27 November 2010

Had to share this one

It's a pretty brisk morning here with some of the white stuff on the ground - not much, but I checked and it's not frost.  

So, cup of tea in hand I sat down to find some more Culpins, as you do.  For that reason I was searching for  people with the surname of Cross (again, as you do) and I found the following entry in March qtr 1905 in Ely: 

Snowflake Emily Cross

Honest!  I'm not making it up.  Sadly, not related to us but what a wonderful name to find -  if not, perhaps, to have.  I followed it up and found that she married Mr Goodes in 1931 and died in 1981, all in Ely.

Can't think I'm going to beat that one today but who knows .....  maybe coffee will help?

More soon.

17 November 2010

Name of the week

So there I was, just searching around for some distant Culpins and I found a lady with the rather stunning name of Emmeline Euphrosyne.  Apparently she, Euphrosyne, was the Greek goddess of good cheer, mirth and merriment so .... not much for the lady to live up to!!  I'm quite impressed with the name and I went to school with a Tryphena.

The other impressive find of the week was again on the distant Culpin side and involved a couple called Wallace and Mary Thoday.  They married in 1909 and had a small child by the time of the 1911 census, when they were living in Cambridge.  

Wallace is listed as a Demonstrator in Botany, Cambridge University and his wife as Fellow & Lecturer in Botany, Newnham College.  Newnham, by the way, is one of the few remaining women's colleges.  I wasn't sure whether the Fellow etc bit referred to husband or wife; I consulted one of my friends who suggested it might have been possible for Mary to be the Fellow so, point taken on board, I then went to the Newnham website.  And there I noted the email address of the college archvist.

On the basis of "if you don't ask ......", I sent her an email asking the obvious question and, within two hours, got a superb response telling me that Mary had been a student at Girton college (at the time, also a women's college) and that she became a Research Fellow at Newnham in 1909.

So, a "big up" (as the kids say) to the Newnham College Archivist for her kindness and her rapid response.  And let's hear it for Mary Thoday, nee Sykes, my first female Fellow!

More soon.

5 November 2010

EUREKA!!

What a cracking time I'm having, in a genealogical sense!  More people reading this blog and taking the trouble to email me .... most chuffed with that.

And, best of all, I've just found my great-great-great-great (that's four greats) grandmother!!!!  To be fair, I've known for a while that her name was Bridget and that she was born in Leith (according to the census and they're never wrong, are they??).  But, as I've probably said, the chances of my finding her without a surname were somewhere between "slim" and "fat".

Until today that is.  

I have been searching on the Family Search beta site (see https://beta.familysearch.org/) and there she was ..... Bridget Turnbull, wife of Thomas Brown and mother of Walter Brown, Thomas Turnbull Brown et al.  Bless them for giving Thomas, their eldest (and new to me) his mother's maiden name as a middle name - it's something I would always encourage as it makes it sooooo much easier to link children to the right family that way!!

One of my faithful followers will shortly read this and smile (I hope) in recognition of a conversation we had over lunch this very day on just this subject.

Right, I'm still bouncing with joy and I'm going off to do some more searching while my luck is in.

More soon.