Your 2025 FH journies.

[MollyC]

0n that link I get:

This page isn’t working
stevemorse.org didn’t send any data.
ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE

Zaph

Sorry to have alarmed everyone.  It was working when I made the post and I did not read your reports until Stephen was back again, thank goodness.  He must have been at a trans-Atlantic Christmas party!
Anyway, I was very glad to have found it the first time.  (But Jaikie the cat now requires prior warning of major discoveries.)

[Biggles50]

I found that I had a Sister last year and for the last 18 months we have been getting to know each other.

I met a 3rd Cousin in Manchester back in April and we are in regular contact.

Two days ago we Facetime’d a distance Cousin for the first time who lives in the USA.

So far this year many DNA Matches have now been traced and includes multiple branches to different MRCA’s on my Irish side.  The main Paternal Paternal line beyond 1834 has a big ? at present, there are a couple of possibles but no DNA MRCA as yet.

[ThrelfallYorky]

All my same generation nearly seem to have died, and no real discoveries for years - boring families, no scandal or excitements on any branch of my own family tree.
TY

[MollyC]

Try doing someone else's tree.  Just after Remembrance Day a friend said he had an uncle who was in the navy and was killed in 1945 but didn't think that he was commemorated anywhere except on his parents' gravestone (which is in Findagrave).  I said have you looked at the CWGC website?  It turned out he is on the Fleet Air Arm memorial at Lee-on-Solent and also on a very small memorial with just seven names, near the farm where his family lived.  Nobody had his full date of birth, which was waiting to be found in the 1939 register.

Then I linked all the Findagrave entries on two family graves.  That led me to persue the family further, which was slightly tricky because they had lived on farms a few miles around the junction of Yorks, Notts and Derbys with one wife born in Lincs, so I was continually changing record sets and registration districts, but at least nobody disappeared to London.  I presented my friend with the names and dates of all eight GtGtGrandparents on his maternal side.

[Clarkey500]

I have thrown everything at the Paige/Page family of Plymouth this year.

Mostly through transcribing records ordered from the National Archives which has been able to grow my understanding beyond the traditional parish records (which, of course, have been helpful).

In a pamphlet based on the murder of William Paige in 1590/1591, it mentions a Mrs Harris as his sister. It's always annoyed me that everyone else is referred to as their full name, but she never was. I am 99% sure now that I think I know who she was which has been a long time coming.

To top it off, there is a Page of Plymouth literary project funded by the National Lottery and ran by Literature works based on this pamphlet. I've been to one of their webinars and privately presented to 3 of the people behind the project about the family and what I have found out.

There's still more to be done and in fact, a one name study could be in the pipeline at some point.

[Ray T]

My most satisfying discovery actually came this morning. My late father always treasured a cup he won playing in a cricket competition when he was 14 - over 86 years ago. I still have it but the inscription tells me little about who he was playing for etc.

Why I haven’t researched it before, I’ve no idea but I found a report of the match in the FindMyPast newspapers earlier today. He was playing for his school and they lost - bit like the current England team - they were all out for the grand total of 18 runs, and my father even gets an honourable mention; he didn’t bowl but, as a batsman, he was “not-out for 0”. He was the last man standing!

[Clarkey500]

My most satisfying discovery actually came this morning. My late father always treasured a cup he won playing in a cricket competition when he was 14 - over 86 years ago. I still have it but the inscription tells me little about who he was playing for etc.

Why I haven’t researched it before, I’ve no idea but I found a report of the match in the FindMyPast newspapers earlier today. He was playing for his school and they lost - bit like the current England team - they were all out for the grand total of 18 runs, and my father even gets an honourable mention; he didn’t bowl but, as a batsman, he was “not-out for 0”. He was the last man standing!

That's a great find. Reminds me of when I found a picture of my great grandfather earlier this year in a cricket team photo that was published in a village book. The little things add up.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I've researched and done some trees from linked people to our lines - not direct ancestors, but people with whom we share a common ancestor.
Oddly enough I seem to have found that some characteristic skills and abilities - several art and print related people, and gardeners, pop up quite a lot on the common lines.
Proud of one or two that link to reputable / interesting /even well-known people, and so sad at the lives of some less fortunate lines with which we share common ancestry.
TY

[Raybistre]

My grandmother was one of four sisters. I knew what happened to two of her sisters, who they married and the names of their children from family information. The third was a mystery until last year. Her name was Mary Ann Davies born in the Rhondda Valley, Glamorgan, about 1875. Still haven't found a birth certificate as there are at least 2 that fit assuming the birthplace given in the census is correct. Mary Ann Davies is a very common name in Wales and of course I didn't know if she stayed in Wales. I had a DNA match with a family on Myheritage and Ancestry. Tracing that family enabled me to establish Mary Ann's marriage and death. She had two children and my DNA matches descend from the daughter who had been unofficially adopted by her maternal great uncle and his wife at the age of 3 when her mother died. She used her great uncle's surname Davies due to the adoption but occasionally coupled her original surname in front of it. It was a complex bit of family history. Ray