RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: suttontrust on Sunday 26 December 04 21:28 GMT (UK)
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I'm researching a friend's family history and find it as absorbing as doing my own. However, on one line we've got back to the early 18th century in Wiltshire, and I'm wondering whether to pay researchers to try to get another generation or two back, or to stop there. After all, it's just adding names and dates without any knowledge of who they were as people. Do others want to get back as far as possible or at some point call it quits?
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I think you may find the history of these people more interesting. It depends what you are 'after' in this hobby (ney! obsession!) ;)
I like to ' fill out ' the bones on these individuals. Finding out about the difficulties they faced, the conditions they lived in the places they frequented the social community they surrounded themselves by, the things they found important at that time.
Names and dates are great & look good on paper but the stuff that fills in all the details in between I find much more rewarding, even if I am stuck on a particular generation It does not matter (even if it is enfuriating!)
I get great satisfaction from knowing them better in some sort of strange way! ;)
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I agree - and that's why I wonder whether it's better to focus on those ancestors whose lives one can fill out. 19th century social history is a particular field of study for me, and one can use census data and other sources to bring people alive. Once you get back to pre-enclosures rural life there's very little filling in you can do. Nonetheless it is, as you say, an obsession and I suspect I will go on adding ancestors wherever I can.
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Certainly! if one can find another ancestor adding them on the tree is a bonus!
You also seem to be of the same frame of mind as me The social side of things give greater insight into the history of these people and they then become more than just a name and a date.
I also agree the further back you go the less fulfilling the details will be, that aspect is an unfortunate one but if someone has the 'need' for detail in their family history they will go to great lengths to see if there is anything more documented on their long gone ancestors.
My Taylor line in particular is very well documented but the further back the line has gone the less interested I am as I only have the odd reference to a name (which could be a Christian or Surname) the only good thing which lifted my spirits is that the line is an illegitimate one and all the children took the name of the mother ;)
My mother is so glad she was born a Taylor and not a Husofut! ;D
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My mother is so glad she was born a Taylor and not a Husofut! ;D
Slightly off topic, but I loved this statement. Being of a generation who always took their husband's name on marriage, I hate it when I am referred to as Ms rather than Mrs - I like it to be known that the name I use is not the one I was born with!
Back on topic, I doubt I would ever pay a researcher if the only thing I felt they could find would be the names of ancestors - if there was a likelihood of additional information, I would probably consider it. I also find much of the enjoyment is in doing one's own research, so have only used researchers to check specific issues where it is impossible for me to access the required records (but I have found out that such records exist).
Trish
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There is a wealth of information out there about our early ancestors. I have copies of early wills (The reign of Charles II) They make wonderful reading.
Personally I got as far back as I could and then looked for information about their lives. My next project is to find out which side my ancestors are likely to have supported in the Civil war.
I did not pay anyone but looked at the films of the records in the LDS family history centre. Not as good as looking at the originals but next best thing. I did pay for the wills look up but that was before the net.
It's just a problem knowing which line to follow first.
Sylviaann
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I'd not consider paying a researcher if there was the slightest chance of my being able to find the information for myself. I'd also recommend not being too hung up on 'knowing' the individuals. With the late 18th century, most of us are going to be looking at anything between the 6th and 9th generation before us and (before even contemplaiting siblings) this gives us over 1000 ancestors (in the 9th generation). That is a lot of people to get to know. It may well be that you find out something really seminal from an even earlier generation and if you had taken a dogmatic stance on not going back any further until you were satisfied you knew the people, that could well be missed. It may be ages before you can get to Wiltshire to do some research - I have got enough trips 'planned' to last me 10 years, but I hope to work my way gradually down the list. Happy hunting
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I think the good thing about research in the earlier 1800s and beyond is that it "forces" you to explore other avenues ie. settlement records, parish poor records (those that received relief and those that paid taxes), freemen rolls, apprenticeships, wills etc..
One branch of our family were really quite poor throughout the 1800s yet when we get back to the early 1700s they were property owners, left wills and one direct ancestor a HM Customs Officer so you never know ............ we were certainly surprised!
Best wishes
Casalguidi
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hi suttontrust,
hope you had a merry xmas and hope you have a good new year as well.
now I originally was looking for my hubby's grandmother's family as his father didn't know much about them, as she hardly talked about them.
since starting, I have found out that she was one of 19 children, and 2 of her sisters died at a very early age. I have found 9 of them so I am still looking and their name is a common one, making it even harder.
I looked at this as a challenge for me and I have found relatives dating back to the late 1600's but haven't been able to go any further. I live in australia and am on a pension so looking for records is a bit harder for me and have to rely on the good of others to do the leg work for me.
you never know if you research back far enough you might find that you are related to royalty :D :D , then again you could be related to Jack the ripper. ;D ;D ;D ;D
well that's my opinion for what it's worth.
legs11
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I've been doing a bit of both, it is fascinating filling in the details of the closer relatives and finding out what jobs they did, such as the chicken fattener and my great grandfather who was postmaster at Lingfield Post Office. A lot of this information came from some love letters we found at my grandparents house that my gran had written in the 30s to my grandad before they married - fascinating finding out about my gran before I knew her, when she was young. She sounded similar to me.
I have also found several strands of my tree going back to 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. All of these lines stay in Sussex and have, for me, answered why I have never wanted to leave Sussex. It will always remain home, I am well and truly Sussex born and bred (go on fill in the rest of the words!) and now I know exactly why! Mystery solved. :)
That for me was priceless.
kerryb
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Hi.
Yes, like Kerry I have found that I originate wholly from this part of the World and I now see why I have always come home.
I never stop looking for information and just because it is the C18th doesn't mean there is nothing to find. One branch named their sons Owner & Miles, why, because there were two politicians in Great Yarmouth called Miles Corbett and Edward Owner at the end of the C17th, no need to ask what side my lot were supporting!!!
If you have to pay for research then your hands are tied but if you are doing it yourself why not try to get back where you can but if not, embellish you family history with information, even if it is not directly linked to your family. The weather on their wedding day, the social news on the day they were born, what were the wages for their job at the time? Cottage conditions etc etc etc I could go on!!!
I LOVE social history and my family history just sits nicely beside that interest. Why did they move to wherever in 1840, could it be due to lack of work on the land? Look into it and often family migration makes perfect sense.
I'll shut up now!!
Happy New Year. ::)
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hi there again,
just another thought about this, I wouldn't like to pay for someone to do the work for me as, on this site other people have paid out lots of money for someone to research and have found that the information being returned is false and misleading and probably having nothing to do with the family or name concerned.
I like to have the satisfaction of doing the research and finding the information for myself, if at all humanly possible.
legs11
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I have to agree, I wouldn't pay anybody else to do the work for me, as half the joy has been the investigating, finding the answer myself and having the excitement of giving my family the next instalment. All of my family come from Sussex, Surrey and Kent except for two strands (my paternal Grandfather's family who come from East London and Lincolnshire). My dad wants to know did they always live in the East End, or did they come from elsewhere because of the IR? So that is my latest task.
Great fun and why get someone else to do the fun at expense!!
kerryb :D
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I think this question of whether to pay a researcher has been aired before, but frankly there is no alternative if you live nowhere near the area of your research and you need the sort of records which are only available locally. I have paid ROs, for instance, for records I couldn't get any other way, and been happy to do so. After all Record Offices are paid for by local taxation, and whereas I can visit my local ones for free, it's only fair that I should contribute to others which are doing searches on my behalf. Similarly, I don't mind paying somebody to access records I can't get at myself. It's what you do with the information that counts.
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I like to go as far back as I can. Most of the time you will only discover names but once in awhile someone will pop up who did something interesting or had a roll in history which suddenly brings them more to life. As an example, I located a man who has done extensive research on one family of mine and he found that one of our ancesters was Princess Jane Plantagenet the dau. of Eleanor of Aquitaine and another was one of the people hung as a witch in Salem,Ma. in 1692. Knowing this I can read some history books and see what life was really like for them. Because you never know Who you will find I will continue to go back as far as I can. Leagen
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I agree that it is the history of the people that makes it interesting.
My great great great grandmother Sarah Tymon (nee Peart) was a Greengrocer in Scarborough in the 1840s/1850s and I have found out quite a bit about her life meaning I probably find her the most intersting person in my tree. I still live in Scarborough and recently I was walking in the old town with my two daughters when my elder daughter said to her sister "watch out, Dad's about to tell us that Sarah Peart walked down this road again - boring!" - That put me in my place, but didn't stop me telling them again anyway! ;D ;D
But the answer to the question is - yes it is worth it!
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This is a copy of a post I made earlier this year on the late lamented Scotlandspeople discussion group, which offers one reason for trying to go back as far as possible.
It's been said that all those with Scottish ancestry are descended from King Malcolm Canmore ("big head") III (1031-1093); that all with English ancestry are descendants of King Edward I of England (1272-1307), and that all with the slightest trace of European blood in them are the descendants of the Emperor Charlemagne (742-814).
I'd bet we all would like to find some aristocratic ancestor, irrespective of our attitudes to the aristocracy and our political opinions - it is after all, the only way to get further back than the 16th century.
A Danish neighbour recently showed me her family genealogy (privately-published - with heavy wooden bindings - in the 1950's), tracing her family back to Danish medieval royalty, something she was understandably proud of, perhaps especially as her family in recent generations has been smallholders and factory workers. I unfortunately offered the opinion that such royal ancestry was probably more common than we often imagine. The lady was not amused!
This led me to some arithmetical speculation.
Assume an average 30-year generation (women giving birth between the ages of 20 and 40). The earliest records of the aristocracy seem to be around the 8th century, 13 centuries ago. That's about 40 generations. 2 to the power 40 is over one million million (i.e a British billion, if anyone still uses them) ancestors. Certainly a lot more than the 6 thousand million alive today - or then, of course!
Let's assume of the sake of simplicitity that all a given individual's ancestors came from Scotland. I haven't been able to find population estimates for Scotland in the Dark Ages, though the population of Roman Britain in the 4th century is estimated to have been 1.5 million.
Say 100,000, and assume for the sake of argument they all had descendants. Then on average, each person alive then would appear 11 million times each on our modern genealogist's family tree. Some more, some less, but not even rigid social structures could prevent any individual alive then from eventually contributing to the ancestry of everyone in that country. Only complete geographical isolation could have done that, and in the Dark Ages some people travelled a lot more than is often imagined - eg. Vikings travelled to Central Asia where they traded with Arabs, Africans and Chinese.
So we really are all related, and at a much more recent date than the clan mothers and fathers suggested by DNA research (which can only trace direct maternal and paternal lines). And the numbers involved indicate the limits of genealogy - we're probably lucky that the church records don't go further back than 1550!
However, there's not much point in it if you can't prove the link and find that slender branch or two that suddenly opens up to reveal countless and lengthy well-documentend branches of the nobility. So what are the chances? Let's assume all Scottish church records went back to 1550 (no, don't laugh - we're assuming 'best case') That's 15 generations, i.e there are 32768 ancestors at that level. I'm guessing the population of Scotland at the time was around 500,000, so those ancestors constituted 6% of the population - at best: even here, the same people probably will turn up in different branches, what with people marrying 'double cousins' and the like.
What percentage of the population were aristocrats (i.e. those who recorded their ancestry)? 0.5% is a pure guess - so 2500 aristocrats out of 500,000. Pick an individual living in 1550 at random, and do this 32768 times, corresponding to your ancestors 15 generations ago.
We can say at random, since we're assuming we know nothing so far about those ancestors.
The probability that any given individual in Scotland in 1550 is an aristocrat is 2500/500000 i.e the probability that the individual is not is 497500/500000. The probability that none of the 32768 'random' individuals are aristocrats is 497500/500000 multiplied by itself 32768 times.
(actually you should subtract one from the 500000 each time, since that indivudual is no longer 'in the running', but lets keep it simple).
497500/500000 to the power 32768, a very small number indeed. Even if we took only 1000 ancestors, the chance of none of them being an aristocrat is under 1% (again, assuming the 'randomness' provided by having no knowledge of these ancestors - you can't just pick 1000 more recent ancestors and assume the same, since you presumably know more about them). The chance of an aristocrat being among the 32768 is therefore extremely close to 100%.
So not only is is absolutely certain that all of us here researching our Scottish ancestry are descendants of medieval royalty (and everyone else who lived then), but there is a very high chance of finding an aristocratic branch leading back before 1550 if only you can follow most of your ancestry back 15 generations using the Old Parish Records.
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David
I think your argument is very interesting and if you could work out how many marriages have taken place amongst the descendants of your 32,000 ancestors 15 generations back, the likelihood is that the probability of one of your relatives marrying into a particular family will be higher than the probability of not doing so.
In that case, would we have greater kudos being able to say that we are not descended from Edward I or Malcolm Canmore? Probably so if we can prove it.
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The arithmetic gets more complicated when looking at descendants, since the number of each couple's children varies enormously, and the rates of population growth have changed over the centuries. Also, kings tended to have unusually large numbers of illegitimate children. I'd bet that everyone using rootschat is related to each other, having common ancestors no more than 15 generations back - i.e. I have 32,768 chances to match one of my ancestors to one of your 32,768 out of what was a much lower British population than today (the probability being even higher than of matching to one of the 2,500 Scottish nobles I used as an example).
I'm sure the only way you could be pretty sure you weren't descended from ancient European royalty would be if you came from a really remote corner of the world, where Europeans only appeared in the last 100 years or so - isolated parts of Africa or Asia, I'd imagine.
But of course, it's always more difficult to prove the absence of something, and I'd say genealogy was difficult enough as it is!
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:) :)
I've always wanted to get as far back as I could with all my ancestors (only later putting 'flesh on the bones'), and like Sutton never balked at paying researchers in those areas where I couldn't get.
Only when the chess pieces are in place, do I start on the game.
:) :)