« Reply #384 on: Monday 12 October 15 21:15 BST (UK) »
You spend all day touring villages your ancestors lived at, and looking at every name on every headstone, even the more weathered ones.
It's even worse when you start talking about these people as if you'd known them
I remember my cousin getting annoyed with me when she asked if I knew who lived in a nearby house and I proceeded to tell her the entire history of both the house and the family who used to live there along with their local connections, where in the churchyard they were buried, etc. but I couldn't tell her the name of the present occupants
Yesterday I went round Bletchingdon and Wootton in Oxfordshire, very hilly and picturesque and has totally changed my vision of how they lived and the location now I have been there. Oxfordshire is like a southern Lake District. In the 2 aforementioned villages I looked at every name on every headstone and when I got in the car there was grass and mud all over the mat.
Yes it is like we knew them, and 2 of them died in 1854 and 1858 respectively. Also the one who died in 1854 had a daughter in 1842, my 3xgreat grandmother.
Researching:
LONDON, Coombs, Roberts, Auber, Helsdon, Fradine, Morin, Goodacre
DORSET Coombs, Munday
NORFOLK Helsdon, Riches, Harbord, Budery
KENT Roberts, Goodacre
SUSSEX Walder, Boniface, Dinnage, Standen, Lee, Botten, Wickham, Jupp
SUFFOLK Titshall, Frost, Fairweather, Mayhew, Archer, Eade, Scarfe
DURHAM Stewart, Musgrave, Wilson, Forster
SCOTLAND Stewart in Selkirk
USA Musgrave, Saix
ESSEX Cornwell, Stock, Quilter, Lawrence, Whale, Clift
OXON Edgington, Smith, Inkpen, Snell, Batten, Brain