Matrilineal line

[trish251]

Gosh Marie - I thought I was going well getting my mother's maternal line back to c. 1770 in Edinburgh - My gggg gmother's name is Janet Ross. I have her marriage but very difficult to get her parents.

Trish

[MarieC]

Trish,

It's probably a function of families living in a small village in Staffordshire and perhaps good parish records - though I am not sure how the researchers got back that far!  Not nearly as hard as a bigger place like Edinburgh, or, God help us, London, where I am stuck on a couple of my lines at the end of the eighteenth century, with no real chance of going further back unless a distant rellie with info miraculously emerges!!!  Why couldn't they have lived in the country?? 

MarieC

[Gadget]

I hope you checked it all Marie. Never take anything second hand.

Gadget

[kerryb]

If I take it from my grandmother, I have a further 3 generations.  When we were children my gran taught us a rhyme which was the names of her matrilineal line. 

Terry, Payne, Faulkner, Fowler - I think the next name was Sales or Sayers, hopefully I will find out soon!!!!!

Kerry

[MarieC]

I hope you checked it all Marie. Never take anything second hand.

Gadget

These are two experienced and careful researchers, Gadget, who have spent years checking and double checking.  I have no reason to doubt their findings, or reinvent their wheels, and I have other lines of research to follow.  At some point, in all activities of life, you and I and everyone else make decisions to trust others, or not.  Otherwise we would all be hopelessly bogged down in our various activities.

MarieC

[Gadget]

I'd still check though and expect anyone to check my findings.

Gadget

[MarieC]

Gadget

I work co-operatively with a few cousins, whose methods I trust, on a large volume of family history research.  We do not have time, nor access to each others' sources, to check all of each others' findings, though of course we ask questions from time to time to establish the validity of what others have found in our own minds, to check how they have reached certain conclusions.

As others on Rootschat have pointed out, family history is an inexact science.  No matter how scrupulous we are, at some level we need to trust the information that comes to us, or not, even on matters such as paternity.  We cannot prove it absolutely.  You will have done this.  I have certainly done it.  We all have. 

You do not know me or my co-researchers.  I do not know you or the methods you use, so certainly would not presume to give you unsought advice on your findings.

MarieC

[KathMc]

I research all sides (I can't stop; I get a name and I want to know more), and have found out that with one gg grandmother I can't check the paternal side, even if I wanted to. I believe her mother (my ggggrandmother) was a little on the racy side  . We have no father for her and I don't have any candidates.  I have recently discovered my 5th great grandmother, but people don't believe me: Dorcas Ann Mickelwright. Is it disrespectful to name a pet after a relative? I'm thinking my next cat, but my kids say no. 

Kathleen Stahl

[kerryb]

I'd still check though and expect anyone to check my findings.

Gadget

I agree with this, I have been given information from some really helpful people who have done lots of research but we are only human and can all make mistakes. 

I double check every bit of information given to me, whilst I trust the people who give me the information, I may have access to resources they don't that might shed a different light on things.  This hobby is reciprical and I may be able to send some information back to them.

I have had emails from people pointing out a couple of my mistakes too, usually because I make assumptions without investigating every possibility.

Kerry