Genealogy Chat

See below....trying cut and paste that someone mentioned earlier

When people say they have gone back with family, to say 1600's...how on earth do you do it? Take my William Ellwood..in 1841 his wife is Ann born 1799/1801 On IGI a William Ellwood married an Ann Rigg in 1820...all the dates and place fit.......but when I try to find the birth of Ann Rigg, or for that matter William Ellwood, there's loads that would fit. I've traced each family, and their children, through the census for a hint that they are one I want. Maybe a cousin or aunt is staying...I now have six Rigg families that fit. Even if I went to look at Parish Records and found their parents...I would be none the wiser! This is just an example, all my families are the same....there doesn't seem a way to prove it.....and I sit for hours....I'm sure people must just take a guess or am I missing something. I think I've done it.... hooray

Don't forget, you can often find supporting information on websites like A2A, several newspaper websites, Historical Directories..... don't just rely on BMD and census records.

It#s very likely that the further you go back in a small village, the fewer names there are and the more candidates you have. I've got a few with alternatives. It's likely that all the Riggs you've found are connected to yours in some way. Parish records, not just registers, can help, but it does mean spending ages looking through stuff in the relevant archives. Any clues with occupations?

Of and for every rellie I've found in the 18th century I've got one stuck in the 19th!

Someone said that Genealogy is 90% look and 10% luck. Sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and move on. After all, each generation we go back gives us double the number of Surnames to search, unless they lived in the inbreeding capital of the Country. Lol. I have branches going back 500 years, and branches lopped in the 19th Century. We can only say our Tree is finished when EVERY line ends with a brick wall. Some lines are expressways into the past.

I know Paul..I've looked....but unless I can find a murderer or a genius in my family...I have little hope of finding anything in the newspapers..especially for a coal or lead miner...unless he was killed. IGI is brilliant but like any registers they just give the bare facts. I get so wound up ....keeping looking..hoping just for a glint of recognition in a family

William Ellwood Sex: M Birth: abt 1795 Place: Crosby Ravensworth, Shap, Westmorland, England Christening: 15 Mar 1795 Place: Crosby Ravensworth, Shap, Westmorland, England Parents: Father: William Elwood Mother: Elizabeth Mattinson Marriage(s): Spouse: Ann Rigg Marriage: 13 Nov 1820 Place: Crosby Ravensworth, Shap, Westmorland, England Residence:1851 Place: Rigg Hole, Shap, Westmorland, England Occupation:1851 Place: Farmer (10 acres) This information was supplied by: Grant Forsyth EDWARDS 20 Hartland Road Epping, Essex CM16 4PE Why don't you write to him and ask if he has more?

If you have identified the Parish, then try this. Extract ALL the names which relate to your Surname. Baptisms, Marriages and Burials. Then try to fit the families together and often it will throw up relationships which were not immediately apparent. It really is a good feeling to build a Tree and then find that you can fit it to yours and have maybe 5 or 6 generations added in one go.

Parson and White's Directory of 1829 names the Principal Inhabitants of Westmoreland. It includes many of the Ellwood and Rigg families with their places of residence. That would be a good starting point. PM me your e-mail address and I will send you a pdf of the list.

Thanks Nell...Farmers after 1841...before that...haven't a clue Paul, I have thought Elizabeth Mattison..but when I looked for her birth...Mattisons don't seem to come from westmorland, more from the Cumberland and Northumberland are..which I suppose is near..but which one....throw the dice. I didn't realise it was a 'submitted entry' on IGI...I'll look into that Jim, how on earth did you get back that far....can we read about your relatives in books!!

Don't miss the small details either. You see that address for the family in the above detail.... Riggs Hole? Surely that's Ann's place of origin. I've googled and a Riggs Hall has come up in the same place. I thought you said you needed to find a murderer or a genius?

It does feel good Jim....but I now feel it's more like guesswork...the names,dates and Parishes fit...but I'm a devil for proof...and that...I'm not going to get. Thanks Paul..will do that..great I have been on all the Westmorland sites, but in the end they just seem to names..and so many families years ago, had the same first names I look at some of my trees back to the early 1700's and think...are these the right people....

Yes Paul....I do think Ann Rigg is correct...but that's as far as back as I can go ...and prove it.

Jean, one thing that helps is, as Grandpa Jim said, look through the baptisms, marriages and burials, because you may well find that some of your possibles from the baptisms died in infancy and you can rule them out. Also, if you look through the baptism entries themselves and the marriage entries themselves you may find there is extra information that will help (though of course there may not be!) For instance, I managed to sort out a similar problem in my family tree because the actual parish records referred to 'William Hett the younger' in the marriage entry for my ancestors, so then I knew that my William was the son of another William. This is not always mentioned in transcriptions such as the IGI. Also, if you can find any wills relating to the families they might help. Kate.

Don't worry too much Jean.....not everyone has medieval trees!! The majority of my lines go back to about 1800..... one or two a little further, to say 1750's - I only have one event happening before 1700 (a marriage of my 8xg-grandparents in 1694) A lot depends on luck....the names of your ancestors....and where in the country they came from, also to some extent, their social status and how naughty they were! My only line that goes into the 1600's is stumped because there are no church records for the period immediately before, thanks to Mr Cromwell, I suppose. Though I have found the odd record from other sources that probably belong to my relations I don't see how I could know EXACTLY who they refer to! I have only added one direct line ancestor in the last five or six years of searching, but I enjoy fleshing out my Victorian ancestors just as much as finding a name for my 9xg-grandparent (or whatever). Just go with the flow! Good Luck!! Merry

Gramps (Ibet I'm older than you ...lol) I have more bits of paper with whole families..taken from IGI.....trying to fit them together, than soft mick (pardon the expression).... I think I've got it .....then three children are born too close together, or something similar...so I go to bed.....then start again the next day.........do wonder I'm going mad.....I made a pledge (yesterday) that I would give it a rest..and stay off this board for a while.....and off the internet.!!!!!!

Thanks Kate & Merry, for your encouraging words. Kate, it would be brilliant if they always put 'the younger' at least you would have some idea....but as far as wills go...somehow I doubt it., though I have looked for my lost fortune! Merry, I'm glad I'm glad I'm not the only one.....I think I'm maybe taking it too serious ....I foolishly thought I was going to knock this tree together and finish it before I 'popped my clogs' but it's turning out to be a hobby for life.....lol....and at the expense of everything else.

I took that advice from a lot of lovely people on this board trotted off to the archives and trawled through the Fiches for baptismsfor my Binch family just to make sure 100% that I had got it right and yipee there they were right back to 1674 :))))))) (must admit did only look for 4 lol 1674 1699 1724 & 1764) and am now the proud owner of the photo copies of the fiches.) and ya know what I felt so happy to actually find them baptisms and proud too.

Paul You wrote earlier <Parson and White's Directory of 1829 names the Principal Inhabitants of Westmoreland>. I've got one Ellwood in my tree (Ann c. 1834 - 1872). She was born in Kendal, married William Lishman in 1858, had 7 children and died at Witherslack in childbirth with the final pair of twins. I've got a large number of 18th/19th century Lishmans in Westmorland. Does P & W have any? My Lishmans seem to be mostly farmers. J