#52 Ancestors - Week 6 - Maps

Maps can be an extremely useful tool for family history.  They show all sorts of helpful things - what sort of land were our ancestor's homes built on?  Were there woodlands, rivers, lakes, canals, or open pastures nearby?  Was the land flat or were there steep hills?  How far were they situated from the county border, from neighboring towns and parishes, and more.

Knowing the lay of the land nearby gives us information on how easy it was to visit neighboring areas. We need to know where our ancestors lived. But we also need to take a look around and see if there are other places where he or she could have interacted with others — places where he or she could have created more records. Our ancestors didn’t necessarily stay within the lines for all of their activities.

One ancestor of mine lived in the village of Fordham in Essex and clearly had contact with nearby Bures, in Suffolk.  It’s in another county, but is less than 4 miles distant. Maybe he sold his grain at Bures, or went to market there or attended meetings – somehow he got to know the people there.  It is where his wife was born.  It is where they married.  Maps make it clear how easy it was for him to travel that distance, showing that even though the two towns are in different counties there is a nice, fairly straight road between them.

 

The Ogilby Muster

Over two million historic documents from First World War regiments are free to search on the new website The Ogilby Muster, which  was launched by the Army Museums Ogilby Trust last November. 

 
The Trust holds over two million records, photographs, letters, diaries and more from 75 participating collections, with more scheduled to join in 2022.

The Hon. Mrs Katherine Swinfen Eady, Trustee of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust, said: “With the opening of the TOM Platform, we are given a wonderful key to unlock history. As historians this is an invaluable gift, as family members researching their beloved lost relatives, it is equally as important. TOM allows us to piece together the truth left behind by the subjects, to build up that wonderful pattern of a jigsaw and find the missing fragments of information. It is especially important as it will help us all further our knowledge and understanding of not just the military side of the First World War, but the social aspect of an event in history that affected and shaped this country and the world.”

The Ogilby Muster allows researchers to search the website’s collections for free, with images of each document available for purchase, usually at a fee of £4 for non-commercial use.  Documents on the website date from 1900 to 1929, but the primary focus is on the ordinary men and women who served in the British Army during the First World War.

 

#52Ancestors - Week 5 - Branching Out

As my family tree has slowly expanded and branched out over the years, I have had to make decisions about how far I let those branches go and how much time and energy I devote to the increasingly remote outer branches.  Should I focus solely on my direct ancestors?  To I also research all their siblings?  Do I research their siblings' children, their grandchildren, and so on?  How far do I want my tree's branches to spread, and what is manageable for me?

There is really no hard answer to these questions.  For my own research, I have concentrated on my direct ancestors and their siblings - my aunts and uncles, great aunts and great uncles, and so on.  Rarely have I bothered branching out further to investigate cousins twice or more removed.  When I tried, I found my tree spread its branches too widely and become unweildy to record, and I would find myself spending hours going down the rabbit hole of researching a second cousin twice removed.

For the same reasons I rarely branch out to research the families of those who marry into my family - the parents and siblings and wider family of those who married a great-great aunt for example.  I generally prefer to keep my branches trimmed and spend my valuable research time on the more direct lines, especially when those branches are spindly and difficult to extend.

Ultimately it is up to each family history researcher to decide just how far they want their tree to branch out, and then to keep the tree trimmed accordingly.  Happy researching to you all.

Really Useful Podcasts - Episode 5

The Family History Federation has now launched Episode 5 of its new series of Really Useful Podcasts.

 
This new episode focuses on One-Place Studies.  The website describes it : 

"Joe is joined by Janet Few, historian, President of the Family History Federation, former chair of the Society for One-Place Studies and author on the subject, Pam Smith, former professional genealogist and passionate local historian who is co-founder of the local history data management app Name & Place and Elizabeth Walne, professional genealogist, writer, tutor, speaker and One-Place researcher.

One-Place Studies are rich local and community histories that involve similar skills and sources as family history. We discuss how to go about choosing and carrying out your own study and the pleasures and pitfalls of doing so."

A One-Place Study is not something I have considered starting yet, but it is always useful to know how to go about it, and I certainly need to investigate if there is already a One-Place Study being conducted in any of the areas I an researching.

#52Ancestors - Week 4 - Curious

Week 4 of #52Ancestors, and the topic is 'Curious'.  This is another topic quite open to interpretation - a curious fact, a curious disappearance, a curious family mystery, a curious record.  The list is quite wide.

As family historians, we are all curious about our ancestors.  It is this curiosity that drives us in our research and motivates us to try to break down those frustrating brick walls we all encounter from time to time.

As a child I first became curious about my family history from hearing my parents' stories about their young lives.  With an age gap of 16 years between them, my parents were very much from different generations - my father, born 1926 was a child of the depression and my mother, born 1942 was a child of World War 2.  Both had many amusing and sometimes stark stories to tell about their early lives, how they met and married, and life on the outback sheep station I could barely remember.

Both my parents were always open to questions about their families, although often the answer was 'I don't know'.  My father in particular knew very little about his family history - when questioned when I was in my teens and getting more interested in formally recording and researching, my father could not even tell me what his mother's maiden name was.  It never came up.

While the other members of my immediate family were never interested in research, they were always curious enough to be interested in any unusual facts or new stories I unearthed.  This helped keep up my own enthusiasm through my late teens and twenties, when my research was fairly spasmodic and certainly not up to the genealogical standards of today.  Today, I am not only curious to learn more about my ancestors, but also always curious about new research methodology and new records becoming available. 

Family Tree UK Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.  

Articles and stories in the February issue of Family Tree include:

• Remotely delivered archive services - survey results revealed
  
  
• Fascinating Family History Stories of 2021
  
  
• National Trust begins research project with Time Team in the hope of shedding new light on Sutton Hoo
  
  
• Registration now open for RootsTech 2022
  
  
• Explore New Year’s Honours 2021 at The Gazette
  
  
• 1921 CENSUS: FACT-FILE
  
  
• DNA Bootcamp Next Steps Master your DNA and get monthly genealogy advice!
  
  
• WRITING THE STORIES OF our ancestors

 

#52Ancestors - Week 3 - Favourite Photo

The topic for Week 3 of #52Ancestors is 'Favourite Photo'.  I have a number of copies of old family photos that I have acquired over the years, copied from originals owned by generous relatives and shared around.  I would have to say that my favourite, however, is the wedding photo of my great grandparents James Nicholas Clark and Pricilla Veronia Mulholland.

James and Pricilla married 3 August 1898, almost a year after his divorce from his first wife Eliza (nee Hawley).  James and Eliza had married in 1886 and had two children together - Ruby born 1886 and Clarence born 1888.  

The marriage was clearly an unhappy one, and in 1891 Eliza had abandoned James and their two young children.  In the divorce proceedings it had been claimed that Eliza had been a habitual drunkard and had been living with two men after she abandoned her marriage, although the judge saw no direct evidence of adultery and granted the divorce on the grounds of desertion only.

The divorce was reported in the local newspapers at the time, usualy amongst general reports of local court procedings, including the article shown here from the 'Caulfield and Elsternwick Leader'.  Waiting a suitable interval after his divorce, James then remarried.  He and second wife Pricilla are pictured above.

This second marriage was much more successful, with James and Pricilla having twelve children together before James died in 1924, age 69.  Pricilla herself would later remarry, although she had no more children.  Pricilla died in 1976, only a few months short of her 100th birthday.