RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: LizzieW on Wednesday 20 February 13 14:43 GMT (UK)
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Someone who might be a distant relative of my husband, has been searching the parish records for clues as to her 3 x g.grandfather's parents.
Whilst searching she found that in the district in 1812 there was a smallpox outbreak between August and December and she said the register is harrowing to look at, so many children. But what is particularly poignant is that the Vicar gave up using names and just wrote things like two children from whatever Lane or one child, boy, etc.
As this was long before the census and most likely people didn't know the address where their ancestors lived, there is no way anyone is going to be able to connect these children with their ancestors.
Lizzie
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That's really sad Lizzie especially as no-one will ever know their names. The poor Vicar as well, he'd have known all the families and maybe even lost children himself.
Best wishes
Maria
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In the company of some American possible relatives I searched the death registers for London parishes at the time of the 1660s plague. Frightening to see how the death rate took off, by the 2nd month they were just recording numbers rather than names of the dead.
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After learning how plagues and illnesses have prevented us knowing anything about our ancestors, I have to wonder about someone who says they can trace their ancestry back to the 1400 or 1500's - anywhere. I've heard that Scottish soldiers use to use parish records to light their cigars!. Considering the wars, diseases, and natural disasters, it's a wonder any of us are able to trace our families back two or three generations.
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RedFox - You can trace your ancestors back to 15th & 16th C and even earlier if they were important people at the time as they are recorded in places other than parish registers. Some of my ancestors (one branch only) are listed in books at the British Library. Some have tombs in St Dunstan's Church, Stepney, one distant ancestor was Dean of St Paul's and there's enough info about him on the internet to fill a library. His father who was Lord Mayor of London twice made a will, in which he mentions by name, his brother who is my direct ancestor and his children.
There are also records in The National Archives and old wills. I have a wills of my ancestors from 1503, 1531, 1558, 1559, some from the Borthwick Institute and some from The National Archives.
Of course, I don't have this kind of information for any of my other ancestors and the one I can't find anything about was only born about 1855/60 :'( Ironically he lived with (never married) a descendant of the family that I have all the information from way back.
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They don't even have to be important, but it is very much a matter of luck before Parish Registration, I have one line back to around 1300AD; they were tenant farmers who rented the same farm off the same landowner for around 400 years; it is just luck that the manorial records referring to the farm happen to have survived.
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Oh yes, I forgot about the manorial records and other old records. The problem is many of them are difficult to read.
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Luck would indeed be the operative word in genealogy/family history. I've gotten back as far as 1700-1800 for most of my lines. The majority of the ancestors were miners in Cornwall, Yorkshire, and Canada or farmers in Cumberland or the Midwest. Probably a few merchants in Scotland and other places. The most interesting group I've been able to trace is one of my son's lines going back go the 1600's during Colonial times. It's only taken over 40 years so far.
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Oh yes, I forgot about the manorial records and other old records. The problem is many of them are difficult to read.
Many of them are in the custody of private individuals, and of other bodies like universities , which can often restrict physical access, and then there are the problems of transcribing and reading the records.
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And searching through baptisms in parish registers recently, I've noticed quite a few that just say "baby (or girl/boy) parents unknown" so who they were no-one will ever know. I suppose if you had an ancestor that you thought was born/baptised in a particular area in a particular year, you could trawl through the records to see if an unknown one shows up.
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Many of them are in the custody of private individuals, and of other bodies like universities , which can often restrict physical access, and then there are the problems of transcribing and reading the records.
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I heard an interesting talk at WDYTYA LIVE where the presenter, facing a similar problem, used a Freedom of Information request to gain access to documents held by a university. On arrival at the university in question he was met by the archivist who congratulated him on using this method to open up the information to public scrutiny. So dont accept a refusal to make a record available a without a challenge!
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If you are hugely lucky you have an ancestor in the parish records of Perlethorpe, which antedate the Thomas Cromwell registers by ten years. Sadly my family connection to the village is 20th not 16th century.
There are some interesting studies which take you much further back, see
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,638384.msg4854163.html#msg4854163
for example. However I have a family legend of the "fought at the Battle of Hastings" variety and bought the book My Ancestor Came over with the Conqueror - and had a pretty disappointing time reading it as there seems to be remarkably little evidence of who was on the field of battle.
But then other people seem to vanish into thin air even in the 20th century - even people with very unusual names! [Has anyone spotted the wonderfully-named Rodolf Francis Joseph Kinsky Symons FitzSimon, born 1883, last seen in the 1911 census, by the way? Yes, it is one man with enough Christian names for a whole family!]
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Freedom of Information request to gain access to documents held by a university. On arrival at the university in question he was met by the archivist who congratulated him on using this method to open up the information to public scrutiny. So dont accept a refusal to make a record available a without a challenge!
I tried that with Manchester Archives when I wanted a copy of my g.uncle's papers from his stay in an asylum. They still wouldn't budge quoting the 100 year rule, which as he didn't die until 1964, means I'll be 123 if I'm still alive. ::) Eventually, they agreed to send me his admission page which was dated more than 100 years ago. I don't see the logic of not releasing his records, as the poor man went into the asylum in 1907 and, as far as I know, stayed there until 1964 when he died. He was a single man, no children, his 5 siblings are long dead (in fact he outlived them all), as are all the children of his 5 siblings, so I am of the next generation and I can't believe they think anyone today will be upset by the records of a man who went into the asylum 106 years ago and died nearly 50 years ago.
Lizzie
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I think Lizzie that it is a case of authority in general being ultra cautious, even when the documents in question are most unlikely to harm anyone. This same paranoic caution pervades the National Archives at Kew where some documents from WW1 and certainly from WW2 are closed in excess of 100 years, and in some cases permanently. There is also the situation where some documents are released and redacted, in effect censored. If they are to be censored then why go to the trouble of releasing them. Though I take some satisfaction in seeing authority make itself look as ridiculous as it sometimes seems.
Regarding the 100 year closure on the census, America has just released the 1940 census, if I were American I could read about myself, but I shall be 112 before I get the chance (Just possible but extremely unlikely). America hasn't collapsed because it releases its census early, so why should the UK?
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Roger and Lizzie, I have just been reading this thread. Just be thankful you are not tracing Australian ancestors; apart from a couple of early ones, most Australian censuses have been destroyed after the data was extracted. Even today, the last two have had a box to tick if you want your own record kept for posterity. So only some will survive.
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And I understand you're not allowed to see birth, marriage and death certs in Australia for some long time (50 years or is it more?) after the event.
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Not sure on that one; it probably differs from state to state, like so many things do. However, I do know it is virtually impossible to get a certificate other than your own, without jumping through so many hoops. Even to get my own father's death certificate from nearly 40 years ago I would have to virtually provide a DNA sample (just joking). :)
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Without checking my source (forget what it was) I believe Lizzie is right on this one.
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On a similar theme, my wife and I recently bought a new car. I couldn't believe that we were asked for photo ID.
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On a similar theme, my wife and I recently bought a new car. I couldn't believe that we were asked for photo ID.
Why were you paying cash!!
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No, that's the bizarre thing. To fill out the paper work for the car, and the finance papers, we were asked for ID. This sort of thing has come about with all the new privacy laws to protect against identity theft. But honestly....
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On a similar theme, my wife and I recently bought a new car. I couldn't believe that we were asked for photo ID.
Why were you paying cash!!
Over 50 years ago I wanted to buy a new suit for work, cost £5 approx!! I tried the suit on and got my fiver out. The assistant asked me for my details, I said I want to pay cash. He replied we need to check whether you have sufficient means to pay cash. I told him where to stick his suit and bought one in Boston that weekend, paid cash no problem at all. Obvious the problem isn;t new.
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On a similar theme, my wife and I recently bought a new car. I couldn't believe that we were asked for photo ID.
You think thats daft but try this for bureaucracy gone mad:
Several years ago I was a child-minder, for which i had to undergo annual inspections by Social Services. On one such inspection, the first thing I had to do was provide some proof of identity.
Umm, in my own living room after an appointment had been made by telephone and confirmed by letter -- who else do you think i might be???
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The old saying "You don't have to be mad to work here, but if you are it helps!"
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I once went into the local greengrocers and asked for a bottle of Sauce. The grocer asked if I wished HP, I replied, "no, I'll pay cash" ::) ::) ::)
Malky
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I once went into the local greengrocers and asked for a bottle of Sauce. The grocer asked if I wished HP, I replied, "no, I'll pay cash" ::) ::) ::)
Malky
Best I've seen recently ;D ;D ;D ;D
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I once went into the local greengrocers and asked for a bottle of Sauce. The grocer asked if I wished HP, .....
......" I said Yes, and gave him a duck as "down" payment!
Tom
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Was the duck's name dinner?
(thanks to Anh Do for that one)