A restless man ...

Happy St David's Day to you!

I don't know that I have any Welsh ancestry, although I'm fairly certain that the Celts made their way to this part of the country, so I thought I'd follow up an entry I made in November 2008.  I've already explained how rubbish I am at filing info, so you won't be surprised at how long it took me to enter this stuff ....

Albert Hahnamann Culpin was born in 1860 in Ardley, Herts, the son of Benjamin & Sarah (nee Chaloner), and grew up in his father's Shillington (Beds) parish (Benjamin was a minister).  I found reference, in the Beds Archives, to some letters Albert wrote about his life in the Army in 1877 and now I can report the follow-up:

This time, the Shillington website (www.shillington-history.org.uk) comes up trumps ..... "letters survive from Albert Culpin, the son of the Congregational minister, in which he refers to Shillington men whom he met nearly everywhere he went.  He was a restless man who enlisted at one stage where he met some he knew.  He then deserted and stowed away to America, travelled the country extensively and later went to Australia."

How impressive is that!!  

Of course, as a stowaway he is unlikely to have left a trail but I have found him on the New South Wales Unassisted Passengers Lists, arriving in Sydney on 19 May 1890 aboard the vessel "Burwah".

There is a reference, again in the Beds Archives, to a letter written by him in 1892 about the Broken Hill strike and maritime disturbances but I need to work on how to read this, along with the correspondence from his (brief) time in the Army.

And then, courtesy of the wonderful Aussie BMD indexes, I found his death in Ryde, NSW, in 1932.

I'm really quite pleased with myself.  Now all I have to do is sort through the pile at my left elbow - heaven knows what I'll find in there!

More soon.

Slightly less confused

But only slightly ......

Followed up on Ruth Culpin, who married William Andrew and went off the Antipodes. And I found her death registration in Victoria, in 1862, aged 38 years.

And, bless the Aussies, there are her parents: John Culpin and Elizabeth.

Now to find a John & Elizabeth in the right temporal and geographical area.....

More soon.

A really rubbish day

Today I tried to find some Pinckneys .... as you do.

Chap called George. Born in November 1881; married in 1909; died 1952.

Of those three events, only the latter two can be found on the registers. He was supposedly born to Isaac and Amy - seven years before they actually married. And I can't find him in any census. His wife appears in 1911 .... as the head of the household, with only her sister for company.

I can't help wondering about the parent's marriage. Isaac was in the Navy, which might account for absences but, given that they married in 1888 by licence, could they not have done that during one of his returns ..... They had another two children between the-problematic-George and their wedding!

More soon.

Now I'm confused ...

So there I was, furkling around on Rootsweb and I found a Ruth Culpin who was born in the nearby county of Huntingdon.  The daughter of John & Elizabeth, she married William Andrew and emigrated to Australia a couple of years later.

Apparently ......

I can find her in the 1851 census, in the workhouse in Huntingdon, recorded as an unmarried farm labourer born in Steeple Gidding (I'll spare you their spelling!); I can find her marriage in 1852; and I can find two children born to a Ruth Culpin in Huntingdon in 1846 and 1851, both of whom died as infants. 

But I can't find Ruth's christening, so I can't find her parents.

I can find two Culpins christened in Steeple Gidding: Catherine (1828) and Caroline (1831), both the daughters of John and Elizabeth.  I then found these girls in the 1841 census, still in Steeple Gidding, living with the family of William Hospital (that's what it says).

And I'm even more puzzled and confused.  Because there is an Elizabeth Aspital in the tree, who married Charles Culpin in St Ives in 1809.

I think the next move (or one of them) is to go and look on Ancestry.com, the worldwide version, which I can access at the library; then I can search the Australian BMDs.  The Aussies, bless their little cotton socks, very kindly put the parents' names on the death registrations so, if I can find Ruth Andrew, I may get a clue .....

More soon.

Is it me?

I'm going to whinge today (just for once) .....

Ordinarily I enjoy using Ancestry (the UK version) and I appreciate the details it can give me.  But sometimes it drives me completely nuts.

For two reasons:- firstly, I keep getting directed to the "New Search" page.  Now, just to be clear here, I do not like the new search; I much prefer the old one.  Maybe it's just what I'm used to but I certainly get better results with it.

And, secondly, it's getting very literal with its "exact" searches.  If I want to search for Sarah Ann, I invariably do not put in the Ann as, in my mind, it limits the search parameters too much.  It used to then spit out all the Sarahs, Sarah Anns, Sarah Elizabeths etc.

And, sometimes, it still does that.  Great.  But not always.  And that's why it's driving me nuts.  Please, Ancestry, make your mind up.  Why can you not find Sarah (Ann) in her own right, yet you happily point me to her husband Edwin whose wife, coincidentally, is Sarah (Ann) ???

Aaaaaargh!

More soon.

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.