How good is your memory?

[Rishile]

Who are you currently searching for and can you remember their names, birth dates, death dates and spouse and children/parents names?

And without peeking at your notes?

I am currently trying to verify Catherine Bissenden's maiden name.   She was born in 1790ish and her husband was John Bissenden born about 1790ish.  Her daughter, my Gtx2 grandmother was Catherine Jane Bissenden.

How well can you do?

Rishile

[LouiseA]

My memory is atrocious - I have to have everything written down and I refer back to it all the time.

I bought some Gingko Bilboa tablets which are supposed to help improve your memory but.... well I don't really need to add the punchline, do I?  :

So well done Rishile, I'm very envious 

[Jeuel]

I find remembering names, places and dates in my family history relatively easy, probably because I've filled in umpteen pedigree charts, individual ancestor forms, family trees etc and spent ages looking for the info in the first place.

What I do find interesting is that I will often "remember" an event and read up the notes in the diary I kept at the time to find it wasn't at all as I remembered it! 

Often when discussing family events with family members we'll all have a different take on what happened, when and how and who was there.

So whenever my Mum or another relative gives me some information they remember from something someone else told them when they were little, I treat it cautiously!

[Jeuel]

I'm currently looking for what happened to Antonetta Trundley Browning, who disappears after 1871.  She may have been married to my gt x 3 uncle Thomas, a shoemaker, who died in Wandsworth in 1876.

Thomas's niece, my gt grandmother Emma lost her first husband (another Thomas) on their 14th wedding anniversary, 1st May 1879.  She appears on 1881 census with 2nd "husband" John Garvie and in June that year has their first baby in East Molesey.  I can't find her 2nd marriage although its a very short window in which it would have taken place.

I've typed all that out from memory and can do similar with many other things.  I don't give up - only recently after 10 years of looking, I found the marriage of my 3 x gt grandparents John Dunt and Kezia Seals  in 1794, and Kezia's baptism (as Kezia Saul!) in 1773.