Myths debunked when doing family histroy.

[coombs]

Another myth is that you should be able to always find a record of a death of someone. It is easier from civil registration onwards but even then not always. Workhouse burials where the registers do not survive, non conformist burials, lost at sea, went missing and never identified etc, and so on.

Lots of overseers ratebooks and disbursement books for Essex are on FamilySearch for a number of parishes. I was able to pinpoint an ancestor's death year by this, as it said "William Ingram Snr" for September 1794 ratebooks but for Dec 1794 it said "Widow Ingram" for what seems to be the same property as the neighbours names are the same. No burial can be found in Leigh On Sea for him in 1794 but he may have been buried elsewhere or in a workhouse cemetery or NC grounds. Also the family were mariners so worked in a dangerous job, and he may have been lost at sea.

Handy to use such books if a burial cannot be found.

Many children were baptised late because they were just about to start work, and employers insisted on it. If the child did not know, then s/he'd be baptised again "just in case",

My maternal grandfather was baptised at the same time as his younger sister, which helped with his lying about his birthday!

My great gran was baptised as a baby in Oxford in 1895, then baptised again in March 1910 in Hackney, London. She was staying at a Hackney convent at the time and by 1911 census she was a servant at Bexhill in Sussex. The 1911 census says the convent had people "training for domestic service".

[DianaCanada]

My Quaker ancestor was baptized the day she got married.  She married C of E.  I am not sure where she was born - I did find her birthdate recorded in Quaker records along with some of her siblings, but no mention of her birthplace.  Very likely in the area of Barnoldswick, Yorks., or just over the border in Lancashire.  She married in Hornby, Lancs.

[jim234j]

My wife was baptized one week before we got married 56 years ago.
  I cant remember why this took place but it was done in private. There was my wife, myself and the Anglican minister.
I have always said I am her husband and godfather and godmother....

[sylvia (canada)]

... Sometimes we almost wonder if we exist, or are we figments of someone's imagination!
"I research, therefore I am" or were we dropped down by aliens???
(Bad day, so far - need to stop taking things seriously"
TY

I fear my Dad's Cadd family certainly were aliens!

It doesn't seem that any of the numerous searchers, including myself, have ever found out where and when John Cadd was born or lived before he married Catherine Mas(s)on on December 14 1741 in Edgcot)t), Buckinghamshire. There have been guesses that he was born in Edgecot(t) in 1720, or even in 1729 ( ), but I have never seen the proof of that. He died on February 22 1800 in Hillesden, Buckinghamshire.

[Erato]

It's hard to see how some of these things can be considered "myths" or even commonly held, but erroneous, beliefs.

"the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in"
"Everyone should be on the censuses ..."
"you should be able to always find a record of a death"

These may be misapprehensions held by some, but they're not myths.  A myth is a traditional story handed down from generation to generation.  They are the things you heard at your mother's knee or simplified historical 'facts' you learned in elementary school.  Myths put spin on historical reality; they teach us the accepted party line.   But who among us grew up beleving anything at all, whether true or false, about censuses or death records?  Censuses and BMDs are not the subjects of mythology.

There are genealogical myths, though.  For example, that North America was largely settled by people who were fleeing religious persecution.  Some settlers were, but not the majority.   That is a myth.

[DianaCanada]

It's hard to see how some of these things can be considered "myths" or even commonly held, but erroneous, beliefs.

"the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in"
"Everyone should be on the censuses ..."
"you should be able to always find a record of a death"

These may be misapprehensions held by some, but they're not myths.  A myth is a traditional story handed down from generation to generation.  They are the things you heard at your mother's knee or simplified historical 'facts' you learned in elementary school.  Myths put spin on historical reality; they teach us the accepted party line.   But who among us grew up beleving anything at all, whether true or false, about censuses or death records?  Censuses and BMDs are not the subjects of mythology.

There are genealogical myths, though.  For example, that North America was largely settled by people who were fleeing religious persecution.  Some settlers were, but not the majority.   That is a myth.

Only in your part of North America. There is no Canadian myth about the first Europea settlers fleeing religious persecution; they were French men and women who continued to practice Catholicism in New France. 
Many of the early settlers here of English and German backgrounds were fleeing the American Revolution.
The large number of early Scots who came here worked in the fur trade.  No fleeing religious persecution that I have ever heard.

[sylvia (canada)]

It's hard to see how some of these things can be considered "myths" or even commonly held, but erroneous, beliefs.

"the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in"
"Everyone should be on the censuses ..."
"you should be able to always find a record of a death"

These may be misapprehensions held by some, but they're not myths.  A myth is a traditional story handed down from generation to generation.  They are the things you heard at your mother's knee or simplified historical 'facts' you learned in elementary school.  Myths put spin on historical reality; they teach us the accepted party line.   But who among us grew up beleving anything at all, whether true or false, about censuses or death records?  Censuses and BMDs are not the subjects of mythology.

There are genealogical myths, though.  For example, that North America was largely settled by people who were fleeing religious persecution.  Some settlers were, but not the majority.   That is a myth.

Only in your part of North America. There is no Canadian myth about the first Europea settlers fleeing religious persecution; they were French men and women who continued to practice Catholicism in New France. 
Many of the early settlers here of English and German backgrounds were fleeing the American Revolution.
The large number of early Scots who came here worked in the fur trade.  No fleeing religious persecution that I have ever heard.

I agree, religious persecution did not enter into the reason for the early settlers coming to Canada. They were here to make fortunes in the fur trade. We also must never forget the Blacks fleeing slavery via the Underground Railway, large numbers ended up in Nova Scotia and in BC.

Religious persecution did enter into immigration into Canada but not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially from certain areas of Europe .... Doukhobor, Mennonite, Amish, etc ........ but that is well-documented!

[Erato]

"I agree, religious persecution did not enter into the reason for the early settlers coming to Canada"

And the same applies to the early settlers of the thirteen colonies that later became the United States - most of them were not religious refugees. It is estimated that some one-half to two-thirds of the early European colonists were indentured servants who supplied labor. They were not seeking religious relief. They were economic migrants merely hoping to survive long enough to gain their freedom and their own economic agency. That they had the possibility to do so is what distinguished them from the fully enslaved people who were shipped in from Africa.  There were also some 100,000 English convicts transported to the colonies.  Nevertheless, it is a fundamental right-wing belief that a burning desire for religious liberty was the motivating principle that brought settlers to the New World.  It is a bedrock myth that provides a source of righteous justification to their claims that the United States was intentionally founded as a Christian nation.

[Kiltpin]

Exactly, Erato.

Not wanting to stir up controversy, but I converse with a great number of Americans and find that most are woefully ignorant about their own history.  And presenting them with referenced facts to the contrary makes no difference at all. And the Christianity that was practised in 1776 is EXACTLY like the Christianity that they practice today ...   


Sorry for any offence. 

Regards 

Chas