RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Erin2012 on Tuesday 02 January 18 21:13 GMT (UK)
-
I would love to hear some inspirational tales of brick walls and how you found your answers.... Maybe we can all learn from your experience!
-
luck? serendipity? nit-picking?
(not much help, I'm afraid - all brick-walls are different)
-
Mine was about six years of staring at someone born in 1852 with no parents that I could trace. And help from a relative in Australia.
Another was figuring out that there were two Moses Ralphs born in the 1830s, one in Suffolk and one in Sussex. At the time we had one record of a Walter with a parent Moses on a 1903 marriage certificate and a 1901 census that says Walter was a German subject, we realised that the one is Sussex never went to Germany and the Moses in Suffolk disappeared in 1860s. From there we found many other documents in Germany and tracing them back to Suffolk.
Yes, a lot of it is luck.
-
Sometimes it takes thinking outside the box.
I had a great great grand aunt who was a professional musician and she had married another. I had her and her husband in 1861, 1871 and 1901 but couldn't find another BMD or census reference until they both died in 1902.
On a whim one day I put her name into a general google search and her name popped up on the Trove website for old Australian newspapers. After clicking on the site and doing a better search, there were over 1500 references for her and I was able to trace her and her husbands careers both backwards and forwards.
I also did this with her father who was a congregational minister and found his career too.
-
I agree mirl the papers can be invaluable. With help from kind Rootschatters I managed to find my cousins stage name. This led me to tracing his career. The best was when I found an interview with him detailing his ordeal as a POW in WW1. I had found out he had served and been captured through other newspaper reports, but this told me everything and as he hadn't turned up on the Red Cross lists it filled in a lot of blanks.
-
I solved my most recent brick wall by entering a birthdate in the 1939 register. Up popped someone in Newcastle on Tyne who I'd been searching for in Scotland for years.
I agree with Mirl - Trove (Australian Newspapers) and Google have yielded unexpected results, simply by searching by name. One example was trying to find the birth of Mary Ann Gorring. I entered the name of the witnesses to her marriage in Trove and up popped her mother who had remarried. It opened up a whole new family branch - her mother married 4 times! And I found out she was Mary Ann Godding not Gorring.
But it's hard to beat serendipity. My gggrandfather arrived in Melbourne Vic in 1841, and wanting to know more, I went to the library to borrow a book about what life was like then. It wasn't available so I borrowed one by the same author which described various voyages to Australia. Imagine my surprise when my gggrandfather's name leapt off the page, with a detailed description of journey and how the ship almost ran aground on arrival.
And of course, there are all the wonderful helpful Rootschatters :-)
-
Various methods!
Google. If you're searching for someone with a rare-ish name, you might find a link to someone else's research - obviously you need to back up their findings, but maybe they've spotted something you haven't.
Newspaper archives.
Use the global search forms at Ancestry and Findmypast. I usually search each record set individually, but maybe there's a record set you haven't discovered yet. Particularly good for people who move abroad.
FreeREG. I often neglect it because it's not very complete, but you might strike gold.
Rootschat. Very knowledgeable people!
Persistance. I nearly gave up on finding a death for a William Smith, but by trawling through the death records, and matching them with electoral rolls, cemetery records and the probate calendar, was able to order the right death certificate.
-
One tip is if you do come across a rare-ish name, type in any instances (outside the direct ancestor) of that name through the FindMyPast, Ancestry search engines, even use wildcards or what have you. They may be relatives of theirs. For instance a FindMyPast search 1750 with 40 years either side.
While you must never rely wholly on this, one trick is if you come across an ancestor whose parents you cannot find the marriage for, but you have the fathers baptism and it was the same parish all along, then try any baptisms for the mothers first name 15-30 years before the birth of their first known child. These could be candidates for the mother. For instance a James Bracegirdle born 1750 to Thomas and Margaret Bracegirdle in a rural parish. Their eldest child was born in 1742. You cannot find a marriage of Thomas to Margaret (even with variants) then you could look at all the Margaret's born in the same parish 1710-1730, and list their surnames. This can be food for thought.
-
I was trying to find out what happened to a bloodline ancestor who disappeared in the early 1900s. I won't say too much as it is quite a personal story.
I put out an appeal on-line. (This was before I was on RootsChat.) A close relative (another descendant) of this missing ancestor of mine got in touch. I was literally on cloud nine !! They were wonderful in giving me photos and filling me in on the missing part of the story. I was also able to help this other person. It turned out that our mutual ancestor/relative had died a year before I was born.
Last year this kind person who answered my appeal and I were able to meet at last after three years of on-going correspondence. I will be forever grateful to this person for helping me to get my brick wall knocked down big time. It was just like Long Lost Family but without the camera! :) :) :)
-
Mine was with the help of the wonderful people at Pontypridd Register Office.
All I knew for certain about my GG Grandmother was that she born in Aberdare and that at marriage she named her father as James Davies, a deceased miner. Different records gave conflicting information about her year of birth (1848-1853), and her US death certificate suggested that her father had a different surname to her (not the case, as it turned out!).
Her name was so common that it was like finding a needle in a haystack, but I eventually found a likely candidate for her in the 1851 & 1861 census - never with parents and with no relationship details given. After piecing together as much as possible about her later life I made an educated guess at her mother's forename and wrote to Pontypridd Register Office asking if they could help.
Within a day they came back with a potential birth certificate, and further research revealed that both parents had died within 18 months of her birth & that the households she was with in 1851 & 1861 were both relatives of her mother.
-
While you must never rely wholly on this, one trick is if you come across an ancestor whose parents you cannot find the marriage for, but you have the fathers baptism and it was the same parish all along, then try any baptisms for the mothers first name 15-30 years before the birth of their first known child. These could be candidates for the mother. For instance a James Bracegirdle born 1750 to Thomas and Margaret Bracegirdle in a rural parish. Their eldest child was born in 1742. You cannot find a marriage of Thomas to Margaret (even with variants) then you could look at all the Margaret's born in the same parish 1710-1730, and list their surnames. This can be food for thought.
This is a good way of finding alternative spellings and mistransciptions. For example, one of the Margarets you find might marry a Thomas Bearegudle, which could be a mistranscription of Bracegirdle (but not similar enough to show up in a soundex search).
Also - learn to use wildcards. They are your friend!
-
While you must never rely wholly on this, one trick is if you come across an ancestor whose parents you cannot find the marriage for, but you have the fathers baptism and it was the same parish all along, then try any baptisms for the mothers first name 15-30 years before the birth of their first known child. These could be candidates for the mother. For instance a James Bracegirdle born 1750 to Thomas and Margaret Bracegirdle in a rural parish. Their eldest child was born in 1742. You cannot find a marriage of Thomas to Margaret (even with variants) then you could look at all the Margaret's born in the same parish 1710-1730, and list their surnames. This can be food for thought.
This is a good way of finding alternative spellings and mistransciptions. For example, one of the Margarets you find might marry a Thomas Bearegudle, which could be a mistranscription of Bracegirdle (but not similar enough to show up in a soundex search).
Also - learn to use wildcards. They are your friend!
I have an Edmund Cackermole in my tree whose eldest child was born in 1647. The mother was Rachell. I have traced Edmund back but cannot find a marriage of him to Rachell yet. It seems her spelling of Rachel was 2 L's at the end. In 1619 a Rachell Meeke was baptised in the same parish to a Nicholas Meeke. Rachell and Edmund Cackermole did not have a child called Nicholas though but the Rachell Meeke is a candidate for the Rachell who later wed Edmund Cackamole. That surname had its variants.
Unfortunately soundex searches can swamp you with nearest matches which are actually noticeably different to the spelling you want. Such as you type Saffold and get Stafford.
One brick wall I broke down in 2009 was when London records came online.
More tips is look at wills in the area of anyone with the same surname as your ancestor, especially if it is nearby villages or towns or the same parishes. Even names like Smith, you never know.
-
My 6th cousin and I had independently found Abraham Broadley of Darwen, who arrived there in 1654, but where did he come from? This was solved by our 7th cousin's husband, who tested his brother in law's Y-DNA and we are now back to the 1520s in the Halifax area. I will always be grateful to Andrew Booth (sadly, no longer with us).cb
-
The answer is other Roots Chatters in South Africa helped me. Without them I could not have solved it
My most challenging research was that of Gertrude Wynne Cole, formerly Mrs Seymour Dallas, divorced and became Mrs Bernard Vidal Shaw. Known to have been born in South Africa, married and divorced there, married Bernard Vidal Shaw in London and spent many years with him in British Guiana. Both returned to England and died there. Gertrude was on the 1939 Register as having been born in 1862. I had her second marriage certificate giving her father as George Montague Cole. A South African Roots Chatter sent me on RootsChat a published diary entry (probably in the early 1880’s) of a man who met her at a stagecoach terminus in the Cape, South Africa and he casually entered the fact that she was the niece of Judge Cole (Alfred Whaley Cole) He was the brother of George.
Now comes the tricky part. Who was Gertrude’s mother? Her father had two wives. The first one died 1861. That means Gertrude was the daughter of the second wife. No. Decima Ashburnham the second wife must have had money and lists her ONLY child as Blanche Ashburnham Cole. Whether Gertrude gave the information or a relative gave the information to the 1939 Register they were one year off. Gertrude was born 1861 and post partum her mother Matilda Hogben died about two weeks later.
Now there is Frank Burrard Creasy, born in Ceylon, living and educated in England, emigrated to Ramah, New Mexico, USA, moved to Canada and became a high ranking police officer there. That’s another story.
-
Another resource I have started using a lot lately is the National Library of Scotland's free map collection.
It often helps with old place names and which hamlets are near what villages, particularly when located close to moving parish or county boundaries.
-
I would suggest caution when viewing online trees and indeed suggestions offered by tree hosting companies.
The reason I say this is down to human nature, when offered such a suggestion it is very easy for our brains to be convinced that the suggestion is correct rather than looking for alternatives and weighing the all the evidence.
This has been shown in studies by psychological scientists Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington exploring the relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behaviour.
“The answer lies in our ‘response expectancies,’ or the ways in which we anticipate our responses in various situations. These expectancies set us up for automatic responses that actively influence how we get to the outcome we expect. Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviours will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition.”
I would therefore suggest that researchers ignore all trees and tips/leaves/suggestions until they have formed a tree based on their own conclusions drawn from researching in ‘original’ records.
Then and only then, after thorough research and forming conclusions compare your findings with the other trees or tips & suggestions.
If not you may find yourselves forming the never ending line of researchers who have found a birth/baptism and constructed a tree round that ‘well sourced lead’ only to find many years down the line that that baby died two days after birth and their ancestor was actually born a week before or a day later to a couple with similar names.
Cheers
Guy
-
My Brickwall...was solved by DNA..for many many years I kept finding my way to a family on Tree's [ 21 tree's in fact on Ancestry ] the christian names all the same as in my family only a generation back.
I had this feeling that something was amiss but knew my man was no where near when he was supposed to have married this wrong lady.
DNA linked me to 4 of these people [ tree's ] what happened is that there was 2 men with the same name born about the same time 1 mine 1 another family.
All these tree's had my John married to another lady and I have proved that the other John and his wife..are buried together in another town.
[ all these tree's have my John married to the wrong lady, had 11 children..and his parents..grandparents ect all as theirs]
I have been in touch with all these tree owners..some have blocked me now from viewing their tree's..others said oh I copied that..and I have not had any reply/contact with the 4 that I link to! ::)
advice is to use tree's as a tool only.
Yonks
-
Also - learn to use wildcards. They are your friend!
.. and remember variants of names. "Margaret" may have been baptised (and even married) as "Peggy", for instance. Few websites will associate the variant names for you in your searches.
-
I've toppled a couple of brickwalls that have stood for 20+ years recently. There are more and more records being indexed and digitised so regularly review my stubborn relatives to see if anything new comes up. Most new leads have come from newspapers (BNA mostly) and the catholic and "other" church records in Scotland.
-
And take advantage of free weekends on those sites you don't subscribe to as some of their data sets are different from what you regularly use.
During one such weekend I found a relative missing from 1861 residing at Bedlam receiving treatment for being a violent dipsomaniac; then two of his sons in the army in India and Ireland one of whom was circumcised after getting an STD and the other court martialed for drawing his sword on an officer.
-
Another tip that may help find a missing marriage is they may have wed by licence at their local town. A few times I have found missing marriages in such as way. Rural dwellers marrying in their local town or city.
Or do a search of any "Roger" marriages to a "Mary" 1730-1760 if you have a (for example) Roger Lockwood and wife Mary having children in a parish in Suffolk, Sussex or wherever, but cannot find their marriage. Try a county wide search of "Roger" marrying a "Mary". You may then find a "Roger Lookwood" marriage to Mary or something. As Churchill said "Never surrender" always keep looking for new info on ancestors.
-
Several brickwalls solved simply by looking in the right place and I know that seems simplistic however most of us follow the trail of records the individual generated during their lifetime and also what we think we know from family stories or maybe we knew the person when we were young so we do make judgements/assumptions.
I do tend to use rootschat to ground myself back to 'reality' as those who answer, ask questions "what record did you find that xxx in" or " how do you know that" that makes me took at facts ( as in records found) and in what I think I 'know' ( as in personally knowing the individual/family story)
I had been looking (post 1911 census) for a marriage they lived in England until they died, he in the 1950s she is the 1970s I know where they lived, know where buried, I knew her ( not him) they had no children......nothing for decades, was told he was Irish and I searched there too, in fact finding the right named single people living streets away from each other, who married and then found their deaths/burials so back to the drawing board.
So I put aside what I thought I knew and family stories and just dealt with the record facts.... several potential record leads from Scotland, Hampshire and Canada, all followed up and the Scottish one delivered with the name of her father on the marriage cert somewhere I would not have looked, didn't know she lived there, didn't know she was married twice( in Scotland) or was a step mother to two girls (both who immigrated) and didn't know she was a professional photographer.
So my advice would be don't try and fill in the gaps in records with what you think you know.
-
I would love to hear some inspirational tales of brick walls and how you found your answers.... Maybe we can all learn from your experience!
My what I believe to date, is my and the family's best brickwall destroying results but comes with a very sad ending. I found this column after putting my findings on the beginners board. ..... Oh,......how they tried to hide, ....what would their feelings be if they knew of the progression into computer's of today. Please refer to the beginners board.
Regards JUST J.
-
Maybe not a brick wall as such but one mystery solved last year which meant a great deal to me. My great aunt passed away in 1929 in childbirth. I had her birth, marriage and death records from Scotlands People.
My late father's recollection of the day of her funeral was that he was given money to take his young cousin, her son, to the cinema. All he remembered of where she was buried was that she was in a grave with someone who had an Irish sounding name.
I had been in touch with Dundee City Archives regarding another grave location and on the off chance asked if my great aunt was in their records too. Result they were able to give me a grave number. We were in Dundee in October and were having difficulty locating her grave but the kind superintendant helped us. I was absolutely astounded when I saw the two names on the headstone - James Dickson and Sarah Conlin. They are my 3 x great grandparents and were the first of that line to come over from County Down in the 1800's.
Pure luck I would say.
Dorrie
-
I wish I could tell you but I haven't solved my brick wall. Where did my g.grandfather come from before he started living with my g.gran? They didn't marry so no marriage cert, so no father's name to help me. All we know is that his mother was Spanish. Was he illegitimate and took his father's English name, or did he just decide to change his name when he became an adult. I don't think I will ever break down this brick wall. Many rootschatters have tried, as has my half 2nd cousin once removed! Her g.grandmother was half sister to my grandmother, same mother who was actually married at the time my gran's half sister was born, then she took up with my g.grandfather. We think her husband was drowned at sea, but can't find any record of this - or any record of a death up to 100 years after his date of birth. Why didn't she marry my g.grandfather, did she think her husband was still alive, or was my g.grandfather unable to marry?
-
I haven't broken down my brick walls just yet. I did find a death certificate for a gt gt grandparent who defied/still defies identification and that was down to the very generous efforts of fellow Rootschatters.
I'm now hoping that dna matches might provide some new leads. I accept that it may be some time before that happens...........
-
Hi Jill,
I just consider ourselves lucky to have collated, and put together what the records show. Thankfully I had the recognition of my Grandparents on the 1911 census. The remainder who were nieces / nephews, Aunt / Uncle accordingly. I'm not sure that I will ever have the same luck again. This is where ROOTSCHAT's members are so helpful. Having a few more pairs of eyes overlooking a problem brickwall they certainly are knowledgeable and do try to make sure you are put in the right direction. Finding out how we all solve our brickwalls, will benefit everyone who reads and digests the outcome. In my case the release of the 1911 census, and the putting together of 2 marriage certificates held the answers. My own knowledge that the family of the time had tried to alter / hide hoping from then on, time would do the eventual cover up. My Parents / Aunts / Uncle's would / could no way have forseen the amount of interest that has been into finding who we are and where we come from, which has only been boosted with the aid of computers. Keep trying, get other family members, if they also have an interest, along side you. Wishing you the best on your brickwall demolishing,
My best Regards, JUST J
-
I was working and working my grandfather's birth record back to Ireland with no results, mostly using the Ancestry website. I had many documents, including census', Naturalization, and even his death record, but I could not pin down where he was born. On top of it, of the documents I had, he listed different birth dates with an 8 year span. Without the birth record, that meant I could not get back to my great-grandparents information. Frustrating.
I learned that the LDS had family research centers all over the country. I figured there would not be one in Alaska, but I looked them up anyway, and found one in the next town over. I called them, and they told me everything was free to use for research. Well, they had a subscription to the FindMyPast website. With ONE search on that website, I found the critical document that gave me everything I needed. In addition, when I saw that signature, I knew it was my grandfather...he had a very unique signature. I got back to his birth record, his siblings (which NO ONE knew he had), and his parents. WOOHOO! I guess I was just a newbie at the time, and didn't know about all of the LDS research centers around the world. Since then, I've learned to use a number of resources and databases. Yes, it takes time, but it may land you a treasure that blows open your research.
-
Hi AKJonesy - welcome to RootsChat.
You'll find many willing helpers here if you need further assistance with your research.
My "brick wall" was demolished by RootsChatters.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=380900.0
I thank my lucky stars and RootsChatters generally that I found this site. You are THE BEST :-*
-
I have found that ancestors emigrating from one country to another, multiple times, is a hard search. One example was a man born in London, England, emigrated to South Africa and then emigrated to Australia. And why did he go to Australia as an older man…… because his daughter had married an Australian Royal Navy Officer and he returned to Australia with the father-in-law in tow. The South African research was difficult for me but I learnt enough from the South African Roots Chatters that I now feel more confident researching there myself.
The sun never sets on Roots Chatters.
-
I knew my grandmother s birth mothers name
Her middle name was A surname which gave a clue to her birth father. There were two possible candidates
A suggestion led me to look for a paternity case
I would not have been able to find this record myself but paid for help from Cheshire records office ....they found a 1900 affiliation order which proved which of the candidates was the father
Further years of research ...and it turned out that the other gentleman with that surname in the area was actually her grandfather ....DNA has now linked me to his descendants in USA
-
My Grt grt grandfather David Woodburn Campbell was born c 1856 according to his death certificate, marriage certificate, 1881, 1861 cenuses. I could not find him in 1871 and could not find his birth. As a new researcher I just put it down to his birth being around the time civil registration began in Scotland and assumed (before I knew better) that his birth hadn't been registered. His marriage and death certificates gave his parents as Jessie Macpherson and John Campbell.
I found a marriage of Jessie Macpherson to John Campbell, her remarriage as a widow in 1860, followed her through to death but had not found a death for John nor a birth for David and it annoyed me.
Years later I decided to revisit it and sat at an SP Centre and worked through all the John Campbell deaths until I found the correct one in September 1855. I was more experienced at research by now and started wondering if David had been in fact illegitimate and not John's son at all if born in late 1856. So I first searched under JEssie's second husband's name in case he was the father but nothing. Then sure enough David Macpherson born end of October 1856 just over 13 mon after John had died. What is even better on his baptism their was a not re his father David Woodburn. So explained the middle name running right down the family that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.
Then there's the 1911 census for one of my daughter's ancestors where the information is garbled re marriage length, whose children and whose etc. This involved her rellie moving in with a widow (on census under first married name) and having more children. I used the GRO index with MMN to cross reference the names of the older children. ie I searched for the oldest and noted all the MMN for entries in the correct time period, then searched for the name of the second child and crossed off possibles for first child if there was no matching MMN until I ended up with one option. THis gave me a name combination to try out for her first marriage, establish when she was widowed and found the births of daughter's rellie's children with her registered under her maiden name.