RootsChat.Com

What do you do if you realise ancestry hints may be sending people up the garden path? Do you bother reaching out to them?

Today I managed to work out that one of my ancestors parents was a completely different person to the set of parents suggested by Ancestry. This particular ancestry hint isn't an egregious error as it does fit a lot of the facts (I made the same mistake myself at first), but a careful reading of an associated will suggested that it was actually incorrect.

What depresses me slightly is seeing all the ancestry-suggested trees that have replicated the error. I kind of want to send messages to everyone letting them know, but with the way Ancestry is, that'd be a lot of messaging!

What are people's thoughts? Do you reach out, or do you prefer to let people go their own way?

So I think I've made a bit of an error in a recent addition to my family tree and I wondered if other rootschatters could cast an eye over the following before I update my tree with my (believed) correction.

So I'm pretty confident in my tree up until Mary Blakemore, my 8x great grandmother. She married a William Rutter in 1716. Their marriage license documents list her as being of Blymhill and 'around 30 years of age'. This puts her birth at around 1686.

Where I think an error possibly crept in is that I found a 1686 Blymhill parish baptism for a Mary Blakemore, daughter of Thomas and Mary. I thought that was probably the right one and started looking into surrounding relatives to see if I could find any confirmation.

I then found a 1718 will for a Thomas Blakemore - but the listed relations don't exactly match up. For example, he mentions a son-in-law William Blakemore. The only Blakemore marrying Blakemore I can find that matches up with Thomas and Mary's children is a 1713 marriage between William Blakemore and Mary Blakemore. Given that the other children in the will match up with Thomas and Mary's surviving children (William Blakemore, Joseph Blakemore) I'm starting to think this Mary Blakemore may be the one born in 1686, and not my ancestor.

John's wife in the will is different, Cassandra rather than Mary - but I believe this is a second marriage as it seemingly took place in Blymhill in the 1690s. There's also a grand-daughter I can't exactly place - a Sarah Blakemore of Pattingham, but hopefully you can see why I'm starting to doubt the link.

I've since found a baptismal record for a Mary Blakemore in Blymhill in 1682, born the illegitimate daughter of Hannah Blakemore. I have no other corroborating evidence as yet, but I'm starting to think this entry is more likely to be my ancestor.

What do people think? Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Has anyone ever seen someone's name change in between the Banns record and the actual parish marriage record?

I have a Banns record for a Richard Highvy (spelling variation of Heighway) marrying a Sarah Stephenson in Blymhill, Staffordshire in 1806. The Banns were read on the 5th, 12th and 19th of January respectively.

Normally I would presume the marriage then took place on the 19th, but I can find no record of it. There does seem to be a marriage record for the 23rd of January, but it's a John Highvy listed as marrying Sarah Stephenson, not Richard. The parishes of the bride and groom are the same across both records and the same Rector who wrote the Banns also filled in the marriage record.

It's an odd case, has anyone ever seen anything like it?

Hey all,

I've just discovered that my great grandfather apparently had an elder half-sibling that I had no idea existed. His mother Mary Ann Hughes had had the child, Charles Hughes, at 17. He was baptised in Albrighton, Shropshire in 1874.

She went on to marry and live with her new family in Pattingham, while Charles stayed in the home of his grandparents, Thomas and Jane Hughes in Albrighton, along with Mary Ann's other siblings, Richard, Sarah Jane and Clara Alice. Charles is found there in the 1881 and 1891 censuses - by 1891 he's working as a postman and his aunt Sarah Jane is working as the general domestic servant of the proprietor of Pattingham post office.

Sarah Jane dies just a year later in 1892. In the 1901 census, Thomas and Jane are living with Richard in Albrighton, and Clara is working as the domestic servant of a local butcher's family. Everyone is accounted for except Charles.

I can find no matching record of him in either 1901 or 1911, nor have I yet found a death record for him. I suppose that emigration is a possibility, but I wouldn't know where to start looking on that front.

Any thoughts on what I may be missing?

Currently looking at a baptismal record from 1828 from the parish of Stirchley, just outside of Telford. The family's abode is given as 'Omar' (see attached image). I may have misread the first letter, but I'm fairly sure I have it right.

I can't find any reference to any place of that name in the nearby area. Do any local Rootschatters have any idea where this place may be? Skipping through the surrounding pages, I've yet to find another family listed in the same location.

Thanks in advance!