Admitting defeat on some ancestors.

[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.

You won’t find a birth record in Montreal in 1844, but you might find a baptism.  Have you checked the Drouin collection on Ancestry?

Ive checked Parish records on Family Search..I don't have a sub for Ancestry

Ancestry are giving free access up to 8th May 2023.

The shrunk url link

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01s9z/

Missed it!

[Marmalady]

My brick wall is my 3x Great Grandmother

Her first name is Eliza, and on the 1851 census she gave her birthplace as the Isle of Wight.
Her surname might be Warburg / Warbury (spelling varies on different transcriptions) as this name appears in later generations.

She married my 3x great Grandfather James Whitney sometime around 1820 plus or minus about 5 years.

He was born in Herefordshire, had previously married Avis Wilson in 1814 in London. They had a child born & died 1815 in Rickmansworth Hertfordshire
By 1841, James & Eliza were back in Hereford with son Edwin born about 1825 (born in county)

What happened to Avis and when / where James & Eliza married is a mystery!

[coombs]

You would think you could find a marriage in the UK as recently as c1810-1820 but again they may never have walked down the aisle but paraded as married or a small chance the record was destroyed, or they wed in a parish not yet indexed. Never give up hope.

Like I say, my George Coombs and Sarah (Nee Unknown) wed c1810, ahd their first child in 1812 in London. I have kept a beady eye on the 1810 marriage of Geo Coombs to Sarah Davy in Axminster in Devon but the original says Sarah was a widow, when my Sarah would only have been about 20 at the time so would have to be a very young widow, or she gave wrong info as they wed by license. Then again if she had said spinster I may have been tempted to add the marriage to my tree, when there would still be a small chance it was not the right George and Sarah.

[pinefamily]

In a post above, I did say never say never.  But like many examples already described,  there are some hurdles that could be described as insurmountable.
The bombing of Exeter Cathedral in 1942 saw the loss of a lot of West Country wills, so my Pine/Pyne research is stuck in the early 17th century.
Irish ancestors can pose a problem if a location isn't known.
And I don't even want to think about my mysterious Chinese ancestry found in a DNA test....

[coombs]

In a post above, I did say never say never.  But like many examples already described,  there are some hurdles that could be described as insurmountable.
The bombing of Exeter Cathedral in 1942 saw the loss of a lot of West Country wills, so my Pine/Pyne research is stuck in the early 17th century.
Irish ancestors can pose a problem if a location isn't known.
And I don't even want to think about my mysterious Chinese ancestry found in a DNA test....

Also marriage licenses often say they was "21 years and over" and some underage people would have lied about their age, no double checking in those days. They did not have to show proof of age or baptism back then. One ancestor William Inkpen was a college servant in Oxford, and he wed by license in 1765 and it said he was "over 21" so born at least by 1744 presumably. Inkpen is not an Oxfordshire surname either, so he may have been a stray.

[Caw1]

Love the surname Inkpen… there are some wonderful ones that you just don’t hear of these days!

Caroline

[pinefamily]

Coombs, also lowering or raising ages on marriage licences and certificates to be closer in age to their spouse is another issue we have to contend with.

[Rena]

In a post above, I did say never say never.  But like many examples already described,  there are some hurdles that could be described as insurmountable.
The bombing of Exeter Cathedral in 1942 saw the loss of a lot of West Country wills, so my Pine/Pyne research is stuck in the early 17th century.
Irish ancestors can pose a problem if a location isn't known.
And I don't even want to think about my mysterious Chinese ancestry found in a DNA test....

Also marriage licenses often say they was "21 years and over" and some underage people would have lied about their age, no double checking in those days. They did not have to show proof of age or baptism back then. One ancestor William Inkpen was a college servant in Oxford, and he wed by license in 1765 and it said he was "over 21" so born at least by 1744 presumably. Inkpen is not an Oxfordshire surname either, so he may have been a stray.

There's a village with the name of Inkpen near Hungerford, Berkshire, which is about 35  miles from Oxford.

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/BRK/Inkpen

[coombs]

That may be the ancient origin of the surname Inkpen, at Inkpen in Berkshire. Although in the 1700s about 99% of them outside the honeypot capital London were in either Kent, Dorset or Sussex. William had only 2 children William and James, but his wife's dad was called James. William died in 1769 but was listed shortly before as a publican at a pub at St Peter In The East. William may have come from Dorset originally and moved to Oxford for work, or from SE England.