A wellspring of descendants - all thanks to the right church

After Christmas 2011, I returned home. When I sat in my rooftop eyrie, back in the warmth, it was to my father's Tyneside ancestor I turned my bow.

I knew that Joseph Gibson married at St John the Baptist, Newcastle 1862, but I had no idea what had happened to his sister Annie born around 1840 in Westoe, South Shields, a taverner's daughter. Her dad kept the Waggoners Arms in Westoe.

It took me two years until today to guess that his older sister Ann had probably married at the same church two years earlier. I searched through all the marriages at the Newcastle register office website which were for Newcastle itself, with this thought in mind, and I found several entries where the all-important page number had been misindexed at freebmd. Ah-ha, Gibson to Edwards.

(Tidying up this article 6 years down the track, I can't remember how the Newcastle register office site actually helped. I think it might have listed spouses, or at least given the church? It certainly doesn't do that any more!)

Sure enough the certificate confirmed the marriage at St John the Baptist of Ann Gibson, innkeeper's daughter.

But that very evening, having fixed the mis-indexed page, I already knew Ann's marriage (to carpenter Edwards) was right. The censuses and childrens' names all stacked. I even found their great-grandson was a Newcastle cartoonist (Doug Smith). Then a photo online of Doug's daughter (below). I eventually got a letter back from her, only to find she was living about half a mile along an old railway line from my rooftop eyrie, over the blue barking night skies of London.

using the Death Duty records at Kew

Harvey's will is disappointing, a very old dog.  It doesn't mention his accident caused by powder explosion, causing him blindness.  Nor does it give any clue to any of his nine children, including three and later a fourth, who would make their home in Australia.  The IR26 record, which I thought to get at least ten years later, is like a capricious Capuchin monkey in comparison.  Harvey's legal heir is named as Martin Harvey of Woolwanga, Fountain Head, Port Darwin.  At this time, land at Trevorgan, St Buryan, not mentioned in the will! is sold and his sister Mrs W Halpin, wrongly recorded as Wm, appears to have acted as attorney, i.e. next of kin.  The first step in finding these records, which run from 1796-1903, is to search the Death Duty index at findmypast.  You will need to know the year of death.

double-proof for the Attenboroughs of Brigstock

This census entry confirmed the Attenborough of Brigstock connections to my Huttons.

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.