Moo’s Blog

I have been doing a lot of family tree research since we have been snowed in.
On one branch of the family tree…. a great grandparent on my first husband’s side…. I found an interesting fact.
John had been married to an Emma. Emma died and John had children with his live-in servant, a Caroline. Caroline it turns out was the neice of Emma! Caroline’s mother was Emma’s sister!!
This is one occassion where it has paid to research a branch (the fist wife) that is really of no relevance to the tree, other than to complete a bigger picture! Without the research on Emma, I would not have easily found the relationship to Caroline!!

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I found a gt gt grandfather (my grandfather’s maternal side) a Daniel Tucker in a 1901 census. The exciting part was that I knew the area that the census was talking about. It was the Workhouse in Taunton, Somerset. This was situated in the parish of Holy Trinity, the parish where I went to my infant and junior school. My home was “just down the road” about a mile away! Not only that, when i was a child of eight, I went around the then infirmary, the hospital for old people, which in the past was part of the Workhouse!
In the same census I found some relatives of my direct line on my grandmothers side….. there was a Richard Maddock, his wife Elizabeth and their nephew William who was only 53.
On further investigation it appears that my mother’s grandfather, a Joseph Tucker was at this workhouse in his later years, and that her father took her to see her “granfer” there. Her father called him “Jack” so am assuming this was the name a lot of people knew him by. I will get his death certificate which should give the location of his death.

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I got really excited the other day to find that a nephew of my grandmother emigrated. What was most exciting was the fact that on his landing papers (Toronto, Canada) there was a description of him. He was 17 when he emigrated and when he was 23 and ten months old he was having five days in New York visiting a friend. He was five feet four and a half inches tall (interesting to me as my grandmother was under five feet tall, and all her siblings were short too), he had light brown hair and blue eyes!

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I have received the birth certificate of Mary Ann Holley and it gives her parents as James Holley and Mary Ann Willand. Now I know I have the right parents! (They are my GGGrandparents)
The marriage cert. of Mary Ann Holley and James Maddock however only lists their ages as “Full Age” so we know they are at least 21 years old. The birth cert. gives Mary Ann Holleys Birthday as 14th Dec 1863.
The marriage certificate of Mary Ann Holley’s parents show the names to be James Holley and Mary Willan (no “d”). I know I have the right people here, so maybe it is a transcription error?

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I got around to ordering the birth certificate for Mary Ann Holley (born I think in 1864). I also ordered her marriage certificate to Joseph Maddock. I know who her father is as I have seen the parish records on line for Creech St Michael. However the records there do not show how old she was at her marriage so I am hoping the marriage certificate will tell me and not just say “full age”!
I am hoping that these two documents will fill in the missing data for her and enable me to find her parents.

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I ordered 9 marriage certificates the other day and this Thursday 7 arrived, and on Friday the last 2 arrived.
It was good to see that a lot of my evidence tallied.
However I came across some confusing evidence. I have one person who was deceased at his daughter’s marriage but the certificate showed his occupation and didn’t mention he was deceased. Also by this time one census showed his wife widowed and then the next census date she was remarried.
Again on another marriage certificate another person’s occupation was given but my evidence had shown him deceased.
I might have thought this was normal but on yet another marriage certificate it showed the person’s occupation but that he was now deceased.
On the evidence of two marriage certificates I found I had the wrong parents in both cases. So I had to delete the siblings and parents from the tree.
On another person I find I need to get a copy of her birth certificate to ascertain I have the right parents. The IGI shows a Mary Ann Holley christened 02 Sept 1866 Burlescombe Devon Parents James Holley and Elizabeth. ALSO IGI shows Mary Ann Holley christened 07 Feb 1864 Burlescombe Parents James Holley and Mary. The three censuses here shows birth about 1865, about 1865 and about 1866. The death registered in Taunton says Mary Ann Maddock 46 years old, which makes her birth 1864 and her parents James and Mary (which is what I think is correct but I now need to verify it by gettign her birth certificate.)

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I have been researching our ancesters for several years now and the trees are growing. Then I suddenly realised that I have been adding to the trees BUT I hadn’t updated the information for about a year! So yesterday I set about rectifying that and updated the Berry/Haylett Family Tree. Today I updated the Lewis Family Tree.

Better late than never!

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I have done all my reseach so far on free sites and have got quite far with my family tree. Then I found on the Ancestry site a Beta Press for printing the family tree. So eager to try it I put some information from my tree onto the Ancestry site. I printed off a twenty page booklet and liked the format.

I had been debating for some time now getting a subscription to the site and while I was inputting my tree on the site I got a three day trial. Well it made researching so much easier as the site comes up with possible historical documents (census, and a few deaths).

Even with a free site you can build your tree and invite others to view it.

 Once my free trial period was over I got my year’s subscription to the site and since then I have uploaded my family tree in Gedcom format. I am now going through the tree and attaching relevant historical documents!

I am enjoying having a subscription to the site and wish I had doen it earlier!!

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I have added a new web page Family Tree Evidence.

I have been working on making sure I have the evidence in the trees that I am working on. Plus I have been asked how I know I have the right people. So I have attempted to explain how I get my evidence. I hope you find it useful.

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For this research I had the males name and found the year he was married, 
the quarter, the place, the volume and the page number. However I only knew the woman’s Christian name. How to find her surname?

I next went to the BMD (birth, marriage and death records) and put in a query for the year, the place including the volume and page number plus the woman’s Christian name.
  Two women of the same Christian name showed up for this year and this
  district BUT only one had the correct page number! Then I could do the cross referencing and double check that I had the correct woman. I did!!

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