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Hi,

I received my first disappointing copy of a Marriage Certificate through the post today - in fact, more sad than disappointing.

I'm trying to track the parentage of 'William Shepherd' and 'Ann Davis' who were married 30 July 1853.

My initial confusion is that William's father is listed on the certificate as William Majer (this could be Mayer or Major) - would this be his actual name, or is this a 19th Century version of 'senior' - indicating that their names were the same?

The other strange fact is that Ann Davis' father is listed as ____ Davis (Christian Name Unknown) - Labourer, does this really mean that Ann's mother had a liason with someone she only knew as a Mr Davis - or could there be another explanation do you think ?

They both were living in a workhouse in West Mersea at the time of their marriage - I was wondering if anyone would be able to perform a check of the 1851 Census for the West Mersea area to see if they were both living with parents / others at this point which could help me.

In 1851 - William would have been 26 and Ann 22 (although Mann at this point may have been in Sussex, which may complicate matters)

As a help, I have a hint that William's mother's name may have been 'Susannah' - but this is unconfirmed.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Richard

Hi, I'm looking for some help tracking down an ellusive individual.  I thought it would be a rather easy task due to her unusual first name, bur after trying both Ancestry and FreeBMD I've drawn a blank.

This is what I know so far:

Her name is ESSIE PRICE and from later census returns following her marriage, her place of birth is always listed as 'Durham'.

She was born in approx 1857, which would make her about 24 in the 1871 census.

I'm pretty confident that ESSIE isn't a shortened form of another name, as this is what has been listed on her Marriage & Death records.

So if anyone can turn something up, I would be very grateful.

Thanks
Richard

Hi,

I'm looking for some pointers to help me complete some missing bits of information.

From FamilySearch, I've managed to trace the following:

Husband's Name "Shepherd"
Born abt 1797 <West Mersea, Essex>
Married 1824 West Mersea, Essex

Wife's Name "Susanna"
Born 1801 West Mersea, Essex
Married 1824 West Mersea, Essex
Died 28 April 1861 West Mersea, Essex

I can't help thinking that I have enough information here to help me find out the first name of Mr Shepherd, and the maiden name of Susanna - but I just can't think how.

Annoyingly, all of their children (who I have managed to trace so far) were born prior to 1837 registration, so a birth certificate isn't an option.

Sadly I'm useless at logic puzzles, if anyone out there is any good at them and can help with this one, I would be very grateful.

Thanks
Richard

Last night my copy of Family Tree Maker reliably informed me that I have now reached the milestone of listing 100 names in my family tree.  A bit of a feat for me, as I only started my research 3 weeks ago - and I know that I am very much a baby in comparison of some of your years of study and thousands of entries.

So I'm taking a long look at what I have achieved so far - and I must admit, I think I've gone a bit mad by trying to do too much all at once.  I've probably done something which I would imagine is rather common - by running off all over the place, finding information relating to siblings of ancestors, and who they married and their descendants and parentage (even though, strictly speaking they are not really my ancestors).  So, should I re-focus my concentrations ?

I thnk that at the moment I have completely exhausted all of the information I can possibly glean from all of the available census records.  I have pre-dated the 1837 information, have tried all possible perumtations within the IGI and FreeBMD to locate information relating to my personal 'Brick Walls'.

I have experienced the thrill of opening an envelope from the GRO enclosing a copy of a birth certificate from 1860, which has enabled me to gain huge amounts of further information from a number of truly wonderful and generous individuals.

But.... apart from the information detailed on the census returns, all I really know about my ancestors are their names and some sketchy dates of birth / marriage / death.  Is this where the real fun starts ? - Do I now need to fill up my car with a large amount of petrol and start taking my family on day-trips to remote parts of various counties and let them have a wander about while I rummage in some dusty files ?

Richard (who is relaxing for a change with a large mug of Chai tea)