Author Topic: At which point do you admit defeat?  (Read 4821 times)

Offline coombs

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #9 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 16:53 BST (UK) »
Never give up. I certainly will not. Like you Jill I have a London ancestor who seems untraceable prior to her and her husband's first child's birth in 1812. The said ancestor died in February 1851, just a few weeks before the 1851 census and she was living in Marylebone in 1841 and said she was not born in county of residence, Middlesex. Her age at death and workhouse admission gives a 1790-1791 year of birth. The only likely marriage is in 1810 but the fly in the ointment is the bride was not a spinster, and if she is the same woman, she'd have to be a very young widow if she was just 19/20. She had her last child (my 3xgreat grandad) in 1828. Yet actually I managed to trace her husband's baptism quite easily and he was from Dorset so it could be a clue as to where she was from. She was in London by 1812.

Researching:

LONDON, Coombs, Roberts, Auber, Helsdon, Fradine, Morin, Goodacre
DORSET Coombs, Munday
NORFOLK Helsdon, Riches, Harbord, Budery
KENT Roberts, Goodacre
SUSSEX Walder, Boniface, Dinnage, Standen, Lee, Botten, Wickham, Jupp
SUFFOLK Titshall, Frost, Fairweather, Mayhew, Archer, Eade, Scarfe
DURHAM Stewart, Musgrave, Wilson, Forster
SCOTLAND Stewart in Selkirk
USA Musgrave, Saix
ESSEX Cornwell, Stock, Quilter, Lawrence, Whale, Clift
OXON Edgington, Smith, Inkpen, Snell, Batten, Brain

Offline pet50ite

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #10 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 17:33 BST (UK) »
Hi Coombs,
I have to agree with everyone else, never give up, just put it to one side and come back to it every now and then. I can identify with ThrelfallYorky's "Irish stew" comment ;D I have quite a few Irish ancestors on the back burner!

In the last year, an old letter came to light that got us all talking about one ancestor again and some of the details confirmed that addresses and occupations we were unsure about were correct.

There are also a great many different types of records becoming available online.

Lastly, there are those eureka moments. A set of ancestors whose details you have been looking at for years and getting nowhere. Suddenly, you either think of a different approach or you recognise a pattern in addresses, names, occupations, etc.

 No, I don't think you should ever give up.

Pet50ite
cowan, sinnott, duffy, addi, conlon, halpin, (dublin) dowling, mcdonald, donnelly (dublin, newcastle upon tyne and tyrone)

Offline Jill Eaton

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #11 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 17:51 BST (UK) »
Irish Stew! strangely comforting (though not for those suffering from too much of it) to know I'm not alone  :D

My biggest problem at the moment is an acute case of stubbornness....I know it would be healthier to move on for a while and research other ancestors in what may be a far more rewarding exercise...but I keep just having that one last look just in case I've missed something, forgotten something, not explored every available bit of information, missed the bloomin obvious....and getting frustrated in the process.

The irritating and trite Ancestry advert that implies you just put in a name in the search engine and your family tree will just miraculously grow itself should actually advise potential genealogists that if they aren't very determined they will almost certainly fall at the first hurdle ;D ;)
Davis - Berkshire & London
Sutcliffe - Yorkshire & London
Harrington - Ireland and London
Fuller - Cambridgeshire and Essex
Waldron/Waldren - Devon & London
Frisby and Lee - Leicestershire
Hollingsworth - Essex
Williams - Ireland? and London
Ellis, Reed & Temple - London
Lane - ?
Surplice/Surplus - Cambridgeshire
Elwood - Cambridgeshire

Offline venelow

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #12 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 18:01 BST (UK) »
I have one ancestor that I have really given up on. My 4 X Great Grandmother born circa 1757. Her marriage is a Dade type record which usually gives the names of the parents of the groom and bride.

However not in her case as she is described as a foundling.

I have no record of a baptism for her so I don't even know where she was found. The available foundling records have been searched. She is a true brick wall.

Venelow
Canada


Offline brigidmac

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 18:03 BST (UK) »
I agree with Jill about the misleading advert

Never give up ...extra information can turn up in all sort of places ...

dNa did help me discover my great grandmother.s marriage and legitimate son
And once I knew that name

Rootschatter s found

My great grandmother was given probate of her husband's uncles estate so I knew she was a widow in 1938 and her address

I wouldn't have thought of persuing those non blood relatives !
Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline rosie17

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #14 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 18:15 BST (UK) »
I think we've all got at least a few pots simmering on that very crowded back-burner! Most of mine seem to contain Irish Stew!

Got a few of them    ;D

Offline coombs

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #15 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 18:24 BST (UK) »
Hi Coombs,
I have to agree with everyone else, never give up, just put it to one side and come back to it every now and then. I can identify with ThrelfallYorky's "Irish stew" comment ;D I have quite a few Irish ancestors on the back burner!

In the last year, an old letter came to light that got us all talking about one ancestor again and some of the details confirmed that addresses and occupations we were unsure about were correct.

There are also a great many different types of records becoming available online.

Lastly, there are those eureka moments. A set of ancestors whose details you have been looking at for years and getting nowhere. Suddenly, you either think of a different approach or you recognise a pattern in addresses, names, occupations, etc.

 No, I don't think you should ever give up.

Pet50ite

Yes, and sometimes you want to put it on a backburner and move on but you feel that you just want to concentrate on that line and put all others on a backburner. Spend days looking through records on Anc, FindMyPast, FamilySearch etc to see if any more info comes up that you missed. You may exhaust the records online but you keep thinking there must be loads more records that are not online, more than you think. Newspaper records, land/window tax records, rate books, poor law records, wills that are waiting to be digitised, local censuses.

Sadly in some cases when FindMyPast release new records for a county of interest the parishes you want are "coming soon". it is easy to think that you have to go to the RO in that case but sometimes you could live hundreds or thousands of miles from where your ancestors lived. Asking a researcher costs money. More online records the better.
Researching:

LONDON, Coombs, Roberts, Auber, Helsdon, Fradine, Morin, Goodacre
DORSET Coombs, Munday
NORFOLK Helsdon, Riches, Harbord, Budery
KENT Roberts, Goodacre
SUSSEX Walder, Boniface, Dinnage, Standen, Lee, Botten, Wickham, Jupp
SUFFOLK Titshall, Frost, Fairweather, Mayhew, Archer, Eade, Scarfe
DURHAM Stewart, Musgrave, Wilson, Forster
SCOTLAND Stewart in Selkirk
USA Musgrave, Saix
ESSEX Cornwell, Stock, Quilter, Lawrence, Whale, Clift
OXON Edgington, Smith, Inkpen, Snell, Batten, Brain

Offline Jill Eaton

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #16 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 19:24 BST (UK) »
I find the strange inconsistencies within the search parameters on various websites frustrating too.

FindMyPast has English Catholic baptisms with the facility to add the father's and mother's names. This obviously narrows the search enormously.
By contrast, their Irish Catholic baptisms don't have a facility for the father's name and won't give any hits from just the mother's first name. This makes the possible hits very wide. For most of us, the census (if there is one) has the father's name and the mother's first name until you can find a marriage for them and learn her surname.

Some of the useful parameters that used to be available from these sites have gone too.

Davis - Berkshire & London
Sutcliffe - Yorkshire & London
Harrington - Ireland and London
Fuller - Cambridgeshire and Essex
Waldron/Waldren - Devon & London
Frisby and Lee - Leicestershire
Hollingsworth - Essex
Williams - Ireland? and London
Ellis, Reed & Temple - London
Lane - ?
Surplice/Surplus - Cambridgeshire
Elwood - Cambridgeshire

Offline Sinann

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Re: At which point do you admit defeat?
« Reply #17 on: Tuesday 12 September 17 19:51 BST (UK) »
Hi Coombs,
I have to agree with everyone else, never give up, just put it to one side and come back to it every now and then. I can identify with ThrelfallYorky's "Irish stew" comment ;D I have quite a few Irish ancestors on the back burner!

All mine are in the Irish stew pot, I give it a stir every now and again with any new set of records that come along to make sure it doesn't burn but I never consider it defeat, if I've found all there is to find that is success.