Admitting defeat on some ancestors.

[Treetotal]

Never say never, I have had a couple of brick walls knocked down here. Thanks to Sandra, I was able to find a lost Canadian great aunt who went to America.
Carol

[coombs]

Several of my Essex ancestors had Suffolk ancestors further back in the 1700s. Seems about 2 out of 3 of my Essex ancestors born 1800-1900 had at least one Suffolk born parent or grandparent. To think of the ones I have not yet found yet. Shows you may have to think outside the box as people did move around.

[brigidmac]

I too say never say never

It's amazing where snippets of information come from

I get a lot of bricks taken from walls thru DNA matches .
Today I looked at someone who interested me because of place of origin I hadn't come across the surname before . I looked at naturalization papers and saw he'd entered USA under a totally different surname which he used from then on .his original surname was very common .

Also I find looking at original baptisms can procure extra clues

+ Rootschat members have helped me find newspaper articles for the person I'm looking for  and are always coming up with new places to look which I don't know about .

School + court records can be very useful for years between census

[coombs]

I have thought about DNA testing for ancestry, I think I should jump on the DNA bandwagon. Although you may occasionally find an NPE, or the wrong line was researched but DNA sets you on the right line of that surname.

For those with lots of Essex ancestors, look at Suffolk records because as I said, a lot of migration into Essex from Suffolk in the 1700s and 1800s, and after. Lots of my South Suffolk lot ended up in South East Essex.

[pinefamily]

I concur with never say never.
Yes, London ancestors can be tricky at times, but this where thinking out of the square can help. As well as looking at all possibilities, look at all of the names of their children for any clues as to parents. Another laborious option is to look at any wills of pertinent surnames; you never know what come up.
I had an ancestor who married a widow in London. A good friend pointed out a middle name of one of their children which turned out to  be the maiden name of the mother. Coincidentally (and unrelated) it was also the surname of one of the church wardens of the parish.

[coombs]

I concur with never say never.
Yes, London ancestors can be tricky at times, but this where thinking out of the square can help. As well as looking at all possibilities, look at all of the names of their children for any clues as to parents. Another laborious option is to look at any wills of pertinent surnames; you never know what come up.
I had an ancestor who married a widow in London. A good friend pointed out a middle name of one of their children which turned out to  be the maiden name of the mother. Coincidentally (and unrelated) it was also the surname of one of the church wardens of the parish.

With London ancestors you will often find their kinfolk came from other areas of the UK, or abroad. Same with ancestors from other honeypot cities such as Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge etc.

As I said there was a huge internal migration into Essex from Suffolk hence why I have an ancestor born in Eastwood Essex in 1785, born to Essex born parents but all his grandparents came from South Suffolk.

[melba_schmelba]

Often we keep digging and digging for more info on an ancestor especially if they died pre census and BMD era and had a common name. But i think you may have to realise you have hit a dead end, especially with a common name. Unless you by miracle was to find a poor law record, or a will it may be more realistic to admit defeat rather than keep trying and looking into any faint leads only to throw up nothing.

One example is my 6xgreat grandmother Elizabeth Newman who wed in London in 1774. Witnesses seemed to be regular witnesses to the marriage to Samuel Auber at St Dunstan Stepney. The marriage record said they were of Ratcliff but they usually lived in Shoreditch. Samuel died in 1827 but have not been able to find a burial for Eliz Auber (Obey/Obee, variant) nee Newman. I have looked for local wills and marriages of other Newman's in the area to see if she was a witness but nothing.

I think she is one ancestor I may be on a hiding to nothing with in regards to her origins due to the common name and the fact she lived in London, as she may not have even been born or baptised in London. Never say never but I think it is unlikely I will find out her family outside husband and children.

I have come to learn people moved about a lot more than we'd think or expect, even before the coming of the railways. And their movements wouldn't necessarily be in the directions or to the places we might expect or be limited to certain occupations where we might expect moving large distances. So you might not expect a southerner to migrate to a midlands or northern city, but I have several cases of that happening.
  As I discussed in another thread I posted about Ireland (migrating from and to), but actually in general about 18th century debtors cases in the London Gazette, it would often give a chain of places where a person had lived, and I was really surprised by the variation and what high percentage of the people mentioned had moved about large distances, from a rural town in England, to London, to Cork city or Dublin in Ireland, to somewhere in the Americas etc.
  So, with a common name, it may well get to the point where it might be impossible to trace further. But even an uncommon name, if that person was born in Ireland or the Americas where the survival of baptismal registers (or in the Americas case, in the wilds, or at sea, whether someone was baptised at all), it may be no actual record of that person's birth survives. Wills are always worth checking though, if you have some hint of a place or surname or surnames to go on. Some family history societies have made will beneficiaries indexes for certain counties.

[coombs]

Usually genealogy/FH gets harder the further back you go as well all know, unless they were more well off, trades people, or really poor that they were the subject of settlement examinations/certs but those were only applicable to those who may require poor relief. Or you may be lucky to find an ancestor marrying in a certain parish saying they were of a parish 30 miles away. Like one of mine in Burford in far western Oxfordshire (near the Oxon/Gloucestershire border) who was from a parish in Buckinghamshire, a good 35 miles away as the crow flies, and about 50 by roads. He actually had a father who had connections with the village of Woburn in Bedfordshire.

An ancestor who was of Charlton on Otmoor in Oxon wed in Oxford city to a woman who was of Sparsholt in Berkshire. So a Berkshire ancestor marrying a man from Northern Oxfordshire.

[hepburn]

My Great Grandfather supposedly born in Montreal 1844...He was in London1864,married in stoke on trent 1868..Then goes to Canada  1886, dies in Kamloops 1903...I can't find a birth for him or why he came to London,or Stoke on Trent for that matter.