RootsChat.Com

Time flies and I've been so busy with work on the acreage. 

After finishing his degrees my son who is a pianist has decided that he wants to live in London and so is applying for a resident visa based on his grandfather John Henry Waller being born in England.

As per this thread and from elsewhere I believe we had sufficient evidence that John Henry Johnson, born with no mention of the father's name became John Henry Waller, travelling with John Waller to Canada.  There is, in my opinion plenty of circumstantial evidence for the application but Kerry is worried so I've wondered/tried to find evidence of the name change.  Is this impossible??

On a different note regarding this family tree I've been told that preceding the birth of Annie Elizabeth (Waller) Johnson there was another Annie who died at birth or shortly thereafter.  Would that likely be recorded??

Jack

Wow, this adds a bit to what I have known.  In the past there was an illegit birth and the fathers name was Robinson but the mother's name Waller was kept - I don't think/didn't know that my grandfather John Waller had a middle name or as a previous link seemed to say it was Robinson, but it could be.  Because of the the tree information we named our only son Kerry Robinson Waller.  He now resides in London England and has this challenge that he needs proof that his grandfather John Henry Waller was born in England (citizenship) but we don't have a document to show any change of name since he was born to my Grandmother Annie Johnson and he is documented as Johnson (War record shows Waller).  We do have the birth certificate showing Johnson and addresses that would suggest all this because it seems Annie worked for John (next door) whose wife had died earlier.

Boy, these comments are interesting.  Thanks.  I'm not even sure why I'm getting so intrigued by such things while other members of my family are quite disinterested, even to the point of not wanting to hear such things as some ancestors being born illegitimately.  Based on the tree information that was passed to me I've learned that I should actually be carrying the name Robinson, so I gave my son that middle name, kind of a token gesture, ha ha.  One ancestor had it as a first name, long long ago.

When I started digging a couple years ago, trying to confirm for myself that the tree information I'd been given was accurate and to expand upon it, I was struck by a number of things.  One was the negative attention paid to illegitimate but also how many there were.  Also, how easy it is to make assumptions that could be wrong based on the use of identical names and the lack of middle names and so forth.  I recall spending a whole night (til 9 AM!) just reading a Yorkshire parish record imagining all the interactions of the various people - seems one family in my tree was quite involved in the church.  I was struck by the uniformity of names in certain districts over many many years, etc. etc.

One old-timer (a relative I guess) kept a diary and in it was a brief comment that my grandfather whom I never knew had just left for Canada!  From my mother, I know he took my father (born to the next door neighbor's daughter, my Granny) who was two, with him and his children (quite a bit older) from a deceased wife.  I can recall my very elderly father, teary eyed, expressing that he never even "had a name".  What dynamics must have existed.  My Granny came two years later bringing her second child, a daughter with her.  Apparently they had to get married or the immigration wasn't going to be approved.  Granny was barely older than an older daughter of Grandpa's who had been looking after my father in Canada, and now I understand the affection my father had for aunt Mary and why granny had no use for her, LOL.  Then my grandfather died leaving my father who was about 8 to be the man of the house relative to Granny's side and  there were two more boys, one just a baby.  All the relatives who knew the secrets are now gone so here I am burning with curiosity and this desire to look far back.  Thankfully, I have an extensive tree that was passed to me, hard to believe!

I'd still love to hear if there are any books that really stand out as being both useful and interesting in combining history and genealogy as well as further pointers on how to maximize ones efforts given minimal free time.

Jack

New here at Rootschat and living in Canada.  Have a family tree that was done by a distant relative that goes back to a Waller in Swaledale, Yorkshire around 1600.  That made me curious as to what challenges exist when dates get back that far.  It stands to reason that records get lost etc., but are there particular events that caused things to really break down at certain dates?

Jack