What is the biggest mystery in your tree?

[aspin]

On July 19th I entered my mystery I did say I was paying for a search well it came on Friday and was I supprised and feel it was well worth it

Adam McKenzie was one of 11 children

I have his mother father and even some deaths 

Elizabeth

[PaulaToo]

That's what we like to hear, aspin. very pleased for you.
Paula

[perilsofpauline1]

Congratulations Elizabeth!!  Though you paid for a search, its just nice to hear of a mystery solved. I'm hoping that this topic might solve other's mysteries as well!
Pauline in Oz

[MarieC]

My greatest mystery is the disappearance of my grandfather Francis Patrick KELLY.

Kelly,

Your man sounds as though he was of Irish descent.

Two suggestions:

1.  When he left his wife, he might have floated off over the Irish Sea to the land of his forebears.  I know Irish bmd records exist, but are a little hard to come by.  It may be worth searching for them.

2.  Or he may have emigrated.  Many people of Irish background came to Australia, and also went to the US.  There are shipping records on the Net - would it be worth looking there?

If the family deeply disapproved of his leaving his wife, he may have become as one dead to them, particularly if he went elsewhere!

Just a few thoughts...

Pauline, I too hope this thread may help to solve some people's mysteries!!

MarieC

[1]

My Great-great-grandfather Robert SHARP is one of my mysteries.
He was baptised on  12 October 1823 at Lydden, Kent.
He migrated to New Zealand with his father, brother and sister, leaving England in December 1841, and settled near Nelson.
He married in January 1849 and subsequently fathered 9 children to his wife.
He purchased land.
He registered as a voter.
His father died in 1875.
He sold his land on 02 October 1878.
AND then he disappeared.

His wife re-married in 1887, and stated on her Notice of Intention to Marry (like a marriage license) that her husband had died on 21 June 1883.
His death notice was published in late June 1892, stating that he had died at Sydney in June 1892.
His death is not registered in New Zealand, nor Australia.

I have a Death Certificate for a Robert SHARP, aged 60,  who died in the Workhouse at Plymouth, Devon on 07 November 1883. 

One family story says that Robert had become disheartened with New Zealand and went back to England.  Therefore the death certificate could be for him.  I can find no other Robert Sharp who fits the profile of the one in the death certificate in the 1881 census.

Another family story says that he left Nelson by boat for Wellington, NZ, and never arrived.  I.E. he went overboard, but nothing like that is reported.

So where's my Robert?  Is he still alive somewhere, waiting for me to claim him at 180+??

Tangled

[PaulaToo]

You've got the same problem as me with my Henry Moore, Tangled. He came from nowhere to marry My Eliza Ann, and then disappeared. I'll bet he's on the same pink cloud as your Robert, having a pint and laughing at us.

[alllegs]

Well with immense thanks to Jane Harvey, my mystery has been cleared up some what.  My great grandma has been found on the 1901 living with her aunt and uncle Matthew and Charlotte Steel.  Her birth year is earlier than that ages given on her marriage and death certificates.  What confirmed the detail was that her obituary stated her maiden name was Steel, I presumed it was just a mistake as I know she was a Williams.  So I now believe that her parents both died when she was a child and she was brough up by ther aunt and uncle and whoever put the obit in the paper presumed she was there daughter.  I have also found the marriage of her parents, William Williams and Jane Thomas and traced Janes family back to Wales on the censuses.  William is the only fly in my ointment as I cannot find him on a census as yet.

I hope you all get your mysteries sorted (go to the rootschat chatroom and ask Jane Harvey - she's a star!)

Good luck to you all
Legs
xxxx

[Gadget]

I've got a 3 x great grandmother Catherine Stokes,nee Jones (1792 - ??)
Got her baptism record.
Got her marriage record
Got the baptismal records of most of her children
Got the death cert of her husband - 1839 - typhus
Got her in the 1841 census, Bronygarth, St Martins Parish, Shropshire
Then zilch, nothing, disappears from view. A cousin and I have been searching for a death cert or burial record for at least two years. We've checked all the neighbouring parishes. We've checked around Willenhall in Staffs where her sons moved to. The Shropshire records Office have checked........nothing
We've checked the same to see if there was a re-marriage..............nothing
She couldn't have been buried if she hadn't a death cert could she?

So is she still out there somewhere, walking the lanes of the Welsh borders looking for her sons?

I checked those out last year - no shadowy presences.

Gadget 

[stonechat]

Hi

A family book records the death of Elizabeth Boyce Donaldson (nee Douglas) on 18 Sep 1867 aged anly 32
(Sadly her husband died the following year leaving 6 children). Where is not recorded, but they were apparently living in a farm , part of the Uppark Estate (Petworth), though this

There is no death record at all - it was either not registered, or missed when the indexes were made

I would really like to know what happened to her.


Bob