Genealogy Chat

After receiving over 15 encouraging responses to my"off the cuff" thread I've taken your advice & decided to write to people with the my same family surnames, 1 surname only has 1 person registered in the whole of Durham county! & the other only 8. I've even sorted out the stamp drama & am eagerly awaiting my friend's mother-in-law's arrival in 9 days when she will bring 12 68p stamps with her!! I tried going via Royal Mail's website & found to my horror that I would have to buy a sheet of 100 at a cost of 68 pounds (about $200 NZ) which gave my poor hubby palpitations. Thanks for all your encouragement & inspiration. I'll let you know how I got on, in due course. So fingers crossed for some long lost rellies. All the best Zoe, Wellington, NZ

Donna, Glad that my query gave you a similar idea. Hope that it doesn't take too long for the phone directory to appear & that your search isn't too arduous! All the best Zoe, Wellington, NZ

Zoe and Donna, why don't you put a request in the local paper for the town or village that you are looking at for your rellies? I did this to find my dad's family and received a reply from his first cousin, just thought it was worth mentioning :-) tricia

Don't worry your wee self about it-I've got a very kind soul who's offered to do some research for me when she's next visiting the Records office, though of course that is all historical stuff. Unlike some members my main problem is finding living relatives-haven't seen my father since I was 8 (& my mother "doesn't wish to speak about it") & mother seems to have rather more than a few skeletons in her side which she also doesn't want to discuss)-does make life rather interesting though! Don't know what I'd do without people like the GC members! My main concern is trying to locate my father without knowing his dob or place of birth (or for that matter his parents!) but hope I'll get there before too long-assuming it's not already too late!! Anyway, thanks for your interest. Here's to another weekend Zoe

Hi Tricia, Thanks for that tip. How does 1 locate the local newspaper of the area? As per my previous comment that along with my unusual surnames I'm also trying to locate my father. Do you think the paper would cover all surnames (3 in this instance) or just want to concentrate on only 1? Maybe I could put an ad for "any known relatives of......" Well will have to leave you there & go & get some beauty sleep (if only that's all it took!). It's 12.31 am here in NZ (Friday) so had better go before my wee boys wake me up before I've chance to get some sleep. Thanks Zoe

Zoe, go to the website B4usearch.com and enter in business and location and hopefully it will give you a list of the local papers' and the addresses, it would help if you had a post code for the area though i'm not too sure how you would go about getting that if you don't already know it, sorry. still anything is worth a try. best wishes Tricia

try Hemsworth & South Elmsall Express Address 23 Barnsley Road, South Elmsall, PONTEFRACT, WF9 2RN Telephone 01977 640107 Fax 01977 642004 and also localish try this: http://www2.wakefieldtoday(.)co(.)uk/canyouhelp.htm Pontefract newspaper who has a specific section for family history Zoe