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.

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.

the death of the Lewis sisters of Rushey Green

Tragedy came in 1920 when four of Sarah’s sisters were all killed on the same day in 1920 at 6 Rushey Green Catford according to freebmd and the Probate Index.  I haven’t established what happened but suspect it can only have been a fire.  They seem to have conducted a small baby’s clothing manufacturing business from home.  Bertha was visiting from Horwood Hall, Havant and because her will was proved, we get the date of the accident - 21 April.  Another sister had died there six months earlier, presumably of natural causes.  The oldest sister had been there almost 20 years and was quite likely to be present on the night, but she died at Horwood Hall two years later, having had to administer the estates aged 86.

The Thompsons of Scar Top

Having established that this family neatly slotted into my Moses family, from Netherton near Carlisle, I wanted to look at the clue left by Mary Lago in her excellent book about Edward.  She names a grandchild, who it looked like was the child of Annie Thompson, herself born India.  However, how on earth was I to determine which Annie M Thompson married 1911-20 was the girl born in Trichonopoly!  Luckily the grandchild appears a couple of times on Google with her full name, which enabled me to find marriage, maiden name and then birth, leading me to Annie's marriage in London, and finally the death record which fits in perfectly.

1911 deleted entries at findmypast, now available at Ancestry

I wrote earlier about findmypast's contra-common sense approach in deleting people who were entered in the census, but then 'crossed out'.  Sometimes this is the sad misunderstanding of parents including long-dead children.  More often this could be nurses called out in the middle of the night to go and look after a patient or sons out fishing.  I'd like to hear if any lifeboats were called out on the night of 31 March 1911, whether those brave men are recorded in this census transcription at all.  I felt sure that Ancestry's more dogged approach, like a row of combine harvesters coming at ya, would be sure to pick up these 'crossed out' entries, rather than letting its prey escape on such flimsy terms.  Sure enough here is Robert Henderson, appearing nowhere else in 1911 except on Ancestry's index.  I'm sure there will be many more.  Perhaps even my own grandfather, still not located!

found our Annie from the Lakes in Blackburn

Annie Ward is sitting quietly at home at Troutbeck Bridge aged 12 in the census.  Little did I know that once her mother died, all three girls would go off to the cotton mills of Blackburn and there find husbands.  In 1911, Annie's husband just left most of the birthplaces blank.  In 1901, here is Annie born in Windermere.  But the Ancestry index has a garbled version which slowed me down finding her.  I had to guess she'd married in Blackburn like her sisters and follow up the only possible marriage there from freebmd.  Annie was the only one to have any family, and her son-in-law's youngest sister is still living in Blackburn.  I'd like to know more about these Blackburn girls.  Census image: Crown Copyright

Sure looks like my Ellen in Chowbent

Every so often I have a purge of hard-to-find relatives.  I clapped my hands with joy when I found Ellen and her eight siblings back in the 1990s thanks to the will that never was.  Little did I know that each and every one of them would prove a cow to find, across five counties.  Nathan gave me microfilm finger, Anna became Elizabeth, Sarah had the same name as her step-sister, while Carrie never married her husband.  And Ellen, I eventually found, had married as Sarah Ellen and moved to Lancashire.  When I saw this census entry I knew I'd got her.  Born in Matlock orphaned at 16, her father took the family away from that town's helpful records to Bollington where she disappeared.  Until now.  Thanks to the Atherton records at the online parish clerk, the Davies next generation haven't been too painful to follow up.  Census image: Crown copyright

Omitted from this account is my method. Well, I wasn't really convinced that Ellen might have died between the censuses. I went through all the Ellens born in Starkholmes, before spotting the Starkholmes reference in the above census. The name Esther clinched it as it was her mother, mother of the brood of nine.

census: 'my wife's cousin', a nice clue

I love clues like these: rare, yet so very helpful.  Jane Harris is named in the census image here as being cousin of the Taylors, specifically the wife Isabella.  Unfortunately much of the fun of the chase went as I already guessed she was Jane Airey baptised 1836 at Troutbeck.  However I didn't have her marriage, and good old freebmd showed this took place near Warrington, Lancashire.  And familysearch's Cheshire records gave the parish and confirmed her father's name.  The Lakes had so few people then it was easy to find Jane's remarriage, and later, her will.  Which led me to a great-niece (sic) aged 90 in the Isle of Wight.  Census image: Crown copyright

007 - James Bond proof

It was  great to find James Bond lurking at the wedding of my ancestor Miriam in 1777.  Was he there to ensure no foul play, or zip the bridegroom if he got his words wrong.  I felt sure he was Miriam's protective brother, but no baptism could I find either at Ditcheat or neighbouring Ansford.  I did find that four of his children left wills, and the entire wonderful Guppy clan of Bath were his descendants, not to mention half of Parramatta NSW.  To my shame it took more thorough combing by familysearch transcribers to locate his baptism, on 10 May 1755 at Ditcheat.  Great work but how did I miss it?!

in-between the census years again

I'd been hunting this guy for ever.  He shows up in the 1851 census for South Petherton, a carpenter, and then there's nothing ever after.  Except one daughter comes back to England to get married a generation later.  That's right I figured out he went abroad, to South Africa, about 1860.  But look there's one last clue before he goes, his remarriage and the birth of twins and a son BEFORE the marriage.  The lady was actually with him in 1851: his younger cousin.  How I stumbled on this is two-step.  One I found Jennie McIver listed in some Cotty grave records kept at the Society of Genealogists.  Two I found Jennie's birth (1855) based on her probate records at the National Archives of South Africa.  And that all took me back to these freebmd entries.  Nice n'easy huh?