Genealogy Chat

Hi, I can't be the only one that feels like they're chasing their tail!! What do you do when you suddenly find you're meeting yourself coming back i.e. you get on a paper trail, follow it for a couple of hours and then end up looking at an entry that you found three months ago and didn't think you had - or you just can't find the original piece of paper that gave you the starting point in the first place!!! Drowning in a sea of information and feeling sorry for myself on a Saturday afternoon - perhaps I'll just give up and go and get some sun instead!! Trudy

Hi Trudy Yes I have been down that long long road many times and know how you feel. I think the answer is to stick with one name only for as long as possible . Have an hour in the garden and come back again

When I get to that stage I put that name aside for a while and look at another line. Sometimes when you come back to it after a break you see something you may have missed last time round :o)

Thanks both of you - feeling a bit more positive on Monday morning and ready to start again!!

Trudy You really need to start worrying when you have had a photograph for 20 years, have constantly looked at it over the years, wondered who these people are, vaguely sorted out two or three of them, seen a note on the back which says Plymouth 1896 and only wake up a few weeks ago with another mystery that has just struck you. Why Plymouth 1896 when your folk did not move there until 1903!! Back on the trail now after a very long lapse! I am sure most of us are guilty of similar things. Sometimes the answer is as people say above. I have just made myself a promise to sort all my bits of paper out and file them properly into their correct files and places, often easier said than done! Sometimes it is tricky to know just how to file all your info. I have tried files for people and files for places with more files as I get more info, but whatever you do you do seem to be forever sorting pieces of paper. It goes with the job! Janet

Know how you feel have heaps of stuff but can't find any of it. Most of tree is in my head!! I'm putting photos on computer least then I have a copy of every thing. Kim

Hi Janet - can understand how you feel, but part of my positivity this morning is after a phone call with my only remaining older relative (my aunt!) on Saturday evening. I had sent her a copy of a fan chart of that side of the family with some brief notes about everyone I had found - she phoned me to say it had jogged her memory and what did I know about my grandad's cousin who was a hermit and lived in a hovel!!! - needless to say - where on earth do you start with that one!!!! Trudy

I know exactly what you mean. A few weeks ago I invsted in some files and got the whole lot organised( so I thought). i put all the names on family Treemaker and thought I couldn't miss a thing. Then one day a couple of weeks ago i asked someone for a look up for the 1851 census. The reply came back 'I have just cut and pasted this from the lookk up I did for you 3 weeks ago! ' Apparently I had acknowledged it too. I felt so shamed ......... Alice

Thanks everyone for the replies - nice to know I'm not alone! Trudy

Hi Yvonne Deadly serious I'm afraid!! So legend has it, according to Auntie, he lived in a hovel in or near the village of Little Staughton, Beds in the 1920's and 30's - she remembers that members of the family would only visit when they 'had to' and that she remembers cycling there on a Sunday with my grandparents (her parents) on a couple of occasions when she was very young (she was born 1928) and that he was a 'vile, creepy old man' - her words!! Trudy

Thanks Yvonne - no I'm quite a way from the village, but I hadn't thought of the local FHS - will give them a try. Trudy