New Year Resolutions

So, I set myself just the one resolution as 2011 turned the corner and that was to deal with correspondence within a reasonable time.  And ..... it's two weeks later ....... and my resolution has gone the way of so many before.

If you've taken the time and trouble to email me and you haven't had an answer, I can only apologise.  It's not deliberate, it's just that ..... I keep forgetting.

For example, I've just looked in the pile of paper which is a permanent fixture on the corner of the desk and discovered some correspondence from July last year.  It looks as though I have actually replied - to a chap who is related to my Freeman side and found the website - but I've hardly touched the information he sent me.  How ungrateful is that!

Interestingly, the website and this blog are beginning to bring quite a few queries, some of which come from "abroad".  Now, it may seem a bit daft in this age of world-wide-webs and stuff, but I am really thrilled to get emails from people in other countries.  If only they could have an airmail-envelope-type header on them, then my cup would be full.

Back in reality, I've finished the Music Festival paperwork for the moment so I've got a few minutes to give to my favourite occupation.  I guess the first thing is to read through the info from July!

More soon.

Tricky things, names!

Well, here we are in 2011 ...... Happy New Year, faithful reader, and may it be a good one for all of us.

I have been chasing down a distant ancestor who's been pretty elusive for a very simple reason - his name! It's reasonably 'normal'; he was born and christened into the family Travis. Then they started appearing in the census as Trevis. A bit of a nuisance but nothing that can't be solved with a wildcard search, using a * as the third character.

But now ...... he's gone to London and turned into Mr Trevers. Honestly, the Cambs accent isn't that strong. Is it?

I wonder why??

More soon.

Respectability at last!!

Well, bless my soul, I've just discovered a "Sir" in the tree!

Say hello to Sir William Henry Clarke (1847-1930), land agent & bank manager of Chatteris, Cambs.  He married Helen Florence Smith, daughter of John & Elizabeth (nee Dunn) in Gosport, Hants, in 1874 and they went on to produce five children ..... who, between them, grew up into two doctors, a director of coal merchants, and the First Matron of the War Memorial Hospital in Gosport.  

This information leapt off the internet at me from http://morawel.com and I'd like to thank the compiler, William Walker, for such a wealth of detail.

Merry Christmas.

More soon.

Piles & Piles

Ah ..... yes ..... now, you see .... I haven't abandoned you. honestly.  I've just been flitting around hither and thither and catching up on the pile of paper on the desk.  So far I've managed to decrease it by nearly a whole quarter-inch.

The problem is that I pick up a piece of paper - some of which, I'm ashamed to say, is months old - and read information that someone has kindly sent me.  And then put it down again.  Basically, I seem to ignore it.  "Embarrassed" just doesn't cover it.  My latest find in the "pending" pile was an email from a Freeman contact who gently pointed out a fairly glaring error in my research.

My gt-gt-gt-gt-gt-gt (six greats, I hope) grandmother Mary Armiger was actually a widow when she married William Freeman, having already married Francis Armiger and produced a daughter Mary.  Francis died a year or so before she remarried, in case you were wondering.  So, Mary Armiger was actually Mary Dean and I've known this since August and not done anything about it.  By the time you read this blog I will have changed the website ..... hopefully.

Thank you, Jennie, for the info - I've finally taken notice of it!  And, in the meantime, she also gave me a fairly major hint about Charles Freeman (1790-1875) which has sent me on another wonderful "journey" of research, claiming a few more Freemans for the tree.  Excellent!

And, just as exciting, I *may* have broken down a fairly major brickwall on my maternal side.  For quite a few years the tree stopped at Martha, who was the widow of John Bent when she married gt-gt-gt-grandpa Benjamin Langford in Chatteris in 1806.  Thanks to the new FamilySearch site, I have found that she was probably (no proof, remember) Martha Hatch.  

Mind you, I haven't managed to get any further back than her at the moment but at least the potential is there!

Onwards/backwards to the pending pile.

More soon.

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.

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.

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.