Tag: break down brick walls

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Sometimes you just have to visit your ancestors’ town

Last weekend, after a truly enjoyable day at The Family History Show, South West in Bristol, I then headed down for a rendezvous in Devon with some of my first cousins.

Our paternal line hails from Dartmouth, Devon and like so many family history researchers we have some brick walls that we would like to knock down. By using research on the internet we have come up with an address for our ancestor’s home. The problem being that in the 1861 census they lived in Mill Pond, a name of a road that is no longer in existence.

 

1861 Census identifies ancestor at Mill Pond, Dartmouth

The enumerator’s route

I am always surprised that more researchers are not aware that each census enumerator’s route can be found by scrolling back through the household images on some of the subscription sites.

 

The Enumerator’s route from the records on TheGenealogist website, provide by The National Archives

 

This tells me that Mill Pond was just after Mariner’s Place and before Market Square. But even an old map doesn’t pinpoint where these dwellings were!

In the end I resorted to walking the area myself and as I turned into Market Square I noticed that a large house had a sign giving its name as Mill Pond House along with its number in Market Street (as opposed to Market Square). This was my first clue as to where this long gone street name may have once been.

Now I know that my ancestors were not that wealthy to have lived in this house, but what it does prove that by actually visiting an area you can sometimes make more headway than you can from behind your computer screen.

That being said, it was down to searching out the enumerator’s route on TheGenealogist website* that gave me the tools to walk the correct area!

 

*Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links. This does not mean that you pay more just that I make a percentage on the sales from my links. The payments help me pay for the cost of running the site. You may like to read this explanation here: http://paidforadvertising.co.uk

 

The Genealogist - UK census, BMDs and more online

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An early Christmas gift

 

.First christmas card

Its starting to feel a bit like Christmas, as I wrap the presents for some of my family today. Once I had finished doing this I thought that I’d better get in the festive mood on the blog as well and so I did a trawl of Wikipedia to find a picture of what is thought to be the first Christmas card produced.

The image above is of that very first in the line of seasonal greetings cards that we all now send. Commissioned by Sir Henry Cole, in 1843, he sold them for a shilling each. Sir Henry is best known as the man who had helped introduce the Uniform Penny Post, in 1840, to Britain and his Christmas card, illustrated by John Callcott Horsley, would have encouraged people to make use of the postal service.

The picture in the middle is meant to depict three generations of a family who are toasting the person to whom the card has been sent, while the other panels show scenes of charitable giving of food and clothing to the poor.

 

As it is the time of year to give gifts I decided that I should drop the price of my best selling English/Welsh family history course – at least from now until New Year’s day – as my Christmas present to you.

The English/Welsh Family History course has had tremendous feedback

If  you are struggling to find your English or Welsh ancestors and break down your brick walls, then you would do well to take a look. With this course you will quickly learn where to research on and offline, what resources to use and gain some useful tips and techniques.

To read more click one of the links here and make a seasonal saving:

 

 

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A very Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year

 

 

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Family History Tip: Focus on one thing

Stoneywell typewriter

“Give me a tip on how to break down my brick wall!” said the old fashioned letter I received in my post box.

“Just try to focus your attention on one bit of information that you want to find out about and stop chasing all the other results about your ancestor!” I replied in my note back, “at least until you find the answer to your burning question.”

What I meant by this, and explained further in my reply, is that so often we set out to find something about an ancestor but get distracted. When we enter the person’s name, into the search box on the data site, all the other records that are presented to us can be a distraction. Like the proverbial kid in the sweet shop we go off dipping into this one and the next and soon we have strayed from what we went onto the site in the first place for.

So if my correspondent’s brick wall was where their ancestor lived in a certain time period, then that is what they should zoom in on while leaving all the other records to one side and pursue this goal.

I remember seeing this advice given recently on the Family History Daily website and it makes so much sense. http://familyhistorydaily.com/tips-and-tricks/6-tips-for-more-effective-genealogy-searches/

The writer of the tips article does advise you to save any other interesting information that you have turned up to go back to and look at later, but they strongly advise against getting sidetracked.

Keep working on the one piece of information only and if the records you are looking through turn up nothing, tweak your search again and again until you are satisfied that you have explored every angle.

I do love the data websites that allow you to Search All Records, as sometimes it is exciting and useful to use this option; but when we have a brick wall to smash down our best option is often to restrict our search to a particular database and then try various spellings and other variations to see if we can tease out the information we require. There are other techniques that you can also use as well, but this is a really good place to start.

I hope this idea helps someone this week get past a logjam in their research.

 

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