I believe in free will(s)

These were obtained *for free* at London LDS family history centre in an afternoon on Tuesday 11 August 2009.  Who says you have to pay for family history – this would have been £90 in wills had I bought them (which I never would).  It’s amusing that the biggest leads came from the references to ‘Jane Williams’ and ‘Mary Price’.  Ok Mary had a massive telltale middlename of ‘Orledge’ which made it sodding impossible *not* to find her, and her helpful will names all seven children in full which again made misidentification really tricky – particularly as there just weren’t many Welsh Prices still less English ones in English Enfield Lock.  Jane Williams was a bit less of a cheat.  Sure I knew from the context that Jane was born a Hambly in Gwinear, Cornwall, 1826 so using some of this information helped me find her marriage (Jane Hambly, Samuel Williams, 1847 Cornwall) and the rest of this information plus the husband’s name duly discovered, to find her in 1861 Hampshire (Jane Williams born about 1826 Gwinear, wife of Samuel) and then with the family details listed to find her in the 1881 census where she is just Jane Williams born about 1826 ‘in Cornwall’.  Eeks!  Again very few Williamses in Hampshire, still less Cornish ones.

Evans above- glazing Neath

Just a plea for any information on William Evans, plumber and glazier, Wind Street, Neath.  He was there in 1811, 1822 and quite possibly some time after this.  He was born 1770-1790 so most likely dead by 1841 census.  His wife Mary (Rees/Morton?) was the niece of Elizabeth (Rees) Pengilly, wife of Thomas Pengilly, Superintendent of the Neath-Abbey Iron-Works.

Pengilly died in 1822 and his widow three years later leaving a few pounds to niece Mary Evans.

The death duty registers show that Mary was the daughter of Elizabeth's sister, and my money is on her being the daughter of David and Ann (Rees) Morton of Neath or Cadoxton.

I descend from David Morton of Merthyr Tydfil who was either Mary's cousin or her brother.

On being, irrr, 26, and facing death duty indexes

Oh what fun we had.  This is the sort of totally gemsmithery you can yield from a day digging at TNA's luscious IR26 reserves.  You don gloves, foam pads and reader-ticket, and then the page-turning records are all yours.

Check out this beauty: next of kin are named as the legatee died in the testatrix's sister's lifetime, before the money could be shared out to her.  This name's Frances Buck's daughter as Mary Lane, which we knew, but not for certain - it also confirms that there were no other surprise children for Frances.

You would look up the testatrix on http://www.findmypast.co.uk's Death Duty Indexes (IR27) which you can do if you know the year the will was proved and the last name of the deceased.  Here is the entry for Rosamond Lane of Wymondham, confirming probate happened in Norwich in 1844 with the magic folio number (241) being given at the end of the line.

You can now go to the new IR26 catalogue at http://haine.org.uk/wills/IR26_catalogue.htm where you can thus identify IR26/1680 as being the one you need - see this snippet as an example.

I had about a dozen IR26 records I wanted to check at Kew and couldn't believe how difficult it was to get the appropriate references.  One had to guess one's way around TNA catalogue by putting in what reference you THOUGHT might cover the required year and surnames.  A few other people had had problems, or had considered making a separate trip to Kew purely to consult the printed catalogue.  I spent two solid days in the heat making it my mission to extract the catalogue entries relating to IR26, which I was successfully able to do.  At one point I was on a train from Doncaster to Newark Northgate, where I knew I had only 3 minutes to change trains.  I shouldn't have even been in Doncaster but I guess I missed my stop.  On this leg of my journey I was standing up, holding the laptop as I used the 20mins and fading battery for yet more valuable processing time.  At one point I was struggling with four 200 MB files, with just my MS-DOS friend 'ssr' for company.

I did get to Kew last week with my reference numbers and a bill (not a phone bill - though it doesn't say so on TNA's site) and saw some pretty awesome records.  My favourite is will of 4xgreat-grandpa Lancelot Gibson who leaves £50 to the representatives of his brother William Gibson, legacy to be paid after the death of his widow.  These are named in the estate duty records as being: Mary Tate, Ann Gibson and two male Gibsons.  I was able to find the marriage of Mary Gibson, Q3 1860 Carlisle RD, to Thomas Tait and corresponding entries in the censuses thereafter which seemed highly likely.  For a long time I thought the 1860 marriage was too late as Lance was dead by then, but in fact though he was dead his estate carried on recording pertinent facts which are completely missing from the will.  I could never have positively identified Mary Gibson were it not for this document, nor would I have known about the Tait connection, as the Carlisle marriage was nowhere near the Gibson heartland.

In the event I found out lots about 'Mary Tate', including obtaining a recipe book written by her granddaughter at the time of World War One.

John Lain's IR26 record listed the children of his niece, who, being a woman was given only a life interest in his residuary estate - the children are certainly not listed in the will

William Whittock's IR26 record shows the children of his late brother, who had died in Philadelphia.  In the will the wording is terse - we certainly don't get the full married names provided here.

So, should anyone ask, YES, it is worth exploring IR26 records, but do make use of finding aids and get organised so that your day at Kew with the old books is a profitable one.

Counting and tabulation

Third cousins

I have

- 3 siblings

- 7 first cousins

- 12 second cousins

then my parents have 56 great-aunts and uncles (or maybe even sixty)....

so we start to get the big numbers

= 160 third cousins

Who else knows how many 3rd cousins they have?

Seize quartiers

To marry in France you ought to know your grandparents' names and all their grandparents' names, too.  Do you?  I do but as one was illegitimate and we lack birth records for the four Irish, going further back would be rather tricksy.

Counting

I can't think of any other things to count, but if anyone can think of any?

My poshest relative is..... Emily Grace Bagnell a barrister's daughter, descended from Edward III and a young heiress with too much money and the consequent short life expectancy

My least posh relative is.... William Smith who was living with his niece, after his father died - she was the housekeeper - when the inevitable happened in Norfolk

#10 Trick to help your family history

Pinpoint your Jones using local records to help

I knew that my John E Jones was six in 1891, born in Tranmere, according to the census, but which one of the four possibles could be mine?
From using www.cheshirebmd.org.uk/, and freebmd.rootsweb.com I divided them up

1884 - one was born in Tranmere, and died Q1 1885 Tranmere aged 0 (not ours)

1884 - one was born in Wallasey (not ours)

1885 - one was born in Q1

1885 - one was born in Q4 (too young, he would only be 5 in 1891)

Therefore Q4 1885 was not ours and therefore born in Wallasey

and Q1 1885 was ours, born Tranmere

If I have a spare £9.20 to spend, I could check.  The Cheshire baptisms listed at http://pilot.familysearch.org are very helpful too, for filling in gaps and identifying which parent had which child.

#9 Trick to help your family history

Try ALL the censuses

Look in all censuses for your missing relative, not just the first one after they leave home.  Edwin Padfield born c 1866 Glastonbury is not to be found in 1881, 1891 (misindexed as Ella) but does show up in 1901, 1911.  Richard Shugg isn’t at home at all after the age of 20 but he returns to England after his mother dies (according to her grant of probate), and sure enough he is in Cornwall in 1911 with enough information to work out where he has been in the intervening years.

#8 Trick to help your family history

Guess the name of the child
I had no idea what the name of Mr and Mrs Macdonald's child might be, and no easy way of finding out, so I guessed, and you can too.

I searched 1910-1915 for a child who had a middle name beginning with Manse.... (because the child's grandmother was Miss Mansell).  Success: one entry.  I found out that the child was called Margaret Mansell Macdonald, and it was very easy to move forward from there.  However be aware that the index chops off firstnames if they are too long, so it chopped off the last 'l' of Mansell.

#7 Trick to help your family history

If it sounds right, it is Wright

Drop some of the letters in the marriage search, Samuel Swift married as Sam; Catherine Lawry Marshall married as Catharine Lawry Marshall (looks the same doesn’t it!); Margaret Fewster married as 'Meggie'; Robert Hoskins married as Robert Hoskins Norman (in this case because the priest knew that he was illegitimate and wanted to humiliate him...)