It's horribly addictive you know...searching for ancestors...I sit here hunched over the keyboard thinking I'll just look that person up and find they have a story...one chap I found today in the Quaker family I'm researching for a friend, was killed during the Monmouth Rebellion...his wife promptly threw herself down the well...seems a bit drastic actually. Their ghosts can be seen wandering around the small village they lived in...and the dog. The dog gave his master away to the troops you see...probably barked at them.
And I didn't know the Quakers year began, not in January, but in March...so when they baptised babies in the eleventh month it would have been February...
They were meticulous with their record keeping which makes finding ancestors a breeze...some even gave causes of death...all too often it was smallpox or typhus. But that rather depended upon who was writing out the actual records...some give very brief details, others mention adults occupations and the names of their parents.
Another snippet I found out today, was a Quaker family who sailed in what is generally known as the William Penn fleet, they took vast amounts of goods with them...hundredweights of iron nails...yards and yards of rough woollen cloth...jars of dyestuffs and axes and hammers and other tools...it was all to be distributed among the families once they'd landed.
And the sailing ships were so small...the Welcome was 150 feet long...she had 102 passengers and the crew on board...a third of the passengers and crew succumbed to smallpox on the voyage...bearing in mind most of those families...if not all...would have taken some of their furniture and personal belongings and you begin to see how incredibly cramped they must have been. The Welcome took 54 days to reach America...
Unfortunately her ships log was lost, so we can't be certain about the people on board and whether or not there was enough food and fresh water to last for the voyage.
Servants who travelled with the families were under a four year indenture...after that time had been served they were given 50 acres of land and enough timber to build themselves a log cabin...
Of course a family tree is never really completed...there are all those cousins six times removed and their wives, who might just have fascinating stories to tell of leaving their best bed to a favourite daughter or a milch cow to their brothers child.
Records which tell of enlistment in Armies that give physical descriptions of your second cousin twice removed...five foot ten with blue eyes and brown hair...forefinger missing from right hand...scar on stomach and a mole behind the right ear...of stocky build...cannot read or write.
Those details flesh out the people who came before...from a series of dates which mean little in themselves there emerges real people who loved and laughed and sorrowed just like you do...
Facinating Vashti. They must have been so brave to have upped sticks and taken that journey, looking for a better life. I couldn't have done it. The discriptions of physical features, brings them alive. Keep 'em coming.
So amazing Vashti, How on earth do you find all these details on your computer, I would have no idea where to start looking, What brave people they must have been to contemplate such journeys, Best wishes, Bulpit
Researching your ancestors is enthralling stuff! I read it twice, I can see why you enjoy it, loved your post, thank you Vashti!
Hello vashti, if I knew how to get to get started on the search I wouldn't get anything done! Fully understand how addictive it could be. Is himself an addict?
I was addicted to my family tree for a long time. Unfortunately, all my ancestors were Irish and a lot of their records were recycled, for the paper value, so I believe.
I did, however, get the full story of my Great Grandfather, William, who together with his brother, Thomas and the rest of the crew, perished in the Kingstown lifeboat disaster of 1895. There is a monument in Dun Laoghaire. Very proud.
Thank you for the post, I think. ... You have got me thinking again!
Steve
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The Irish records...one side of my family are Irish and trying to trace anyone back further than the 1800's is virtually impossible isn't it...
Lovely to find a monument to your people...lifeboat men were and are incredibly brave...sad though that William and Thomas died...
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On my mam's side, I managed to get back to 1779. But, I think that's because many generations were born, lived and died in Kingtown. On my dad's side, I'm stuck.
I've promised myself that at some point, I'll go over and have a good hunt around. If I don't find anything, at least I'll be spending some time
in a beautiful country.
If you find any more avenues, please let me know and I'll do the same.
It wasn't just the Quakers that had the beginning of the year in March. All our new years began on 25th March until 1752 when it was changed to Ist January.
One of my ancestors was a Quaker Shipwright in Plymouth and my mother's research even dug up a record of him speaking at a meeting held at the Friend's Meeting house all those years ago. It's sort of nice to know where my pacifist nature comes from not least as genes are not just about what we are in terms of the genetics which played a large part in my being on this website but who I am in terms of the nature of my humanity. Hope that makes sense.
I have ancestors in Russia. As the authorities were rather autocratic and wanted the country to appear beautiful and attractive, they meticulously erased records of people they didn't like! Those who emigrated or fled were told that if they stayed outside Russia, they were traitors to the mother land and if they went back they would be shot!
My father was Russian. He tried to go to the Soviet Embassy. This was typical Russian style, as he went in by the kitchen area, met a cook who told him the office was upstairs. He knocked at the office door. When the general behind the desk saw my father, he shouted, "How did you get in?" . And truly, this was amazing, because if you were not Russian, you would pass in front of the building which had solid gates with guards and cameras peppering the garden. But if you were Russian, of course, you would be attracted by what would be in the kitchen at the back!
The interview that my dad had was not promising. "You would have to go where we send you, and work where we decide." "And my family?" " We cannot take care of it and we would not be responsible to what would happen to it.- By the way, you would have to surrender your passport, as you wouldn't want to go anywhere else in the country because you would be too happy!"
My dad abandoned the idea. When he had asked about his family, he drew a blank ... which was red with blood, because his father had been killed in the front, his sister, nobody knew where she might be!
You couldn't even ask churches to find out, because either they were the same as the authorities or they had either been deported or killed! The best people for the regime are people who don't speak!
This is why my dad never taught me his language.
And I adopted a new life, a new country, and I smile in English! Cheers, Mic
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Researching Other Peoples Family Trees...Has Pitfalls
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