finding our past

  • Hello world!

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  • Finally a breakthrough

    I have managed to find birth, death and marriage certificates for all direct ancestors apart from Richard and Elizabeth (ne Whitley) Bolton. There are no entries in the death index that I have been able to find that seem right and the ones that were hopeful I ordered, but those had proved not to be…

  • speaking too soon

    So, after feeling as if I might manage to get on with some things, that went by the way over the last few months. It has been very difficult to get out of the mental block that has come upon me and now that I am feeling a bit more hopefully – after having my…

  • who thought a pandemic wouldn’t be conducive to getting on with stuff?

    Well, welcome to 2021. I can’t say that I am sorry to see the back of 2020 but, despite being once more in a national lockdown, things are looking a tiny bit more positive as the vaccine begins its roll out. I did indeed start the IGHS course and submitted my first assignment back in…

  • wills are useful, and people are sometimes idiots

    As a follow up to the last post [in November of last year, how time flies in a pandemic!], I obtained a copy of the will of John Ayton of Laxfield Suffolk, died 2 April 1845 in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex. This is the individual who I believe was father to Jane Ayton born c. 1792.…

  • where’ve we got to

    So, having not updated in far too long, I thought I’d finally give a brief rundown of where I’ve got to with the family tree. I’ve had a few brick walls pop over over the years and, after much searching, have managed to break through a few of them. The two biggest breakthroughs are both…

  • normans and vikings and knights, oh my!

    I have updated all the data on the TNG site [click on Family Tree in the sidebar] and added  PDFs of wills for download. All wills are attached to the relevant people in the database but are also available at a single click from the Documents link on the menu bar. I am currently transcribing…

  • finally! getting the site sorted

    After long consideration, I decided to find some software that would allow me to present all the information I have in an easily accessible way.  I have chosen The Next Generation, as it is easy to set up and has many attributes that help display info clearly and usefully.  It has taken me a month…

  • let’s not jump to conclusions

    It is easy, when researching your family history, to make assumptions that take the research down utterly incorrect turnings. I imagine that everyone has been guilty of this – in the rush of discovery it is easy to get carried away. It is also easy to be stymied by someone else’s assumptions when they are…

  • about time for an update

    It has been a long time since my last update as I put the research aside for a bit while I did some for a few friends – great fun! I have set up Ancestry with the family tree: it is currently private but I am more than happy to open it up to any…