When finding someone seems impossible did you carry on?

[bluewhoopi]

Pat no wonder you feel like yours is driving you batty there's loads of twists and turns there Very interesting though.

I'll say! If I don't find out any more about my girl's fate I think I'm going to invent it! Not to cheat you understand, but to write an intriguing story. Cos I have no doubt but what there is an intriguing story there, if only I could discover what it is...anyway, thanks for reading my great long screed of nonsense. Pat. 

[devongirl]

I spent several years looking for 1 particular person.  I had her only from the 1851 census after she was married and still cannot find a find a marriage yet, but I obtained her maiden name from the children's birth certificates.

No sign of her anywhere in London,so I decided to do a pebble search from her address in 1851.  I found her baptism and siblings baptisms in about 4th Church I searched.

So never give up.

Daisy  

[bluewhoopi]

No sign of her anywhere in London,so I decided to do a pebble search from her address in 1851.  I found her baptism and siblings baptisms in about 4th Church I searched.

Daisy, please forgive my ignorance but what's a pebble search? Pat.

[Paul Caswell]

There are, sadly, some you have to just 'shelve'. 

My second gt grandfather is irrevocably lost until DNA ancestry tracing becomes affordable.

My gt grandmother Diana Turner had two children. Both birth certificates are blank in the 'father' box. The children were named William and Thomas Turner. I have found her in every census she was alive. I have found both her birth and her death.

But what if I find an old document, perhaps the transcripts of a court case.  I live in hope. 


This 'Pebble Search' sounds interesting.

Paul

[Paul Caswell]

It can be worthwhile asking someone to earch findmypast for you. I had a lucky break from a kind rootschatter who searched there for the same Thomas I mentioned earlier and found him. He'd been mistranscribed on Ancestry as 'Fred'

Paul

[devongirl]

Sorry Pat. 

A pebble search, is when you take a starting point eg parish where they were at a particular time, in my case the 1851 census and draw a circle around it representing say a mile, search all churches (or other sources)in that area, if you dont have any luck, move your search about to say 2 miles around the area and so on.  That way you are searching evenly, quite often the ancestors would only move into a neighbouring parish.    Its still a bit hit and miss though.

I dont think I have explained very clearly,  but hope you get the idea, I found it has worked for me a few times.

Daisy

[devongirl]

p.s.  called pebble search I suppose because when you throw a pebble in water it sends ripples out in a circle.   Maybe it should be called ripple search.     I read about it in a magazine ages ago.

Daisy

[bluewhoopi]

Thanks Daisy, that's a useful thing to know. I'll give it a whirl. Cheers, Pat.

[jillynetter]

A great tip thanks Daisy.