RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: coombs on Friday 22 December 23 21:36 GMT (UK)
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As 2023 is almost coming to a close I hope we can continue to break down some brickwalls in 2024. But I would imagine some of us have hopefully managed to solve some brickwalls in 2023.
2023 has been a bumper year for my Suffolk direct lot, as I found a 1809 marriage that I had been searching for, for years, turns out the bride was married before and the groom's usual recorded surname was written down in the marriage register as a variant of the name, showing how you must consider such things at all times when looking for a marriage, baptism, burial, census record etc.
And I found a 5xgreat grandfather was sent to Australia from Suffolk in 1791.
And Suffolk FHS has published several more baptism CD's for deaneries in East Suffolk which has helped me a lot.
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It sounds super complicated. I will be giving up Ancestry. Finding family and building my tree in my dad's side was very easy but I know very little of my mum's side as they came from Poland .. Then under Russian flagship in the early 1900s.
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10 Websites for Polish Genealogy Research:
https://familytreemagazine.com/heritage/polish/polish-genealogy-websites/
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Thanks to DNA I broke a wall that I've had for over a decade. My 2nd Great Grandfather is no longer missing.
Hoping to do the same to track down another 2nd Great Grandfather.
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I wish I could find out more on my G G Grandfather :-\
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DNA has been the only way I've been able to do it, as this was a situation of an illegitimate birth. Hopefully one day you'll have that success too.
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Still got most of the same old brick walls but I have found a lot of distant cousins and in the process smashed one brick wall. :)
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Still have my brickwall - Michael Murphy b. Ireland c. 1799!
Pheno
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Still got all mine :(. Gets too disheartening to keep trying and trying but well done to those who have broken through theirs :).
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Broke down a long-standing wall when some new records came online, and it lead to finding a gateway ancestor in the process. Still got a 20 year old wall that stubbornly reduces to crack, where are you GT GT grandfather Bush?
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A lot of expanding trees. Hopefully its all correct ;D
Made contact with a 1st cousin Ive never met and we are now planning a family reunion in January to catch up with one branch of the family. Pen and paper at the ready
Still no luck on Louisa Westmacott or Henry Simpson and Ferdinand Schumann but we remain hopeful
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I found my Gt Aunt was removed from a bus in 1922, apparently she caused a disturbance by exposing her knees.
It seems she was a bit tipsy at the time .
Newspaper resources.
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Be thankful it was just her knees :)
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No major break-throughs but I found a number of excellent photographs and newspaper articles,
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Newspaper articles are a godsend. It was those who made me discover an ancestor sent to Australia. before I made the discovery, as I said, I thought a travel of 40 odd miles in the 1700s was a trek but when I found an ancestor did a 12'000 mile trip it made me realise a 40 mile, or 100 mile trip in the 1700s was easy in comparison. I guess a trip from Norwich to London on a horse and cart took 2 or 3 days in 1791.
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I hardly find anything new these days. I keep looking, in the hope that more records will come online some day, but I'm fast arriving at the conclusion that I'm reaching the end of the line as far as going back in time is concerned. And my slightly more recent brick walls remain intact.
It wouldn't be fun if it was all easy, would it!
Bev
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I hardly find anything new these days. I keep looking, in the hope that more records will come online some day, but I'm fast arriving at the conclusion that I'm reaching the end of the line as far as going back in time is concerned. And my slightly more recent brick walls remain intact.
It wouldn't be fun if it was all easy, would it!
Bev
Never give up hope but I do agree in many cases, you wonder if you have reached the end of the road with some lines and exhausted all the available records. One example is my ancestor Elizabeth Newman who wed in London in 1774 to Samuel Auber. I would think that unless there is some miracle in the future, it is going to be impossible to trace her any further, her baptism and parentage. Too many candidates with such a common name, also the fact she may not have even been born in London. One 1753 baptism added by a distant cousin was discarded by me when I found an infant death giving the same parents and right address. One only real hope now for my Elizabeth is perhaps autosomal DNA testing may one day shed some light.
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One other mystery to be solved is I have a photo of two unknown ladies in the early 1920s. One of them is of African descent. DNA tests show I have a tiny amount of African ancestry, which I know is to be taken with a pinch of salt, but I have a lot of 4th cousin matches in the USA with people of African American descent. Hoping that 2024 brings me closer to solving that one.
Good luck and good wishes to all for next year.
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As a change from my predominantly Welsh tree, I've recently returned to my father-in-laws tree. What a lovely collection of west country surnames - e.g. Emm and Gurd/Gourd. Also some biblical first names - Simeon, Reubin, Elijah and, best of all, three sisters - Repentance, Charity and Grace Knight :)
I'd not looked at the tree for about 5 years so I've been catching up with all the new records that have emerged in that time.
Gadget
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2003 taught me not to make assumptions. After 20 years searching, I was stunned to realise three children had been missed from my maternal line, and so close in being brothers of my grandmother. Only James survived to have his own children. I had never considered looking after the 1911 census. He was never mentioned and we did not meet. My research is usually very good, but all can make mistakes. As a child living in Over, Cheshire, my mother would say we were related to people, but at that time I was not interested. Now I would like to ask questions, but the opportunity has gone. Remembering a photograph of me as a baby, sitting in a wheelbarrow at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, I asked a question on RootsChat. From that I pieced together a whole branch.
A relative visited every Christmas and was a little younger than my mother. From fragments of information, I found her marriage and two daughters, but could not make the link to my family. She was a child of James. I can now see why my tree would not fit together. There were a couple who lived close to my grandparents. I thought they were related to my grandmother. I spent days searching all possibilities, but without something to identify them, I was stuck. Once I stopped thinking and made a cup of tea, a fact popped into my head. They had one child, a son who died in WW2. He was a rear-gunner on bomber planes. Searching the Roll of Honour I eventually found a candidate. From there, I found all of them, including the 1939 Register, offering their address that fitted. He was a nephew of my grandfather. Everything I could remember regarding different relatives has now been found a followed.
I am always surprised what can be achieved from the smallest piece of information. Then when I find the information, I know it is right, as it triggers further facts. 2023 has been productive. It taught me not to make assumptions; and when thinking too deeply; step back and make a cup of tea. The information was in my subconscious, it just needed the opportunity to surface.
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Also they have extended downloadable deaths up to 1957. I wonder if they will extend this for births after 1922. You can still send off for post 1922 births in the old fashioned way, and have the cert delivered by post, but I wonder if say 1922-1950 births became downloadable, many people still alive born 1923-1950 would be a bit concerned that their birth record will be downloadable online for £2:50.
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Still got a few brick walls which I don't think will ever get smashed but I never give up you never know I might get lucky one day :)
Rosie
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Big success this year is not on my tree but for someone I've been helping at the FHS.
They have a "gateway ancestor", leading to gentry in Cheshire. People who were knighted for fighting in battles!
;D ;D
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The word "gateway" somehow reminds me of the old supermarket chain Gateway, especially the one in Rochford, Essex. That is going back a few decades now.
A year ago I was chuffed to find the burial date of my great grandfather who died in very late 1958, 30th Dec. Newspaper articles from the Southend Standard 1 Jan 1959 said he will be buried 3rd Jan 1959 at 11:30am. The online available burials on SEAX Essex only go up to 1948. As one old boss once said "you have to think outside the box". His father in law, my great, great grandfather aged 83 at the time then wrote out his will in mid January 1959. Obviously his son in law's sudden death got him thinking about his will.
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2023 has been a very good year.
Two brickwalls demolished, one thanks to yDNA and another Autosomal DNA match lead to identifying my probable Great Great Grandfather whose name fills the blank on my Great Grandmother’s Birth Certificate.
A known Paternal Second Cousin found and we are talking via telephone.
Contact made with many of my Maternal Second Cousins.
2024 is the year of consolidation, to write the stories, to record the videos, to try to have a record system in place that relations in 30/40/50 years time will find interesting and enjoyable to read and to watch.
My hope for 2024 is that one of my Paternal First Cousins actually get themselves DNA tested.
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In 2023, I took up an internet challenge to write 52 stories about 52 ancestors, using an allocated theme for each week.
Of course I wasn't able to fill all 52 themes, but I did write sufficient stories to gift a folder to an interested young relation, and I am very thrilled my research during the lockdown year has enabled me to make some of our heritage known to the next generation.
I shall look at the 2024 challenge themes, and perhaps I will be able to dredge up a little more. :)
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Probably the highlight of this genealogical year was an unexpected DNA match which revealed that my grandfather had a half-sister we never knew about! Their father certainly had greater fertility than morality!
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2023 provided me with a breakthrough on my GGrandfather.
Having previously spent time trying to solve his riddle without success - "no trace" of him before his sign-up papers for the army in 1898. Despite having his DoB in the 1939 Register, no BC or baptism could be found. The army papers gave a tantallising clue - a mother as NoK, but the name and address proved to be a dead end. Then during 2023 some more army records came online. Fortunately, during his time spent in South Africa during the Boer War, he was loaned to another unit, he completed another sign-up record. This also gave a NoK mother, but this time, although the first names matched previous, it had a totally different surname, one I had not come across before. So on a punt, I looked at the indexes to see if there happened to be a birth of his first name but with this new surname for the DoB I had (which tied up with inferred ages on other records). Sure enough there was one, and in the right area too. So biting the bullet, I ordered the cert. When it came back, it had an exact match for the DoB. The ACTUAL father's (first) name matched what had been provided by my GGF, but obvs with this new surname. It appears that my GGF was born shortly before the parents were married and, after five more children, they lived apart for the rest of their lives (my GGGM remarrying shortly after my GGGF died). Quite where the surname my GGF lived by all his life came from, who knows. Maybe he was actually fathered by a different man to that listed on his BC/Bapt, probably only a DNA test will prove. But it certainly threw open an entirely new branch for researching.
Hopefully, 2024 will do the same for my last remaining GGF wall.