three countries and a Surrey phone book

Although this database proved very easy to search, it was not my first choice. Perhaps this and certain other good datasets, such as NSW deaths, should be a first port of call for missing 20th century relatives. However, I prefer to follow the line of enquiry as it comes. The first mention of Reg was in the Ancestry Immigration records showing him visiting the UK from India with his father, a goldminer. Second I found Reg's death in Surrey many years later. Third I checked for a will and drew a blank. Fourth I checked the BT phone books for 1984 and found an address which seemed to fit. Fifth I checked the current and also historical electoral rolls (the latter at the British Library), which gave me his widow and daughter's names. All three initials match the passenger list record below.  No wonder I couldn't find them in England!

gotcha- marriage of Eleanor from Windermere

I shouldn't have panicked 'losing' Eleanor Lewis.  Although her name is relatively common, I had her birthplace of Windermere up my sleeve.  But you can't rely on that, as what if she'd died soon after marriage, or a variant of the birthplace been given in a census?  I already had spotted her sister Isabella in the 1911 Blackburn census, and found a marriage there, so I knew straight away the circled entry was for my relative.  Her daughter died nearly a hundred years later nearby, unmarried.

findagrave helps find the female line in Graceland

I had a blockage investigating the female line, with its new lease of life in Illinois.  There was Agnes White, but who had she married: Graceland Cemetery records had the following entry, for Mrs Rose, formerly White which took me a step close in extending the female line.  Agnes had three daughters - but where are they now?

Update: eldest girl Maxine has her obituary on genealogybank, which leads me to the other sisters. The middle girl is indeed continuing the Murrow line.

John Fry in Canada

thanks to Automated Genealogy for helping me find John in 1911.  His name was Maidment and the name of his wife matches his marriage to Lucy Maud Perrett 1910 (freebmd), and that of his daughter matches family records.  She is supposed to have become Joan Pender or Pinder but we can't find her family after this.

they'll always be Smiths

I love my Smiths.  However hard to find they are, at least the name's always spelt right.  Although Edward's marriage at the LMA archives gave the wrong name for his father, the occupation fitted, and this census entry proves he was my man.  I didn't linger long on the entry: by moving quickly I was able to find his daughter in Romford, and to establish what happened to all the children, though his sister still ranks as one of my big unsolved puzzles, along with his uncle.

By golly it's Bollington

This is an image taken from the probate indexes.  I originally found this in 1992, but this was long before digital photography and when I later got a camera, taking pictures was forbidden in a court building, and I had too many research items to waste time getting a microfiche print-out.  But here it is.  I deduced that Esther Fox had died young based on the will that never was: it even let me guess the year, 1856.  With a determination perhaps stupid, I combed through all the Fox probate indexes in the fiddly fading volumes above the Next 'clothing' store, as a schoolboy, and found this!  It was then an easy matter to wait three years and take the tube from Lancaster Gate to Chancery Lane to view the Bollington town microfilm for 1861 at the census rooms.

You can do all this at the touch of a button, but I had the upper-hand, genuinely being on virgin territory. I don't even believe the local family history society had even yet attempted a crude surname index, and the various 1881 indexes on fiche were absent too. I was very confused to find a whole load of Fox stepchildren mingling with Esther's children in the census owing to James having taken n his brother's children and their mother, too. The family was living across 5 counties by 1891, but I have finally laid them all to rest, 18 years later.

Singer song of sixpence

When James Burrows married in 1858 his wife's name was given as Elizabeth Singer daughter of William Jessie.  Searches for the first Singer marriage failed.  findmypast had just lately launched their MarriageFinder TM tool, so I plugged in the names, and was delighted to find the marriage of Elizabeth Jess in about the right time frame.  freebmd gave me the groom's name, Edward Sanger.  It took quite a while to get all the census entries sorted, and I've still not found James and Elizabeth's two children, but feel much closer to a solution.  In addition findmypast has the burials at Penselwood for some of them.  All for a lot less than sixpence!

finding that marriage before 1837

Clues lurked like chirpy birds around my family tree, but I still hadn't worked out who Mary Creed, born 1811 West Pennard had married.  I plugged the names into the Somerset Marriage Index, now online at findmypast, and only the marriage at Pylle 1835 seemed to fit.  I looked at children baptised at Pylle 1835-1841 as shown on familysearch, and the name Rhymes came up.  When I searched for Mr Rhymes marrying in 1835, here comes the man, with the reference exactly matching Mary's, telling me he was the groom.  The census confirmed Mary's birthplace.  That just leaves one of the nine Creed siblings yet to find, and I believe he died in America as a young man.