Starting from scratch

[coombs]

In the past week or so I have been going through some of my ancestors with a fine tooth comb yet again looking for new clues, and it can be exhausting and time consuming and often with little to no breakthroughs in getting further back.

The amount of breakthroughs I have been able to find has been venturing into branches that aren't necessarily, directly related (or whom I'm searching for), but have had dealings of some sort with the person or relative I'm researching. Some of the common records; wills, depositions and deeds. And one that can be easily overlooked is the witnesses on marriage records.

Witnesses to marriage records are fundamental. I used to buy some parish register marriage record CDs but many of the 1754-1837 marriage records just noted the names, dates and parish and omitted the vital witnesses, it seems some were taken from bishops transcripts. Now more scans of original records are coming online, it is easier to get names of the witnesses. Although it can be a kick in the gut when you find the witnesses, or one of them was a regular witness.

I also look at the 1710-1811 apprenticeship duties paid, and find several of my ancestors was listed as a master or apprentice. For example in 1745 in Burford, Oxfordshire I found my ancestor James Gater took on Thomas Wentworth as a baker apprentice. James' father James Gater was a maltster and may have come from Lambourn in Berkshire, and there was Wentworth families there, and one of them was a baker.