who actually lives within 3 miles of my house, and right next to my gym. She very kindly sent me copies of a couple of ‘new’ photos of my 2x Great Grandparents, which are very much appreciated.

October and November also saw me visit my late-Grandfather’s cousin, whose mother had amassed a lot of Victorian and Edwardian photographs. I’d had a few copies in the late 1990s when I was starting my research, but at this time, it was costly and risky (a home scanner wasn’t an option, and you had to send them away via a photo lab to get them done). Now though, I was able to visit and scan each with my iPad.

I’d like to make contact with my Moden and Gilbert families again, to make scans of new photos, including getting a scan of the 1909 wedding photograph of my paternal Great Grandparents wedding, which I only currently only have as a bad photocopy of a bad photocopy!

1909 Newman Gilbert wedding group
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.

4. Run 2 more AncestryDNA tests

I’ve got 2 AncestryDNA test kits sitting on a shelf in my office. They’re right in front of me right now. But that’s no good…

I’d like to ask my sister, and my paternal grandfather’s cousin to take the AncestryDNA test too.

My sister won’t really be interested in the results much, and certainly not the genealogy, but my grandfather’s cousin (see 3) is very interested in family history. I just want to pick my timing/method of asking her and explaining what it is.

Running these 2 tests will take my test tally up to 7, and so far there’s been some amusing results.

If one of them says ‘no’, that’d be a shame, but it’s something I have to respect. If I do get a ‘no’, then my next option may be my maternal grandfather’s cousin. However, I don’t really know her, but the fascinating thing with her, is that whilst her mother is a blood-relative to me, her father carries a surname that sits in my father’s tree – Tingey. It’s not that common, and considering he was from the same area, I’d be curious of whether I have a paternal AND maternal match!

In addition, I’d also be curious of using AncestryDNA testing to help prove parentage by testing the descendants of my Great Grandfather’s step-father’s siblings.

My Great Grandfather in this branch was illegitimate, but my 2x Gt Grandmother swiftly married and had further children. My grandmother, in the last few years of her life, kept telling me that this step-father, Flanders Hopkin was really the father (he was a lot older, and I don’t think her parents approved).

Therefore, I’d like to test the step-father’s sibling descendants to see if there’s a match. It’d be reasonably easy to have a match elsewhere in their tree, and it should be relatively easy to find a modern-day descendant, but the gamble is picking a person who has inherited enough of that family’s DNA to match.

5. Start that book!

Yes, i know, i know, I KNOW. For years now, I’ve been talking about writing, and briefly I did start, but the format of it has really eluded me – fact, fiction, pictorial reference? I’m still not 100% sure which method I’d go for, so I’ve decided that just starting will help me decide.

I won’t have a book finished, but I want to be knee deep in writing by December 31st 2018.

Anything else?

Well, I’m finishing off migrating my Family Tree UK website over to a new responsive device friendly design – I’m 83% of the way through it, which gives me a chance to re-write, re-check research, and add bits to each person profile. This will also be it’s 20th year online (b. 28/11/1998), so I’m going to make a massive cake… and .. er.. eat that all myself. 😀

I also want to print a lot of family photos and frame a load on a wall in my office. I need to fill and paint that wall at the moment, but it’ll be inspiring once i’ve finished.

I also want to sort my files out – do some deep cleaning of my research notes. There’s lots of newspaper cuttings, letters, really old printed emails etc.. and I think they deserve going through, scanning etc, and referencing details in my Mac Family Tree database.

Obviously, writing up interesting research twists and turns here for you too!

Anyway, let me know in the comments below if you have any New Year Genealogy Resolutions for 2018 (feel free to throw in a link to them!), and how you did in 2017.

Thanks for reading, have a healthy and happy New Year, and another 12 months of productive family tree surgery!

Andrew

How did my 2017 Genealogy Resolutions go?

You might remember, that each year since 2013 I’ve set myself some Genealogy New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t bother setting myself any other kind (seems fair enough, right?), but how did I fare with them in 2017?

Here’s how my 5 Genealogy Resolutions went:

1. Kill Mary Clarke

This is the Nth year that I’ve tried to kill off my child-abusing gaol-bird of a 4x Great Grandmother, but sadly, she survives for another year. Instead, I finally unpicked the puzzle that led me to kill off my time-travelling  5x Great Grandmother (different branch of tree), Mrs. Elizabeth Yarrow (née Wright), after finding her disguised as ‘Elizabeth Yerroll’.

FAIL 😦

2. Scan my BMD certificates

I have made some progress in this in the last few months. Partly because of the wonderful ‘trials’ that the General Register Office have been doing to explore digital delivery of birth and death certificates, but also as am adding them in as digitised image sources to my hop from Reunion11 to Mac Family Tree 8. It’s being a great opportunity to read them again for those minute details – love examining those marriage witnesses for cousins. I am nowhere near 50% though, which was my target… probably 10%.

PARTIAL PASS 😐

3. Finish reading published family histories

The books I gave in my example didn’t get anywhere near my eyes this year, but I did find a page-turned queue jumper in the guise of Stephen McGann’s book Flesh and Blood – no, not just another sleb-turned-genealogy-expert, but a famous family of which he has been the quiet observant researcher for years. It’s an enjoyable read, and I am within the final third of the book. I’m a slow reader. and quite frankly, I’ve got this history hobby that keeps distracting me 😉

PARTIAL PASS 😐

4. Find my uncle’s grave

In October 2016, at an uncle’s funeral, I learned that I was missing an uncle completely – right there, right under my nose! I was sad that I’d missed him, and sad that no-one had talked about him until after my other uncle’s death. Suddenly my Uncle Malcolm existed in my world, and I felt that I needed to bring a little life back to his name once more. With the help of the parish church, and an afternoon searching a cemetery with the burial notebook to hand, I found the spot.

PASS 🙂

5. Run a 4th AncestryDNA test

I had no trouble achieving this one – partly aided by a price war at the Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2017 show, and the visit of my paternal aunt. In fact, I was able to take my DNA test tally up to 5… with both a paternal and maternal aunt both giving me some spit in exchange for info, cousins, and silent tree-less non-responding genetic tourists ;). You can read about my family’s first three DNA tests here.

PASS 🙂

Conclusion:

So, I think I’ve scored 3/5 in 2017 – a good year for progress.

There’s been plenty of other things going on too – I completed and moved into a new (well, 1955) house which involved creating gardens and decorating etc, I adopted a cat, and I changed my job.

In genealogy, I also got to know my late-Grandfather’s (79yr old) cousin and her husband much better – and made a few visits to see her late-mother’s Victorian photograph collection where I made copies, and shared trees with her. I hope to return to coax a little spit for a test soon 😉

I also made progress on my wandering Simpson Bishop puzzle – he too needs killing off, but it seems that he became an American citizen in his 60s in the 1880s, and never returned home to his 3rd wife and his older children.

As I type this, I’m tidying up data in Mac Family Tree – i’ve been doing it since 26th December…. and I’m enjoying it, will no doubt be doing it tomorrow, and it will no doubt keep me busy!

I’ll be compiling my 5 Genealogy Resolutions for 2018 shortly, but let me know in the comments below if you have any, or how your 2017 ones fared.

As ever, happy tree surgery, thanks for reading, and have a very happy and healthy 2018.

Happy New Year.

Andrew

My 2017 Genealogy Resolutions

Happy New Year! What better time to set yourself a new challenge than the start of a new year. Here’s my 5 Genealogy Resolutions for 2017…

Having gone back and checked on the progress of my 2016 Genealogy Resolutions, it’s now time to set myself a new set for 2017.

The aim of these are to encourage me to complete a particular genealogy puzzle that has maybe been baffling me for a while, or to achieve something new. I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn (!) that sometimes I get side-tracked by other branches of the family and end up researching those instead. This post acts as a reminder, as well as a way for me to set myself some challenges, so here goes:

1. Kill Mary Clarke

In the last few weeks I spent my 37th £1 on another certificate in a bid to kill off my 4x Great Grandmother, Mary Clarke, later Mary Bailey, but it was another miss. She’s out there still and I need to find her, in order to bring her life story – which includes prison and hard-labour for neglecting and abusing step-children, and numerous stints in workhouses, to a close. Last known address: Hartismere Workhouse, Suffolk in April 1881.

I’ve attempted to kill her off in previous genealogy resolution lists, but her invincibility irritates me.

2. Scan my BMD certificates

At the moment these are all carefully filed in date order in plastic sleeves in a lever-arch folder. There’s a lot. To better preserve these, and to make it easier for me to access them when I want to (if only to stop me accidentally buying the same ones twice), I want to scan them. As there’s a lot, I’m aiming to scan 50%.

3. Finish reading published family histories

For ages now, I’ve had Richard Benson‘s ‘The Valley‘ and Deborah Cohen‘s ‘Family Secrets‘ books on my to-read pile. The events of 2016 consumed me, and caused me not to really have time or the inclination to sit down and read much.

I did manage to read some of Deborah’s book, and I also read ‘The America Ground‘ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin, but I want to read more, so that I can get a good feeling about how to approach writing my own family history book.

4. Find my uncle’s grave

In October 2016, as I walked from away from the huddle of mourners at my uncle’s open grave, my mother tells me that he was not the first uncle to be buried there. This confused me, as I’ve always known all of my aunts and uncles. They watched me grow up, and I’ve watched them grow older. But no.

There was another, which my aunt remembers (because she was a young teenager) but my father doesn’t (because he was only very little). Certificates swiftly revealed Malcolm’s short life of 6 weeks. His cleft lip and pneumonia made it impossible for him to thrive, and he died in hospital in 1958. With my aunt visiting the UK in June, we’ll be back to visit my uncle’s grave, and I want to be able to take them all to the spot where their little baby brother was buried.

5. Run a 4th AncestryDNA test

In my first conflict of conferences, in which I was going to feast on my twice yearly nerdfest in Brighton, i switched my mind and decided to return for just 2 days of WDYTYA? Live in 2017 (the Thursday and Friday). I even managed to bag a complete bargain on my usual hotel (£25 a night!). In recent years I’ve stuck around for 3 days, but in 2016, I found this stretched my enthusiasm a bit, and as someone who is a family historian and therefore doesn’t have a stand, have books to sign, nor do I run a series of talks/record videos or podcasts (hmm… maybe that’s 2018’s resolution list right there!), then 2 was best.

During this time I aim to acquire a 4th AncestryDNA kit – avoiding the stupid P&P fees again (honestly, Ancestry, also let these be sold through someone like Amazon – expanding your audience and getting them delivered for free!!), and hopefully at another show discount rate.

This 4th kit may go to my visiting Aunt in June (if she’s interested), or to my mother’s sister (my maternal aunt), my own sister, or if I’ve hit a dead end, then I may try to locate a descendant from one of my 2x Great Grandmother’s first husband’s siblings. My Great Grandfather was illegitimate, but my grandmother tells me that he WAS the first child. DNA is going to be the only way to check, so I need to find a match with someone who contains only his family’s DNA, and not my 2x Great Grandmother’s DNA, in a bid to prove or disprove once and for all.

 

So, there we go. I can think of a load more things I already want to do in 2017, but I like to stick to 5.

Do you ever set yourself Genealogy Resolutions? How have you got on with those? Or what might you set yourself a challenge for in 2017? Let me know in the comments below.

Happy New Year to you all – may your 2017 be happy and healthy throughout. Thanks once again for reading my blog.

Andrew

 

Those 2016 New Year Genealogy Resolutions

How did I do at keeping my 2016 New Year Genealogy Resolutions?

It’s time to take a look back at my 5 New Year Genealogy Resolutions, and to see how I fared at keeping/completing them.

1. Kill Simpson Bishop

If anything, 2016 has a reputation as being a year full of death – the news is rarely empty of celebrity deaths, terror deaths, and as some readers may know, the last year has been one which has seen me attend 4 family funerals, out of 6 family deaths.

Despite this, Simpson Bishop has continued ‘to live’ on. The challenge for me is to identify where he may have gone to in order to find the death. Having established that he left the area after his oldest children (including my 3x Great Grandfather) had grown up and married, he heads north to Lancashire and re-marries in 1868. He’s alive at least until the early part of 1873, as his last known child John James Bishop is born in the December quarter of 1873. Simpson gets mentions in later records, but he doesn’t get hinted as being dead until his final wife says she’s a widow in 1901, although he’s not been living with her since at least 1881. His name also has numerous variations, including being preceded by the name James (mirroring his son, my ancestor, James Simpson Bishop).

There’s a Bishop emigration after the 1871 census to New York, with a feasible estimated birth date, although he’s noted as a Clergyman on the ship.. which I find a little unlikely, despite some of his children also heading overseas too.

Sadly, I failed this resolution in 2016. Nil points!

2. Read other written family histories

I’m a fair-weather reader – in that I can go the best part of a year without picking up a book, and sometimes I just can’t put one down.

'The Valley' by Richard Benson, and 'Family Secrets' by Deborah Cohen.
‘The Valley’ by Richard Benson, and ‘Family Secrets’ by Deborah Cohen.

I began reading Deborah Cohen’s Family Secrets (2013) book, but ended up being side-tracked by research, work, and other family issues. I hope to return to it soon, having realised it was one of my resolutions (oops).

I waded in to this resolution, and although life swept me away from these books, I think I can take a half point for this resolution.

3. Finish the website site-relaunch

I greatly underestimated the size of my familytreeuk.co.uk website when I wrote my resolution – estimating that there were about 130 hand-crafted profiles to reconfigure to a new design that was mobile-friendly (and therefore more favourable to users and search engines).

In reality, there are actually 82 surname ‘hubs’ and 378 individual profile pages to re-engineer.

I’ve plodded my way through these steadily, and have been able to re-launch 214 (57%) profiles, with only 168 to go. Whilst re-writing these profiles, I’ve often been re-scanning images, adding in extra information and references to other records that help to add flesh to the lives of these people. Obviously, that has flung me down research ‘rabbit holes’, and seen me add a few more profiles or go off on tangents.

I’m happy with this progress, so i’d like to think that I’ve half completed this resolution – so another half point.

4. Run another AncestryDNA test

I’m pleased to say that it took little effort to persuade my father to take an autosomal test, so I picked up a third test at 2016’s Who Do You Think You Are? Live show, and we ran the test in the May.

By July, we’d got the results – revealing that he isn’t very Great Briton after all and that he’s almost a quarter Irish, and a lot of Scandinavian. This amused and pleased him a lot – as he really is fascinated with the Vikings and their impact on the UK and Europe.

My Father's AncestryDNA Ethnicity result in Lego
My Father’s AncestryDNA Ethnicity result.

Resolution completed, so there’s a full-earned point!

5. Meet more relatives

Events as described in Resolution 1, meant that this turned out to be somewhat easy, despite the sad occasions that led to it happening.

I was so pleased to see some relatives again – like my father’s cousins, and also to meet (and in part, reunite) some of them too. I’m now in regular contact with some of them, which is a great feeling, and a nice ending to a sad year.

I was also really pleased to get to properly talk to my 1st Cousin, Twice Removed – the daughter of my Great Grandfather’s youngest sister. Despite this making her my Grandfather’s cousin, due to the large family above, she’s actually a year younger than my now-late uncle.

She was fascinated in family history, and talked to some length about a branch of our family tree. I know that her mother was a great source of photographs in the early years of my research (via my uncle), so I hope that I can talk to her more, and share the stories about our Martin and Giddings families in the new year.

I can safely say I completed this resolution, and earn another point.

The over-all score

So, all in all, I managed to score 3/5 for my 2016 Genealogy Resolutions.

To be honest, I forgot what some of these resolutions were, because I got carried away with research or website re-launching, or just life events that needed my attention. I like having these resolutions though, as it reminds me of challenges to do, and also gives me something to look back on – helping me to notice my own achievements.

Other things I managed to achieve in 2016 include:

  1. Re-joining The Newman Name Society
  2. Helping The Littleport Society by digitally cataloging hundreds of items in their archive…and digitise their audio interview archive that was stored on deteriorating cassette tape.
  3. Helping them to run two 200th Anniversary Riots events
  4. Rescued hundreds and scanned many family photographs – I now have 341 different relatives in my photo archive, across 565 photos, with a few hundred photos boxed up yet to scan, and many yet to identify people in.
  5. Used the General Register Office new searchable indexes to discover a terrible family tragedy that saw the infant deaths of 11 of the 12 children, and the first wife, of my 3x Great Grandfather, James Martin.

Did you have any genealogy resolutions for 2016? If so, how did you do? Let me know in the comments below.

Once again, thank you for reading,

Andrew

Those 2015 New Year Genealogy Resolutions

Remember those Genealogy Resolutions from 2015? Well, let’s see how I’ve done so far…

Right at the tail end of 2014, I set myself some more New Year Genealogy Resolutions, in a bid to get myself to focus on solving some more problems (if only in a rush in December 2015). So, how did I get on?

1. Source and Scan even more photographs

I can confidently say that I have achieved this.

In my resolution, I included a screenshot of my current archived collection of photos, and it stated that I had 258 faces across 273 photographs. As of right now, I have tagged 283 different relatives faces across 321 photographs.

iPhoto showing a selection of Faces.
iPhoto showing a selection of Faces in my family tree photo collection.

Okay, that’s an increase, but I didn’t even start talking to my more distant Gilbert relatives, or my elderly uncle, so I think I could easily improve on that if I tried harder.

2. Kill off Mary Clarke

Honestly, this woman just won’t die. Mary Bailey (née Clarke) was my 4x Great Grandmother, and she has survived conviction and hard labour for abusing, neglecting, and cruelty towards her step-children, and a few periods in the workhouse, and yet she continues to dodge death.

In my resolution, I hinted towards a possible lead that might place her burial place under what is now a housing estate. However, the death certificate proved incorrect, and so she remains – out there.

Somewhere. Almost teasing me.

I’ll get you Mary!

3. Delve into new record sets

It’s easy to stick to censuses and parish records, but there’s so much more out there.

In 2015 I achieved this – I explored the newly launched online Wills service – which allowed me to download copies of relatives Wills from the comfort of my desk.

I’ve continued to explore newspapers, and these have often thrown me some new slivers of information – or leads to go on at least.

As I write this post, I’ve just had an email from Alex Cox at the FindMyPast team telling me about yet another batch of records they’ve added to their site. Honestly, you guys ruin my weekends!!

New India records available on findmypast
Alex Cox’s email telling me of new India records available on findmypast

So, just a couple of minutes ago, I took advantage of some newly available British India Ecclesiastical Returns and downloaded a copy of the marriage entry for a Sgt Thomas Yarrow and his wife Catherine O’Keefe (née Cambert) in 1863 at Faizabad. I already have a great deal of information on these two (including a family photo), but the marriage entry finally gives me the exact date of this event.

4. Write more

I kind of wrote more…. but unlike my resolution, it didn’t involve a book.

Instead, after Google announced it’s ‘mobilegeddon‘ update back in April 2015 (where Search Results will be biased towards mobile-friendly sites), I’ve been busy designing a fully responsive website template with which to upgrade The Family Tree UK website. I’ve done this from scratch, and now I’m slowly migrating the content across.

So yes, I did write more, but it was in HTML5, CSS3 and all in the name of future proofing my site. I also took the opportunity to tidy up some data and links too – so essentially all behind the scenes stuff.

5. Complete Simpson Bishop’s timeline

This one has puzzled me for a while ever since I stumbled across an unexpected departure from rural fenland up to the cotton mills, and an extra two marriages.

I lose Simpson Bishop after the deaths and burials of two of his young daughters in 1874. At the time of the 1871 census, he is not living with his third wife. Instead, he is living a short distance away with some of his older children.

He goes AWOL 1881-1891, whilst his third wife Sarah is easy to find – yet she states that she is ‘married’. She finally states she is a widow on the 1901 census.

Did he abandon her? Were they simply living apart on the census because they had a big family that wouldn’t fit in one small house for cotton mill workers like them? Did he emigrate? Did he die just after the 1871 census?

These questions puzzle me, and I feel that I need to give more attention to the Lancashire records and maps so that I can make judgements as to where he might have gone and why.

So, like Mary Clarke, he’s still out there… and I will find him.

Did you have any Genealogy Resolutions from 2015?

Last year a few of you suggested that you might participate with your own resolutions, so I’m wondering how yours fared – better or worse than mine?

It’s so easy to get sidetracked in family history if its your hobby as your attention competes with everything else that’s going on in your life. I’d like to think that professional genealogists, being more focussed and deadline conscious, would be better at Genealogy Resolutions. What do you think?

Anyway, have a think about what you might aim to do in 2016, as my 2016 Genealogy Resolutions are almost ready!

In the meantime, Happy Holidays!

Andrew 🙂

My Top 5 New Year Genealogy Resolutions for 2015

Here’s my 2015 genealogy resolutions to take me through my family history research over the next 12 months. What will yours be?

For a couple of years now, I’ve been setting myself some ‘Genealogy Resolutions’ – some to-dos, tasks, brick walls – all challenges for me to try to solve in the following 12 months.

Whilst i’ve already summarised my progress of 2014’s resolutions, here’s my 2015 ones…

1. Source and scan even more photographs

iPhoto showing Faces of ancestors I've scanned
My iPhoto is already home to 258 relative faces.

I just about managed to get a few more photographs in 2014, but not the specific ones I wanted – namely of my great grandmother’s Gilbert family, and in particular of her wedding in 1909. I didn’t even get round to writing to that part of the family to ask them if they had copies of the images.

So, in 2015, this will be my first mission. Also, my father’s oldest brother has contact with his aunt still, and this connection had previously given me access to a wide range of beautiful Victorian and Edwardian Martin family photographs.

Back in 1995 when I first saw these images, I had to pick and choose which photographs to borrow, have sent away to have negatives made for, and then printed. Scanners were not cheap or readily available for home use. But now… there should be no stopping me making high resolution scans of all of the images I can lay my hands on.

2. ‘Kill off’ Mary Clarke

For those who have been reading a while, you might have seen me refer to an ‘evil’ gtxX grandmother Mary Bailey (née Clarke) who just seems to have dodged dying for a long time. After her stints in prison for child abuse, neglect, and cruelty of her step-children, and a few stints in the workhouse too, I have failed to find her death.

One clue has arisen – leading me several miles off piste in Suffolk, that might pitch her as dying near Lowestoft in Oulton Union Workhouse. If that is the case, then she may now be buried beneath or amongst a housing estate.

I’ll order the certificate, and if that fails, I may well be calling upon the paid services of a researcher to hunt this ancestor down. I’m determined to kill off Mary.

3. Delve into new record sets

A few days ago I wrote about feeling overwhelmed by the vast avalanche of records that are being made available – millions of new bits of data are out there, and it’s made me feel like I need to climb back down my family tree, and then learn to climb it again – looking for every new detail.

Mrs Alma Marchant with children from Wilburton Primary School, c.1904.
Mrs Alma Marchant with children from Wilburton Primary School, c.1904. My Great Grandmother Maude Yarrow is 5th from left, on the second row from the back.

I aim to go back and explore School Records and Wills more in 2015 for relatives much closer, as well as continue my research in newspapers – which has given me some real delights through 2014.

What would also be great, would be to find some records for Market Traders in Cambridge, Brewery Records for a pub that my ancestor ran in Ely in the 1890s,  and Great Eastern Railways records detailing the tragic accident that killed my Martin ancestor in 1868.

4. Write more

It’s been on my mind for ages now. Whilst some not-even-half-baked scrappy attempts at starting off some writing sits in various text editor programmes and apps, I’m not much further forward on the whole approach.

Juan de la Cosa's World Chart - from Dorling Kindersley's GREAT MAPS book
Dorling Kindersley’s ‘Great Maps’ book takes their highly visual approach – something that appeals to me… but does it work for genealogy?

Part of me wants it to be something very visual almost like a coffee table styled Dorling Kindersley visual encyclopaedia (as it was an old draw-out tree and a set of Victorian photographs that lured me into genealogy back in 1995), but part of me wants it to be more novelised so that I can flesh out context and livelihoods, whilst another part of me wants to write it as a more factual biography.

I want my effort to be read, but also to be interesting to those who have a casual interest in genealogy and perhaps not in the specific families I’ve researched. Deciding the angle to the writing is more of a challenge than deciding what goes in it.

5. Complete Simpson Bishop’s timeline

2014 led me to discover that a branch of the family that I had believed had remained in the village of Wicken, Cambridgeshire throughout their life, had actually shifted up to Lancashire to work in the cotton mills. This then led to the revelation that there were also two more wives, and two more children (at least) that I’d never known about.

Simpson Bishop‘s story expanded considerably, and it’s not finished yet. Why was he living near, but separately, from his third wife Sarah Washington (née Brown) in 1871 and 1881? What became of him and his wife after 1881? Did they divorce? Did Simpson die up in Lancashire or did he return back to Wicken (or somewhere else) to end his days?

A few more certificates and rummages should hopefully bring a conclusion to this surprise 2014 revelation.

What are your Genealogy Resolutions for 2015?

This is my third year of setting Genealogy Resolutions, and I find it quite fun to see whether I manage to solve these or even just progress them a little further each year.

How about setting yourself some too?

Leave your resolutions or links to your blogged/Google+’d resolutions in the comments below and let’s check back in 2016 to see how we got on.

Happy New Year!

Andrew

Those Top 5 New Year Genealogy Resolutions for 2014

How did i get on with completing my 2014 Genealogy Resolutions? Did I kill off my evil Gtx4 Grandmother? Did I write that book?…

Old Father Time meets the New Year
As Old Father Time breathes his last, 2015 and a whole new year of genealogy awaits!

You might remember that I continued my tradition of setting myself some genealogy themed New Year Resolutions (or ‘Genealogy Resolutions’ as I’m calling them). These were 5 aims for my research during 2014.

Here’s the original Genealogy Resolutions for 2014, but how did I get on?

Well, in true genealogy style (and as I’m sure many of you will be able to associate with), I got sidetracked.

Anyway, here’s the results:

 1. Find More Photos

I managed to find some ‘new’ photos of my ancestors thanks to the kindness of people emailing me, or through the hints on Ancestry, and through exploring the brilliant Cambridgeshire Community Archives Network (CCAN) – a big, online, free-to-use archive of Cambridgeshire images. I’m sure there’s similar ones of these for other areas as the concept is hardly new, but this archive contains quite a few of my ancestors.

However, I didn’t write to the more distant relatives that I had planned to, so I need to pick that up.

My scanned and tagged photo collection in iPhoto, now contains 258 recognised faces. I think that’s quite a nice achievement.

2. Killing off my wicked Great x4 Grandmother

For the second year running, I’ve yet to kill off Mary Clarke (1812-?) – my Gtx4 Grandmother who went to jail for abusing and neglecting her step-children in favour of her own, and served several stints in the workhouse in later life. She vanishes after 1881.

I took a gamble earlier in the year and ordered a certificate, but failed to get the right person.

A lead from the ever helpful Arthur Bird of the Suffolk Family History Society, has pointed me in the direction of Oulton, and a death there, and subsequent burial at a workhouse. If this is her, then I may find that her body has recently been exhumed, or is in fact now beneath, or at least amongst, a modern housing estate.

My next Death Certificate purchase will be the one to confirm/disprove this.

3. Spending 3 Days at Who Do You Think You Are? Live

Whilst I’ve been attending the WDYTYA? Live show for a few years now, 2014 was the first year that I spent all three days there at the London show. I really enjoyed myself, and I’m pleased to say that I felt like I got more out of it, and was really pleased to be able to meet up with familiar faces that I’ve only otherwise ‘spoken to’ via social media.

I look forward to the show in Birmingham, in 2015.

4. Sorting out the babies

I admit that I haven’t done this one at all.

The mass of Yarrow infant births and deaths in Stretham and Little Thetford, and the Martin ones in Little Downham, leave me with a set of certificates to purchase.

This one will have to wait a bit longer.

5. Write that book (or at least start!)

Whilst ‘the book’ remains nothing more than an idea, I have at least been exploring this further even if I haven’t really put too many words down. I do have a few thousand words tucked away in Evernote, but it’s more notation than book.

I’m still stuck as to whether I’d pitch for a novel based on one or a few stories, or stick to a hard fact book, but, as someone who became terminally thrilled by genealogy when I discovered an old tree and some Victorian photos, I’m wondering whether I should aim for something far more visual.

I was pleased to sit in on talks from Kathy Chater, Ellee Seymour, and Richard Benson this year – all being authors and/or journalists who have researched and written family history titles.

 

How did I do?

So, I completed one, three are in progress, and one I did’t do.

As with resolutions, it’s easy to sit there and come up with them, but the delivery can be difficult – particularly when you find yourself chasing a new and interesting story 5 ancestors away from where you meant to be.

I’ll reveal my New Year Genealogy Resolutions for 2015 shortly, but in the meantime…

Have a very Happy New Year!

Andrew

My Top 5 New Year Genealogy Resolutions for 2014

My Top 5 New Year Genealogy Resolutions for 2014 – 365 days of intentions for family and social history research.

Following on from last year’s list of ‘genealogy resolutions’ here’s my list for 2014. If you missed my post from the other day, you can check to see how I got on with 2013‘s.

1. Find More Photos

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:

1909 Newman Gilbert wedding group
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!).

Stands at Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2013
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.

Similarly, in Little Downham, there’s a confusing number of Martin infants getting birth and death certificates, but without names and dates that completely tally-up.

Some of the children might never have reached the parish church for baptism, hence a lack of church records.

I already have a few of the certificates, which reveal scarlet fever, tuberculosis and other causes.

The only way to sort this out is to go on a spending spree over at the General Register Office (GRO) website to see what can be found.

5. Write that book (or at least start!)

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.

Keeping up with the Joneses - Valerie Lumbers
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.

I’ve also been reading a number of eBooks on writing up family history, including: ‘How To Write Your Family’s History‘ by Bartha Hill, and ‘Your Life Story: How To Turn Life Into Literature‘ by Kay Rennie.

What are your Genealogy Resolutions?

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.

Andrew 

Those top 5 genealogy resolutions of 2013

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.

Before I reveal what I plan to do, I’ll just recap on the 5 resolutions from 2013…

1. The Missing Bowers

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

Abercorn Place sign

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…

Andrew Martin makes genealogy easier by flying the TARDIS into research brick walls.
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!

Andrew