A Eureka Moment

[BourneGooner]

Just thought I would share "my" latest Eureka moment with everyone.

For a number of years now I've been trying to find out what happened to my wife's great aunt on her fathers side, Agnes Annie Lock, I could trace her through to 1901 via the census working as a servant but could never find her after this no matter what I tried.

Then Lo and Behold the wife was looking through the newspaper archives online and found a piece relating to Agnes Annie's fathers (John William Lock) burial and who attended. It listed John's sons and daughters but only gave names as Mr. Lock, Mrs Russell etc. Suddenly the light bulb went on, who was Mrs Russell, turns out Mrs Russell was Agnes Annie she had married up in Nottingham a couple of years after leaving London. Suddenly the floodgates opened and all the pieces of the jigsaw fitted together.

After years of looking one little newspaper article suddenly knocks down a brick wall and I'm one happy bunny 

Just wish I had the same luck with my great grandfather Charles Goff, but it just goes to show you got to keep looking.

Just thought I had to share that and say perseverance does pay off sooner or later.

BoourneGooner

[Mowsehowse]

That's great, I am happy for you. 

And you are SO right, because more information becomes available on-line daily, and many more brick walls should tumble for everyone with perseverance.

[deejayEn]

Well done! It's great when this happens isn't it.

For 20 years I couldn't trace the father of my great-grandfather. Eventually thanks to the Free BDM I found that he was born under a different surname but even then after buying the birth certificate all I knew was that his father was George Bloomfield and he was a butler. I could get no further.

Eventually just a year ago, thanks to a search via Ancestry, I discovered that he was already married with a family and had left his wife but died before the birth of my great-great uncle who he also fathered. I found this out through workhouse records. It seems that he was admitted to the workhouse as he was ill and sadly had a brain tumour. He was eventually sent to an asylum in Uxbridge where he died shortly afterwards. I then bought his death certificate where his occupation was listed as Baker. This was clearly an mistake but if I had bought that certificate years ago I would probably have dismissed it.But thanks to the workhouse records where his occupation was a correctly listed as Butler I knew I had found the right man and all the pieces fell into place.

[jbml]

Congratulations.

Those sudden breakthroughs always feel sooo good, don't they?

[radstockjeff]

I spent years looking for OH's great grandmother. She had simply disappeared off the radar.
 Then one day when I was looking for somerthing about OH father I stumbled across a web site which gave me the key to my original problem. All eventually was revealed but there were some interesting bits and pieces which indicated why I could not find her e.g bigamous marriage and subtle name changes along the way!

[bugbear]

Then Lo and Behold the wife was looking through the newspaper archives online and found a piece relating to Agnes Annie's fathers (John William Lock) burial and who attended.

Funeral notices can be WONDERFUL;

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=744559.msg5915586

    BugBear

[clairec666]

I've had similar luck with newspaper archives, and they've helped me tie up a few "lost" females too. It's quite fun when you get a list of "Mrs" at a funeral and you have to work out which daughter married which man.

Or sometimes it says something like "he was survived by three sons and two daughters, one in Canada".

Coverage of newspaper archives varies from area to area, but if you can find a relative it's a treasure trove of information!

[StanleysChesterton]

I am trying to find somebody who "disappeared" abroad.  I know he went.

His mother's burial was in the papers with a list of mourners, giving me a great confirmation of his siblings' married names - and - I think it proves to me that he didn't return to this country for his mother's funeral as he wasn't listed and all the others were. 

This indicates to me that he was still "abroad" in 1939, although I know other reasons are possible for non-attendance. Until you find the final piece of the jigsaw you do clutch at straws

[mandymast]

what is the best site to use to look at funeral notice for Ireland thanks