Q - Questions

Genealogy is all about questions. What do you know? Who do you remember? What was it like? Where did you live?

Some people answer willing to share, flattered that you have asked. Others don’t. Nothing to know here, what do you want to know that rubbish for? Some answers are chinese whispers with just a skerek of truth woven in. Other questions get answered with answers which create more questions.

There are so many places now to search and research, compared with what was available sixty or so years ago. But there is always a question before you begin, where can I find out about…?

Most of the records we seek are full of answers to questions posed by officials. What is your name? Where were you born? What is your occupation? When were you born? What is your father’s name? How old are you?

Slowly we can build a picture of the people we have never met and put their lives in context. See the world as they saw it, imagine their wonder if they could see today’s world (or maybe their despair).

Would the people who didn’t want to answer questions, or who gave vague answers be surprised about what we have been able to discover anyway? Would they feel that the past had been honoured, the people respected, their lives cherished?

I hope so.

#52Stories, Week 13, If you could make a good living doing the one thing you love most in the world, what would it be ?

Well, I think being a family research detective might just be my dream job

Anyone got any contacts at Ancestry.com ? Familysearch.org ? FindMyPast.co.uk ? Heir Hunters ? I'd move to Utah quick as you could blink, or Sydney, or London or New York or LA - anywhere they have an office.

I've been thinking about jumping into this market for a few years now - since I have had some mind blowing breakthroughs in my own family research. I have also helped some friends find out about their families too, in New Zealand, Australia and England. 

I love poring through records deciphering handwriting from the past. Admittedly it would be great to view the originals, but the many records which are now available online are just as easy to read. On the plus side I can do it from the comfort of home and save money on travel to the other side of the world.

Saying that though, travel and family history research - combining the two would just improve my job satisfaction level exponentially.

Part of my failed plan to relocate to the UK a few years back was to set myself up there to help folk back on this side of the world with research, headstone hunting, village exploring. Putting the flesh on the bones of our ancestors. Names and dates are one thing, finding where they lived and how they lived just brings them closer. Maybe I will get another shot at that before I am too old and decrepit. 

If you are keen to get started let me know, maybe I can help. If you have already started but got stuck...let me know. I love a challenge. I think I should have been a detective.

Anyway, to really get paid work in this field you need to have some qualifications, it seems. Thirty years of doing it yourself doesn't appear to count for too much. With this in mind I am looking to enrol in a diploma which is available in Australia.

I'll keep you updated with developments !

UPDATE - One brick at a time

A short update to my earlier post about breaking down a brick wall.

It occurred to me after I had posted the discovery that I now had an alternate (correct) spelling for Mary's surname - Gerrard - and that I hadn't searched the GRO for that combination.

So I went back and looked again and lo and behold there WERE two more children born to Mary and Robert before they emigrated to Australia.

Two baby girls - one who had included in her name, a surname linking her to a previous generation, just so that I could be doubly confident. They lived only briefly though, Ellen 9 months and Lilian for 15 months.

I do have a copy of a photo of one of them....if I could only find the right box, I could include it here, or at least make a better guess about whether it was Ellen (Nellie) or Lilian (Lily). Or maybe it isn't either of them ? Perhaps it is a younger brother ? There are only two children in the photo and at the time both of these babies were born, eldest child Margaret was still alive.So if the baby is either Ellen or Lilian then there should have been three children in the photo. 

Oh well, another day.

One brick at a time...

I have been looking for ages for information about my daughter's 2x great grandmother Mary Millicent (sic) Hogg, nee Barnett or Jerrard/Jarratt. Since before she was born even !! 

When I started researching the family I had married into I asked lots of questions. I have stored all the answers and information, like a squirrel, for safe keeping in my mind. My mother-in-law had told me that her grandmother was a twin, that the twin died and then their mother (her great grandmother) remarried. But there was some confusion about whether the birth name of Mary was Barnett or Jerrard/Jarratt and which name belonged to the stepfather.

Her Australian death certificate has her name as Mary Millicent Hogg nee Barnett – and her mother’s name as Mary Milne.

I purchased her marriage certificate about 12 years ago. She gave her name as Mary Milne Jerrard in 1901 and said she was “over the age of 21”, when she married Thomas Watson Hogg. On most of her children’s birth certificates she gave her maiden name as Barnett.

It was also said that there were more children born in the UK before they moved to Australia, but I’ve not been able to find any registered. Especially now that you can search using the mother’s maiden name which you’ve never been able to do before. On the 1911 census, which was the last one taken before they emigrated, she says she had had 2 children and that they were both still alive (although only my daughter's great grandfather – Robert - was at home with her on census night). The elder child, Margaret, I later found enumerated as a patient in hospital. There are additional deceased children listed on her death certificate – but still no evidence !

On her husband’s Army enlistment papers for WW1 (found on Ancestry) her name is recorded as Mary Milne Jerrard (with Barnett crossed out) with the same marriage date. Just two children are listed, a 3^rd was born in 1914 so not on the census, and the 1^st had already died and was not included. When they emigrated to Australia after the war their 4^th child had arrived.

When I was having a spend up on the GRO in their email pdf trial in November last year, I decided to take a stab at the birth certificate for their first child Margaret in case there was information on there to help. But not really – apart from confirming that the address where they were living in 1902 was the same as in 1919. I found her death in 1913 from TB, aged 10 years. Her death certificate gave her name not just as Margaret Hogg (on the birth certificate) but as Margaret Jerrard Hogg. A clue perhaps, considering the naming patterns that are commonly used in Scotland.

Last night I decided again to see if I could find any additional children born to the Hogg/Jerrard Hogg/Barnett family. Nope.

So I thought I would try again to see if I could find Mary’s birth in Scotland. On the 1911 census (the only official UK document I had found where she had recorded her birthplace) and on her death certificate (where the information was supplied by her children) the place of birth was given each time as Aberdeen.

I’ve looked and looked there so many times !! Even back when one of my nieces was living in Aberdeen - at least 12 years ago, maybe 13. 

Scotlandspeople have updated their website and search function too and things are a little easier to navigate. I tried several searches, changing spelling, looking for the mother’s name as well and then BINGO !! A birth for Mary Milne Gerrard in Aberdeen ! I looked at the birth entry and the mother’s name was Margaret Gerrard (sound familiar ?).

To be doubly sure that I had found the right baby – I looked to see if there was a twin. Yes there was ! James Milne Gerrard, born 20 minutes earlier. (I LOVE the information on Scottish certificates !) They were born in the Poor House in Aberdeen to a single mother. Again, I am wondering if the naming pattern points to their father being a Mr Milne ?

So anyway, still trying to align with the information which I had been told, I looked for a death for the twin, and found one, aged 17 months, in the Poor House from croup. At that point I wondered had she left both of her babies there ? Her occupation on the birth certificates was Domestic Servant, and the same on the death certificate for baby James. How would a young girl look after 2 babies on her own back then in 1882, in a city like Aberdeen ? She would have had to keep working. Who cared for the children ?

The next event I needed to confirm was a marriage. Knowing now that HER name was Gerrard – and that the children’s birth names were Gerrard, the marriage should logically be to a Mr Barnett. And what do you know, there it was, in a slightly different part of Aberdeen. Margaret Gerrard (Domestic Servant) marrying George Barnet (a Paper Mill worker).

I eventually found them living as a family on the 1891 Scotland census, where he was working at a Paper Mill (which is actually still in existence today !) and Mary was listed as his stepdaughter. YAY !! Now I know I have the right people.

In 1901 when Mary and Thomas married, she said she was living in Benwell. I’ve not been able to find her (for sure on the 1901 census) but I did find her mother and stepfather, along with a half-brother and a step-grandparent living in the Benwell area of Newcastle on Tyne. The half-brother, George, isn’t on the 1891 census which is odd. I thought he may not have been born by the time the census was taken, but his birth certificate shows he was born in 1890 – to the correct parents. Maybe the enumerator just forgot to write him down.

Mary’s mother died in 1901 – between the census and Mary’s marriage. She was 38 years old. Her death is registered as Margaret Gerrard Barnet – further confirmation of the naming pattern and correctness of all this searching. Margaret must have been aged about 18 or 19 when she had her twins, and as I suspected Mary was not "over 21 years of age" when she married.

So there you have it, a story passed down which turns out to be true, I love it when that happens.

Very pleased with myself, I am. One brick wall smashed - now to focus back on those other ones. Julius, Mowbray, Charles et al., I WILL find you.

Are we who we think we are ?

These arrived in the mail.

We spat in them and sent them back.

Wonder what matches will be found - and what surprises too ?

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

So, I'm not part of the Pack

Well, it has been a while since I was here. I've been patiently biding my time. Going to work, brunching at weekends, frequenting markets, taking part in the CitytoSurf, (getting serious blood blisters and bruised toes), going to meetings, joining the library, doing family research - and waiting for the RWC2015 people to get back to me about whether I made the final cut to be a volunteer later this year.

They said we'd know by the end of March, since I hadn't heard anything by the time I went to bed last night, this morning I took off the wristband I have been wearing since my "try-out".

Tonight, I had an email. 

Nope, no job for me - but there is still a chance as circumstances change and some people may pull out. We'll see. 

Maybe now I can focus a bit more on life.

Easter is nearly here, and while for some people that means a long weekend (and chocolate) or the start of the school holidays, for others work is the only option. For us - one of us is working and the other is long weekending. But we have some plans for those bits of our lives which crossover like a venn diagram and offer the opportunity to do something different for a brief time.

In the other bits of time I guess there is gardening and cleaning to be done, if the weather permits.

I've been doing quite a bit of research recently about part of the family who lived in Christchurch and exploring different places. I might have to do a special tree post, so I record everything I have discovered - in case I lose all the bits of paper.

But, I think there might even be some other things to share about experiences and observances over the weekend.

Enjoy the weekend, don't eat too much chocolate or too many hot cross buns; that's not really what it's all about.

Lost in a sea of belongings and "keep-me's"

Why do I have so much stuff ?

I'll tell you - its because I have never lived in the same place for so long ever before in my life, and every little piece of paper I have ever touched has multiplied itself a thousand-fold.

Well, it is time to stop. Life was so much simpler when there was less. I have made a start.

Over Christmas  I filled destruction bins with lots of paper, boxes and bags with books, clothes and other "stuff" I really have no need for, and donated them to local charities.

But still there is more.

Tonight I have emptied half of my garage into someone else's life. That felt so good. I don't care if they chuck it out - but at least they can decide.

I have so much craft paraphernalia I could start my own shop. If only I could actually find the time to start some of the projects that have inspired me to buy all these bits. I'm thinking it will all need to go. But where ? There must be a fair fortune of paper, embellishments, paint and fixings here. I don't really want to just give it away, but maybe I will.

I have a goal, and that is to live a less cluttered life.

Books I will keep and photos (for one day I might need photos if my mind cant store all the memories - who knows ?) But actual possessions ? furniture and furnishings ? clothes ? There isn't much in that vein that really pulls on my heart strings.

Family tree discoveries and research notes - I'm trying to eliminate the amount of paper by checking the discoveries have all been updated on my genealogy programme, or saved in a soft copy somewhere on my computer or within an account on the net. I've actually made a lot of progress with this part. Although if I am tempted to get distracted I often find myself adding to the pile instead of taking away. Oh well. Little steps on the journey.

I have Christmas decorations for Africa. I'm one of those people who love Christmas, and I like themes. So I have a collection of things - bright ethnic sorts of baubles, red and white, green, gold, black and silver - what to keep ?

In two weeks, I want to be living in a less cluttered home, one that is tidy and ordered and has no distractions for me that might let me fall back into old patterns.

Patterns ? Did someone say patterns ? I have some of those too; sewing, knitting, cross stitch.

Watch this space - its going to get bigger and clearer. I mean it. Once I finish this.