Genealogy Chat

I too have fallen into the One Name Study trap! lol With me it began trying to sort out which William Male married which Elizabeth (there were a number of them) - and then trying to work out which children went with which parents. Ack! My mother was a Male, born in Barrington, Somerset and I have managed to trace her line back to the mid 1600s Found out too that quite a few people had already done a lot of research on the Males of Barrington from the early 1600s and I have been collecting and gathering Males that originated from there - and it is fascinating to find out how far they travelled..... I have cousins all over the world! lol I would love to start a similar thing with my father's name - Redfearn - but his family is from Yorkshire - a more daunting task, me thinks. lol The collecting of names and dates is the necessary beginning - from there you can look for more interesting information, should you wish to do so. I have a web site too - tho it is very out of date and due an upload of new info.... http://www.*maryjane-sue.*com/sue%20redfearn/index.*htm

Rachel, have you seen William Malkin bapt Jan 1771 at Illingworth? Illingworth is a suburb of Halifax and the church was a chapel of ease in Halifax parish

Robin No, I haven't! I didn't know Illingworth was in Halifax, I've a suspision that his dad was Samuel & his mother Elizabeth but nothing concrete to go off. Where did you find it? You've made my day, thank you. Rachel

I've often wondered what made others start their one name study. My mum was adopted at the age of 4, but this was in the early years of legal adoption and her grandmother insisted that the adoptive family keep her informed of mum's progress, and that she be allowed to get in touch when mum was 21. They wrote regularly after that, and met up after I was born, and I knew her as my great gran. All we ever got regards the family was 'tragic circumstances', 'best you don't know' type of thing, but she did let HER mother's maiden name slip on more than one occasion, claiming to be related to one of the more famous bearers of the name, as people do. So Mum and I started researching this particular family, thinking we 'belonged' to them somehow, and because the name was uncommon and we had literally nothing to go on, we just noted everything we could about anyone with that name. After my great-gran's death and when my mum finally got to meet her mother, we learned a lot more about our family and realised we'd been chasing the wrong people! We worked back easily after that because the family had been in the same village for generations, but by this time my mum was determined to find living relatives from the same family, so we set about building a tree that came forwards from our early 1700s starting point, following every branch we could. We collected everyone with that name on the GRO indexes, wills, the IGI etc., to see where or if they fitted in, and that got me hooked! Been hooked ever since. That was 20 years ago and it was slow progress back then, with 3 children and very little spare time or cash. Occasional trips to London were never my favourite way to spend a day out, just a means to an end. I was over the moon when my local record office got the GRO indexes on fiche! My best days were spent at county record offices, but even those days were few and far between for a long time. It really is so much easier now. If the records had been as accessible to me as they are now, I reckon I could have got to this stage in a quarter of the time, so I've made real strides this last few years with things like the censuses being indexed etc. Draw back is that they're available online 24/7, so here I am, at gone 2am, still searching for anything new! Carole

Hi Like many others i fell into my ONS of my maiden name of FEWELL. Luckily for me there were a few others researching the tree,so it was basically done for me, i just added my branch which the others knew nothing about. I have become so obsessed with the study, it's costing a fortune and i have only scraped the surface. I will be in future joining the Guild and submitting my Name,but more work needs to be done I do have all registered Deaths in England and Wales and Births/Marriages up to 1955 Also Pallotts Marriage index. I have started to go abroad with the name, but just my family only at the minute. What i'd like to know is how do you check/get info about the surname abroad??? I also have several variations of the name Fuell/Fuel/Fewel/Feuell so it's gonna take a good few years to do. But i can't think of anything better, than finding out about my ancestry. Kath x

Hi Like many others i fell into my ONS of my maiden name of FEWELL. Luckily for me there were a few others researching the tree,so it was basically done for me, i just added my branch which the others knew nothing about. I have become so obsessed with the study, it's costing a fortune and i have only scraped the surface. I will be in future joining the Guild and submitting my Name,but more work needs to be done I do have all registered Deaths in England and Wales and Births/Marriages up to 1955 Also Pallotts Marriage index. I have started to go abroad with the name, but just my family only at the minute. What i'd like to know is how do you check/get info about the surname abroad??? I also have several variations of the name Fuell/Fuel/Fewel/Feuell so it's gonna take a good few years to do. But i can't think of anything better, than finding out about my ancestry. Kath x

I have been doing a Fleetwood one name study for years now have collected thousands of them and managed to assist many others with their branches, never ever think that Fleetwood is an ususually name (as we did until we started) it gives enormous satisfaction to help someone and maybe crack their brickwall for them, if only someone could crack ours!! It is hard work though xxhugxx

Kath, I also had a problem with overseas records - I didn't have clue where to start! For years I only had bits and bobs through exchanging family histories, but gradually I've managed to build up information as more sites appear online. For example, for Australia I've used the National Archives of Australia (a quick search of Fewell brought up 13 entries, including people who were born in the UK and emigrated there), the BMDs for News South Wales, WW1 & WW2 Nominal Rolls, Cemetery lists, newspaper indexes, convict records, passenger and shipping lists, and lots more besides - all available online, and I googled of course. For the States I used Ancestry and the Ellis Island Passenger database, but to be honest the US wasn't a particularly popular destination for Dibdens. For Canada I've used the National Archives of Canada, British Colombia BMDs, Veterans Affairs (Virtual War Memorial Database). And for Southa Africa I've used their National Archives. I've searched countless other overseas sites and indexes, and often found nothing, but when I have found something it's usually tied in with something else I already have, so I've managed to track most back to the UK and tied them in. Hope this helps to start you off, and have fun. Best wishes, Carole

Carole, Please see my other thread - tips for NOT SO newbies....a lot of potentially useful sources there that you've just mentioned :-) Andy

Rachel -- missed your reply, fell asleep -- it's in IGI, I don 't know any more sorry

Hi Andy, Great idea for a thread! Thanks for pointing it out to me. Carole :-)

Thanks for helping Robin, I tend to treat the info on the IGI with caution but it's helpful to know that Illingworth is in Halifax. I might get in touch with Calderdale Fam Hist Soc again and see if they have the transcriptions.

I emailed a family name via ONS website that I was having great trouble with in hubby's family tree but have received no reply.

I too seem to have unwittingly started an ONS with my collection of information on the Flewers/Fluers family. I’d like to do it all properly but I can’t come up with an efficient way to store the information about all the unconnected family groups and miscellaneous instances of the surname that I have collected. They are currently written on a jumbled spreadsheet and then stuffed in a fat folder on top of the wardrobe. Any better ideas? Lyla

Hi Carole Thanx for that mate, it gives me some hope. I have checked Ellis Island Before and there were no Fewell's or varients, but will check out the OZ one right now. Thanx again for your help regards Kath x

Kath If you find any Flewers mixed in with your Fewells can I have them please? Lyla

Lyla Of course mate and please if you find any Fewell's or varients let me know. Kath x

Mine isn't an official ONS but I've set up a Yahoo group for fellow researchers of the rare surname CULLIFORD and its variants. I started tracking just my own family but that involved hunting down others in the same area. When I formed the group a number of the members discovered they were related. I haven't managed to get any further back with mine recently but tracking the surname down has led me sideways into connected people and I've found more than my fair share of black sheep on this line! They are all distantly related somehow anyway so the fact that I can't put all the interesting characters on my own tree (yet!) doesn't bother me. I like all the background stuff that I've found out while doing genealogy. Sue Sue

Lyla I have hit on a method of storage which works for me. Each person gets a half-sheet of A4 (usually scrap,LOL). It is headed with their name and an approximate date of birth, or if even an approx date is impossible I put 'alive in...' whatever the year. If someone else is mentioned, e.g. a marriage, or a baptism, the that person also gets a bit of paper, which is cross referenced to the other. This method works well for any situation - for instance, a Will in 1688, mentioning six people, generates 7 names. A settlement order for a man, his wife and five children, again generates 7 bits of paper. A wonderful, wonderful Court Case, lasting 70 years, gave me ten generations!!!! I then file them alphabetically, by first name and then by approx birth date order in shoe boxes - men in one, women in another and married-ins in yet another! (You can get nearly 1000 bits of paper in a shoe box). When I get a new bit of info I can often tie it in with someone I have already got - very satisfying! Marjorie

Hi Marjorie I'm liking your idea but I'm just wondering whether you can see the bigger picture with this method. Do you record everything you know about each individual, parents, siblings, census sightings etc on each bit of paper? It must take a long time to put together. I think I'm going to give it a try. Anything is better than a file filled with scraps of miscellaneous paper. Thanks Lyla