RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Towdlass on Monday 22 April 19 11:11 BST (UK)
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I have done quite a lot of work on my family tree over the years but I have hit a brickwall with my maternal grandfather. I've tried everything including DNA but to no avail so far. I've even posted on this site for help and people have offered advice but I'm beginning think that my brain is getting old and I can understand so far but then it just seems to stop being able to work out what to do next. I'm wondering how much it would cost to ask an expert to just help me over this hurdle. Being a pensioner I realise that I may not be able to afford it so this is just a request for a ball-park figure of the possible cost? Does anyone have any idea? ???
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Hi, well we can try to help.
Name of Ancestor?
Approx. year of Birth, death and Marriage.
The country where they were born or where they went to live and country of death.
Any unusual names of children.
Any little snippet would help.
Maggsie
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Old threads re this issue
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=724593.0
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=725473.msg5697817#msg5697817
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As you will see Maggsie from Mckha489's post this is a search which I have been in the throes of for many years. I have done a lot of work on it and have lots of certificates etc. You will also see if you follow the links all the details of my search but as I mentioned in this post I am thinking that my old brain is just not up to understanding how to use my DNA results to work out the answer I seek. I've tried everything else that I can think of but to no avail. That's why I wondered if I could afford to ask an expert to just help me with this one question or if it would be too expensive.
Pat
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To answer your original question, as a general guide many qualified professional researchers will charge between about £20 and £35 per hour, although a few may be cheaper and some a lot more expensive.
You may find the advice on this page useful ...
https://www.agra.org.uk/research
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Interestingly enough, Edith Annie Toulson married Charles Parker in Ecclesall Bierlow, West Riding of Yorkshire, circa June 1934. Edith was born in Ecclesall Bierlow, West Riding of Yorkshire.
Edward Foster Stephenson was born, circa September 1863, in Hemsworth, West Riding of Yorkshire and died in March 1930 in Ecclesall Bierlow, West Riding of Yorkshire. Could this just be a coincidence??
Malky
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Has the likes of this been fully investigated??
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=724593.msg5766972#msg5766972
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I have the marriage certificate of Enoch Harrison and Edith Annie Toulson. I have also investigated them and I can't find any obvious connection with my gran Edith Annie Toulson. There were a lot of Toulsons living in Sheffield at that time. There must have been a connection way back in the dim and distant though but I couldn't find it.
Pat
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There are one or two wonderful DNA specialists on here that may be able to help ---- Not me sorry I am pathetic at it .. and I have read ALL of your work on finding this Grandfather.. darn it you sure have tried..
Maybe 'he is NOT worthy'
Anyhow apart from all that I absolutely love YOUR AVATAR
beautiful lady
xin
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Thank you Xinia, I thought that she looks beautiful too. As you say I have really tried hard to find my grandfather. Obviously I really want to know who he was and what his story might have been but also his whole branch is closed to me until I find him. I did think, at one time, that he might have been Edward Foster Stephenson, or his son Edward, as I thought I had found a link, tenuous but a possible link. However, after diligently searching through his tree I can't prove it. Thanks for your reply.
Pat
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Interestingly enough, Edith Annie Toulson married Charles Parker in Ecclesall Bierlow, West Riding of Yorkshire, circa June 1934. Edith was born in Ecclesall Bierlow, West Riding of Yorkshire.
Edward Foster Stephenson was born, circa September 1863, in Hemsworth, West Riding of Yorkshire and died in March 1930 in Ecclesall Bierlow, West Riding of Yorkshire. Could this just be a coincidence??
Malky
Hi Malky,
Edward Foster Stephenson was married and lived in Tullibardine Road, Greystones in Sheffield right up to his death in 1930. The fact that he died in 1930 made me wonder if he could be my grandfather but another 'coincidence' was that he was a silversmith and my grans next door neighbours were also silversmiths and their surname was Foster. It's all circumstantial I know. I have tried to discover if there was a connection between the two families but with no luck. Edward Foster Stephenson also had a son named Edward who never married and lived at home with his parents. However, I think he was a bit too young to have been my g/father.
Charles Oliver Parker lodged with my gran and Edward according to the 1930 ER. They were married in 1934 but the marriage didn't last and in 1939 he is living in Michael Road off Clarence St. in Sheffield without my gran. Btw I met C.O. Parker many years later.
I really do feel that my best chance of sorting this out is through the DNA but no matter how I try to understand what to do I seem to lose the thread somehow. Thank you for looking at it Malky.
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To answer your original question, as a general guide many qualified professional researchers will charge between about £20 and £35 per hour, although a few may be cheaper and some a lot more expensive.
You may find the advice on this page useful ...
https://www.agra.org.uk/research
I shall have a look at this Bookbox. Thank you so much.
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Don't give up. Sources local to where they lived may be able to help, and professional researchers can cost the earth. I had a mystery ancestor of my OH who was documented from 1891, living in Lancashire, and his birth was documented in 1867in Wales - but I couldn't sort out anything else about him, no matter how I tried! I quite literally did spend years tracing through 1871 and 1881 censuses for all James, or Henry, (his christian names were James Henry) with a birthdate 2 years either side of his, and mother Mary ( she'd vanished too!) and had a list of about 50, and started trying to whittle it down, but then I tried a site locally to where he'd lived, and after a load of hunting, came to realise that Mary and son had not obly bolted off shortly after his birth from the home village, but had spent the intervening years with man other than JH's father, and that man also had vanished from his family, apprearing on no census after 1861, but no death details. The couple and the boy had adopted a different, and very common surname, and the man had also taken about the most common christian name, in place of his own, and they were both eventually on censuses in the general area that JH later lived in. The had another son as well as JH, later, and he must have been told the truth, because when the man Mary had run off with died, this younger son had him buried under his real name, and reverted to that surname himself. JH spent some time using either his mother's real original surname or that of his real father, that he had been registered at birth under .... and eventually his children settled on that surname! Whew, that was complicated, but a couple of chance discoveries helped us to get on the trail, and even prove it all, so - don't despair, you may well be able to get there. Keep plugging on.
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Can anyone suggest any DNA experts on RC so Towdlass can bring the issue to their attention & see if they can help with the results?
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Can anyone suggest any DNA experts on RC so Towdlass can bring the issue to their attention & see if they can help with the results?
Perhaps some of the posters on the Ancestry DNA board might be able to help?
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ThrelfallYorky thanks for your reply but I've been searching for the best part of 20 years and I just want to know what the answer is so that I can then fill in that branch of my tree. If I could find out it would be like a weight lifted I've been searching for so long.
Josey thanks for that. I just wish someone would come forward who knows about DNA and just give me some help to get over this hurdle. I'd be so grateful.
IgorStrav I did have a look at Ancestry as I am a member but it really is very expensive. I was hoping that I could find someone who I can talk to who would understand that I just want help with this one thing and that perhaps this wouldn't cost too much. I realise it's charged by the hour but someone who understand DNA might not take too long to sort it out. I hope. ???
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IgorStrav I did have a look at Ancestry as I am a member but it really is very expensive. I was hoping that I could find someone who I can talk to who would understand that I just want help with this one thing and that perhaps this wouldn't cost too much. I realise it's charged by the hour but someone who understand DNA might not take too long to sort it out. I hope. ???
No I mean here on the Rootschat DNA board?
Can you post a link to this thread there?
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IgorStrav I did have a look at Ancestry as I am a member but it really is very expensive. I was hoping that I could find someone who I can talk to who would understand that I just want help with this one thing and that perhaps this wouldn't cost too much. I realise it's charged by the hour but someone who understand DNA might not take too long to sort it out. I hope. ???
No I mean here on the Rootschat DNA board?
Can you post a link to this thread there?
Towdlass, I have copied this thread to the Ancestry DNA Board here - fingers crossed you may get some specific help there?
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=812160.new#new
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Thank you IgorStrav. I'm not sure I would have been able to do it. You are very kind.