Genealogy frustrations.

[Gillg]

My parents sometimes mentioned a Black Sheep in our family, but would never tell me who it was or what he or she had done to earn the title.  My best guess so far is my gt-grandfather, who joined the London police, but was dismissed the force after 2 years for "stealing strawberries" and had to return to his native village.  I wrote in ignorance of this to the Met for his service record and received a most apologetic letter from them with the details.  It surely wasn't my grandfather's cousin, who had an illegitimate child.  If only I'd questioned my parents further!

[LizzieL]

A big frustration is the lack of on-line records for Berkshire, where at least a quarter of my ancestors come from.

[coombs]

A big frustration is the lack of on-line records for Berkshire, where at least a quarter of my ancestors come from.

I also have ancestors from Berkshire. Suffolk also has many parishes which are not online. Sadly Ancestry is very slow now at uploading new records to their site. At least FindMyPast releases new records every Friday, some of them may be a bit obscure but often they do release bulk records which are very helpful. I admire their enthusiasm.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Many years ago, when I started on this, ploughing through archdeacons transcripts in the cathedral library, I did really well with my local ancestors, until I came to a marriage in Elham of Mary Pay and John Coddam in 1671. No baptisms! I have left it at that, thinking "commonwealth gap", but having recently looked again at the Elham registers on line, they actually look very complete.
    Now, if there was any justice, these two would be born in Elham where both families were before and after, and I would be able to link Mary back to a yeoman family living there in the 1640s and 50s. These two families link again at a much later date in my great grandparents.

[coombs]

Genealogy can be very rewarding when you find something out but can also be very exhausting. But often once you have found a certain thing that you are looking for, and can no longer sing the U2 song to yourself  you feel the hunt is over. The hunt is the fun part.

[guest189040]

I have an Eli Collins b1776 Birstall, St Peter, Yorkshire.

There were options for his parents that I could not resolve at the time I started the tree, the other trees on Ancestry also stopped with him.

So I took a guess at his Father and possible Grandfather found marriages and left the tree at that to see what hints came up.

Over the years other trees adopted my guesses.

I kept revisiting but could not resolve Eli’s parentage to my satisfaction.

Then came DNA and Eli’s maternal Grandmother Mother Mary Bywater (one of the original guesses) comes up as a Common Ancestor of mine and to two other people who are descended from her.

I have Eli’s mother as Mary Pearson, the other two DNA matches also have Mary Pearson in their trees but they have her married to someone else and hence not to Eli’s father.

The frustration continues.

[coombs]

Sometimes a blanket search is a good option. Time consuming but at times can be rewarding. The PCC wills can be great as they are indexed on Ancestry, sometimes use a surname of interest and date range and county, and see if any of your relatives are mentioned in the wills. Or even a village name, and see if any relatives are mentioned or acted as witnesses.

[cafetiere]

I can't find my great grandparents on the 1881 census. I'm not even sure if I'd find out any more information from it  that I could guess at but not being able to find them at all is really maddening.

I've also contacted someone via FB who I am sure is a 2nd cousin. I don't want to impose on her at all (but she would be interesting - lives in NYC) but, if I'm right, I think she'd have some information that would really help me. But no response (I probably wouldn't reply to me on FB either, to be fair) so can't really pursue that.

And a gg grandmother had no father's name on her wedding certificate and was born before 1837.

Oh, and I've loads of Irish relatives. 

[IgorStrav]

I can't find my great grandparents on the 1881 census. I'm not even sure if I'd find out any more information from it  that I could guess at but not being able to find them at all is really maddening.

I've also contacted someone via FB who I am sure is a 2nd cousin. I don't want to impose on her at all (but she would be interesting - lives in NYC) but, if I'm right, I think she'd have some information that would really help me. But no response (I probably wouldn't reply to me on FB either, to be fair) so can't really pursue that.

And a gg grandmother had no father's name on her wedding certificate and was born before 1837.

Oh, and I've loads of Irish relatives. 

Oh yes.  Things you are NEVER GOING TO KNOW.  Unbearable.