Family History research.

[tigerburnie]

I'd like to trace my Dads ancestry, but as a displaced person at the end of world war 2 of Latvian descent, born in Moscow during the Russian Revolution and me speaking none of those languages, it's a steep hill to climb.

Family stories are often either vague or just wrong, our family insist that we are relatives of TW and Wilson Worsdell the locomotive designers, but I haven't established a link to them or the Quaker movement.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Lots of good sound advice being given in this thread.

 

I have been doing my family tree since I was 16, off and on. 

 

Signed up to Ancestry many years ago and have been happy with their service. Do not add anyone to your tree by simply copying from someone else's "research". Double check and only add them if the documentation is there to back it up would be my advice.

 

I am something of a DNA junkie! Done several tests. Y Haplogroup I BY34648. MTDNA Haplogroup T2c1-146!

 

Cheers, Ade.

[TheSignalEngineer]

The basis of my tree started back in the 1980s. After we got talking to our Great Aunt who was approaching 90 years old my sister drew up all she said on a roll of lining paper. 

She proved to be a great source for the first eddort. In her own family, she was my paternal Grandmother's sister, she went back through her direct line and all of their children to 1823 off the top of her head. She also added a lot of our grandfather's family. As information became available on line I checked through what she had told us and there were only two errors in something like 100 names.

Not copying other research on Ancestry is good advice. I use the Family Tree hints as pointers to possible lines of investigation. One particular branch which appears on about 20 trees on the web never looked right to me. One night when I had been unwell and unable to get to sleep I did what we used to call in our project planning a 'Post-It Party'. I wrote down the known confirmed details - DoB, Death, Baptism, Parents, Marriage, Occupations, etc, of all of the possibles for this line. They were all stuck in order on an old roll of wallpaper and relationship lines pencilled in. It confirmed what I suspected in that the person most people had as my great great great grandfather was probably incorrect.

[LBRJ]

I had a brief look into the family trees a few years ago - and I thought Ancestry seemed to be quite useful.

 

I knew quite a bit beforehand, possibly being the "youngest of youngest" gives you a bit of a head start - one of my great grandfathers was born in 1860, as was one of my great great grandfathers!

One thing  I really did note is just how much people moved around in the early - mid 19th century!!

 

To keep it fairly simple

 

My mother's mothers family were gypsies, so not even much of a hope of learning anything there before "known times" (knew that anyway)

My mother's father's family had basically inbred in and around the same pennine village since way back whenever (two Canadian cousins had done some serious reach on that one!)

 

My father's mother's family were as above but in the Marches - good farm workers often moved for work as often as every Lady Day....

[Rivercider]

On 26/11/2020 at 14:56, tigerburnie said:

I'd like to trace my Dads ancestry, but as a displaced person at the end of world war 2 of Latvian descent, born in Moscow during the Russian Revolution and me speaking none of those languages, it's a steep hill to climb.

Family stories are often either vague or just wrong, our family insist that we are relatives of TW and Wilson Worsdell the locomotive designers, but I haven't established a link to them or the Quaker movement.

It is interesting to read about errors or gaps in remembered family history.

 

On my mothers paternal side no-one seems to know the name of my great grandmother. Apparently my grandad was the youngest child and more or less became part of his wifes family when he married my gran. Among the modest collection of family photos I have inherited there seem to be none of him as a child, nor any of his side of the family. From what I have discovered so far her maiden name was Hext and she was born in Widecombe.

 

On my dads side I had been told that my great great grandfather was killed by a light engine or bogie during the construction of the Lyme Regis branch. In fact newspaper articles show he died much earlier, having been a labourer during the building of the Yeovil and Exeter Railway. In 1877 he had just been made up to gagnger when he was struck and killed by a goods train at Broadclyst, his widow was given a crossing keepers job as a result.

 

cheers 

[Adrian Stevenson]

Perhaps I shouldn't, but I always find the scandals and tragedies really interesting. 

 

Only last month I was contacted by a lady in the USA whom I am a close genetic match with. It turns out that my Great Uncle Fred (Who was brother to my Dad's My Mum) had an unhappy marriage and could not obtain a divorce. After the Great War in late 1918 he met a lady up in Tyneside and ended up living with her and having three children. Dad is 86 and never knew any of this! But he did say Fred was always regarded as "the black sheep of the family" but never knew why. I now speak regularly with my new found American cousin.  

 

My best family history story and claim to fame regards having a conversation about 5 years ago with Dad' eldest cousin Harry. After answering all my questions he said "of course your Dad will have told you about the film director is the family?" I said "No...." It turns out Bob Stevenson worked for Walt Disney and directed lots of famous films! Mary Poppins, Herbie, etc.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stevenson_(director)

 

But it gets better, his daughter Invicta, was a B Movie actress in the 50's and dated Elvis and married Don Everley of the Everley Brothers fame. They in turn had a daughter, Erin who married Jon Bon Jovi who wrote "Sweet Child of Mine" about her. 

 

Cheers, Ade.

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

I have a similar situation to Adrian as regards cousins and "black sheep".

 

My first cousin Barbara's husband was interested in genealogy and traced her grandfather who had been killed in WW1 - or so she had always believed. Patrick soon discovered that grandfather Sydney had in fact died in 1939. We still don't know all the details but when he returned from WW1, spent in the Middle East, he and Barbara's grandmother did not get back together and he subsequently met my grandmother Lucy and married her before having two more children, my father and my aunt.

 

It had always been a bit of a family mystery that my father had not been given the same forename as his father. Now it became clear that he was not, as we had believed, the first-born son. Barbara's father had inherited the name although he preferred to be known as Bob.

 

All this came to light when my father was just coming up to eighty and my aunt 75. Aged 48, I suddenly had three more first cousins.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Joseph_Pestell

[burgundy]

My wife is in a similar situation. Her paternal grandfather had some sisters who had "gone to America", with all sorts of family mythology associated. We have tracked them so far through the passenger lists and US censuses  but cannot get past about 1940. Any suggestions would be welcome. 

Best wishes 

Eric  

[tigerburnie]

When living in Derbyshire, my mother asked me help clear a house in Derby, it was an Aunt of hers she never knew existed. Her Dad turned out to be one of 7 children and my mother only knew about one of them, some families are just plain odd it seems. These relatives all lived in the same county as us and we had no knowledge, which seems a shame, my Grandfather was a nice man who lived to be 92, but he did have some odd ways, he talked fondly of being from Derbyshire and the "family home", yet all but one of his siblings were born in Leicestershire and all but one spent their lives there and are all buried there.

[rockershovel]

On 26/11/2020 at 14:56, tigerburnie said:

I'd like to trace my Dads ancestry, but as a displaced person at the end of world war 2 of Latvian descent, born in Moscow during the Russian Revolution and me speaking none of those languages, it's a steep hill to climb.

Family stories are often either vague or just wrong, our family insist that we are relatives of TW and Wilson Worsdell the locomotive designers, but I haven't established a link to them or the Quaker movement.

 

Don’t waste your time. My father’s family had some sort of Baltic connection but despite my grandfather living into the 1950s, and my grandmother (who was English) living into the 1960s, with cousins still living who knew them, any real information about him is quite lost. I suspect he was some sort of Baltic nationality, possibly living in England but many such individuals deliberately suppressed such information, long before the Soviets came to power. 

 

I worked in the FSU countries for a number of years. I knew a number of people who tried to trace family information but in a region with a culture of secrecy and obstruction, and many records destroyed or lost, or never kept there is little, or nothing to be learnt. 

 

Anyway, what of it? I was born in England, spoke only English growing up (my father spoke several languages but my mother didn’t). I was christened and married in the C of E, as my children have been. I have cousins in America, people I know quite well of direct blood relationship, even lived there for a while as a child but that doesn’t make me American. If someone told me of a putative relative in some distant land, on the basis of lab results I don’t understand and are really only statistical probabilities, I’d probably just thank him for his time and continue with whatever I was doing. 

 

My children regard themselves as English, having at least three* English grandparents, two parents born in England and knowing no other language. They regard their unknown grandfather, who died in their father’s infancy as a family story, no more, mainly associated with the (British) medals in the front room display unit. I can’t imagine that they would take any serious interest in the notion that they had some sort of “Baltic heritage” on the basis of a great-grandfather who died when their father was a toddler. 

 

It’s also entirely possible that my grandfather was, in fact, German. He certainly spoke both German and Yiddish. By family tradition, he was naturalised around 1932. My father joined the Army as a regular in 1937 or 1938, but standards of proof were low in those days. 

 

* some versions of family stories allege that my late father was born in Germany, or at any rate outside the U.K. I don’t know how this might be established, at this late stage, and don’t much care either. His Birth Certificate doesn’t survive, and the still-surviving Marriage Licence quotes information clearly taken from his Army records. 

Edited November 29, 2020 by rockershovel

[Bernard Lamb]

On 26/11/2020 at 14:56, tigerburnie said:

I'd like to trace my Dads ancestry, but as a displaced person at the end of world war 2 of Latvian descent, born in Moscow during the Russian Revolution and me speaking none of those languages, it's a steep hill to climb.

Family stories are often either vague or just wrong, our family insist that we are relatives of TW and Wilson Worsdell the locomotive designers, but I haven't established a link to them or the Quaker movement.

I know a few people from that part of the world. It often comes down to the ethnicity of the person and where they lived as to which version of the story they make public. I knew Germans who hailed from the Baltic States when they were under German control who for many years after the fall of communism were too frightened to visit their homeland. I once attended a memorial service and the version of the persons life that emerged was very different from what was generally thought. They appeared to be pillars of the establishment but had actually been on "the wrong side" several times. 

I have no Worsdell connections but I had a relative who married into the Raven family and went to live in Newcastle.

Bernard 

[rockershovel]

One comment I would make about the English abroad, is the rapidity and completeness with which they assimilate, at least in some cultures. My American relatives regard themselves as American, including the ones who were originally British (once they acquire US nationality, anyway). The process is already well advanced among my niece’s family, who have only been there six or seven years. Interestingly enough, it is least advanced in her daughter, now in her early 20s and presently back in Cambridge - I don’t think America works, for her. 

 

There are German Americans, Pakistani Americans and Irish Americans, including people who are fourth or fifth generation US born, but no British Americans. I imagine this is in part, because there is no tradition of diaspora, because anyone who seriously wanted to return to the “Old Country” was free to do so; partly also because they already spoke the language, and (more or less) practiced the religion, were already accustomed to elective democracy and the secular rule of law. 

 

Knowing there are members of the forum who are British emigrants, I’d be interested in their views on this? 

[TheSignalEngineer]

23 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

There are German Americans, Pakistani Americans and Irish Americans, including people who are fourth or fifth generation US born, but no British Americans. I imagine this is in part, because there is no tradition of diaspora,........................

Most branches of our family have a few English-born people in America. The English Diaspora largely took place before the War of Independence, including a large group from one branch of my family who got on the wrong side of the English State in the 1740s.

These people were the Founding Fathers of the USA, a lot of the rest were aftercomers. 

Edited November 29, 2020 by TheSignalEngineer

[rockershovel]

7 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Most branches of our family have a few English-born people in America. The English Diaspora largely took place before the War of Independence, including a large group from one branch of my family who got on the wrong side of the English State in the 1740s.

These people were the Founding Fathers of the USA, a lot of the rest were aftercomers. 

 

Which is the whole point, really. The mass emigration from the U.K. of the later 1940s, 1950s and 1960s (over a million emigrants by the mid-1950s, almost 1.8 million by the time the process petered out in the early 1980s) consisted of people going to places they regarded as, in many ways, “Britain over the water”, with established populations of British origin and recognisable versions of their familiar institutions. 

 

The British, and particularly the English didn’t need to cling to their remembered identity, they just moved on to a new version of it, or went home again. 

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

There ... no British Americans.

 

Knowing there are members of the forum who are British emigrants, I’d be interested in their views on this? 

There are certainly British emigrants to the US on this forum, at least some of whom have US passports.

 

In my experience the expatriate Britons that I meet do not hide their British heritage and those who have taken on US citizenship would be happy to be thought of as "British Americans". They are a relatively small minority and generally have special skills which enabled them to emigrate.

 

To speak to a broader historical notion of people having an American identity after the revolution rather than a British one, apart from the obvious notion that they* defeated royal British rule after eight years of what was essentially 'civil' war, an important consideration is that many** of the colonial immigrants from the British Isles arrived without their freedom - either as transported convicts or indentured servants. I imagine they were happy to whitewash this background once they became "Americans".

 

*  I would maintain that the French were essential to winning the North American part of the war, but we probably shouldn't go there

 

** About 27% of the total immigrants in the 18th century prior to the revolution. 47% of the immigrants in this period were African slaves. The remaining 26% were "free" immigrants.

 

Also the waves of immigration where people created minority enclaves and began to adopt hyphenated identities, (Irish-American, Italian-American etc) really only dates from the second half of the 19th century.

[Rivercider]

Thanks for all the replies so far, there is much food for thought.

 

I have made a tentative start using the free part of FindMyPast, and contact with relatives to fill in some gaps.

No Royalty or major scandal so far, however there were children of 10 and 14 working as lead miners.

 

Has anyone found it useful to keep online records separate on their PC, as well as the chosen search site?

 

 

cheers

[tigerburnie]

I did try to print off my tree, but there is paper everywhere, I will have to come up with some way to keep a record, probably with a pen and some lining paper that didn't end up on the house walls.

[4901]

For those interested in tapping into Family Search, here is the link  https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-create-a-free-familysearch-account      No charge. 

 

There are lots of films that are digitized but not yet indexed. https://media.familysearch.org/update-familysearch-digital-records-access-replacing-microfilm/   and   

https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/   

 

Maps of jurisdictions - which is a key to finding people  https://www.familysearch.org/mapp/

 

Another technique I find helpful is to Google:  family history/genealogy in [name of place].  

 

As an expat Brit living in the US, I enjoyed reading The Cousins" Wars by Kevin Phillips - a real eye-opener.   My brother, who lives in the UK,  was speechless when I told him Phillips wrote that the English Civil War was settled in 1776!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rockershovel]

On 29/11/2020 at 21:42, Ozexpatriate said:

There are certainly British emigrants to the US on this forum, at least some of whom have US passports.

 

In my experience the expatriate Britons that I meet do not hide their British heritage and those who have taken on US citizenship would be happy to be thought of as "British Americans". They are a relatively small minority and generally have special skills which enabled them to emigrate.

 

To speak to a broader historical notion of people having an American identity after the revolution rather than a British one, apart from the obvious notion that they* defeated royal British rule after eight years of what was essentially 'civil' war, an important consideration is that many** of the colonial immigrants from the British Isles arrived without their freedom - either as transported convicts or indentured servants. I imagine they were happy to whitewash this background once they became "Americans".

 

*  I would maintain that the French were essential to winning the North American part of the war, but we probably shouldn't go there

 

** About 27% of the total immigrants in the 18th century prior to the revolution. 47% of the immigrants in this period were African slaves. The remaining 26% were "free" immigrants.

 

Also the waves of immigration where people created minority enclaves and began to adopt hyphenated identities, (Irish-American, Italian-American etc) really only dates from the second half of the 19th century.

 

I did British Constitution at O Level, taught by a languorous aesthete whose central thesis was that it was not possible to understand historic events or political movements in isolation, but only as the culmination of factors over several decades. 

 

He was much mocked by elements among his charges, but the long-term nature of some of his predictions (including the collapse, or mutation out of recognition of the Soviet Union, and British membership of the then-EEC ending in acrimony and failure) suggest that he had a point...

 

[Bernard Lamb]

22 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Thanks for all the replies so far, there is much food for thought.

 

I have made a tentative start using the free part of FindMyPast, and contact with relatives to fill in some gaps.

No Royalty or major scandal so far, however there were children of 10 and 14 working as lead miners.

 

Has anyone found it useful to keep online records separate on their PC, as well as the chosen search site?

 

 

cheers

It will become essential to keep all records on your device when you progress past a certain stage. You need to know where information is and how to use it and not be dependent on an on line storage source. I use a programme called Family Historian. Others are available but  I get on well with that. It allows you to keep all your data in one pace including photographs. The search facility is excellent as is the function to print trees for just about any size of family group. It also sets up relationships which I find handy when talking on line to real people who are distant relatives as you can see how you fit in with each other.

Bernard 

[Ozexpatriate]

10 hours ago, rockershovel said:

it was not possible to understand historic events or political movements in isolation, but only as the culmination of factors over several decades

I completely agree. 

[Fat Controller]

1 minute ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I completely agree. 

Marx would have agreed with him.....

[johnarcher]

I did a lot of research, started in the interest by my A level History teacher. I got my direct male line back to a Notts village 1538 (start of Parish Registers), with mentions of the (rare) name there back to the 1380's. Mother's (Cornish) side, only 18th century in direct line, but through devious mixed male/female descents back to the sort of ancient illustrious ancestors others have mentioned. If you think how many ancestors you had a thousand or so years ago no doubt everybody has some of those, you're just lucky if the information survives to make the link.

However all that was done in the pre-internet (even pre-computer) age, though I have done a little more recently and found Ancestry helpful (and also a useful place to store my old research for others when I have joined those ancestors), but, as others have said, you do need to be careful. There's a lot of dubious assumptions there as well as useful information, I recall one tree with a lady on it who was married 20 years before she was born!

Still the old methods are, I think,  still necessary once you get back before the 1830's or so (start of civil registration, census etc). Not all Parish Registers are online I think, and not that many wills. So if you do start on that sort of period it's probably worth seeking a book or two on how to research written back then, when trips to record offices were central to the pursuit.

[tigerburnie]

Today was a rainy day, so I've started to print off some of my tree on A4 paper, then pruning it and sticking to a roll of lining paper, now finding that direct lines are fine, but go once or twice removed and things start crossing over, not something you notice on 'tinternet pages. So far filled a full width roll to about 12 feet in length, I think I may have to go to a second roll to create width. I have not done any uncles or aunts or cousins, these are all just G/grand parents, am glad I'm only doing the maternal side.