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Welcome to the
Genes Reunited web chat, where you can get help and advice from our resident genealogist and expert family historian, Anthony Adolph.
To find out more about Anthony click here.
Thanks again to Anthony and everyone who joined in on the sessions so far.
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Questions already answered
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| Richard Thornley | 15/05/2012 21:08:17 |
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Hi Anthony, I have been tracing back my family tree and come across one of my ancestors disappearing off the 1901 census, but appearing on the 1911 census back with the family. On further investigation, I have found a person of similar age, birth location as Ireland and also the same name appearing at a prison in Winchester, Hampshire. Is there any way of finding out if this person is the same one in my family and what she did to end up in prison. Thank You, Richard Thornley |
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Sounds like a plausible theory, of the census details add up. The prison records should be in the Hampshire Record Office, in Winchester, or else at The National Archives - ask the former as they will know. |
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| Christine Rogerson | 15/05/2012 21:07:24 |
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Anthony I am unable to trace the death of my great great great grandfather George Neville.I have a copy of his burial 4 May 1844 in Wolverhampton, his occupation was a boatman. Is it possible the death was not recorded? Christine Urban |
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Yes, it is possible, but unlikely. Maybe he was not properly indexed. You could ask the Wolverhampton registrar if the event is in their records there. |
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| Janet Watkins | 15/05/2012 21:07:12 |
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I am searching for any family from my 10 gt uncles.they were all born in kings norton birmingham between 1882 and 1905. i have them on the 1911 census all living in the same house with there parents in selly oak birmingham. emma there only sister was my grandmother . how do i go about tracing what happend to my gt uncles. |
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The next step would be to use the marriage indexes to see if any of them married. Then you can see if they had children, and then see if they married, and so on. |
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| June Woolford | 15/05/2012 21:05:00 |
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Hi Anthony Another query please - can you give any advice on tracing Romany families in particular Francis Light - horse-dealer - who was named as the father of John Davies who married a Mary Ann Roberts in 1872. I cannot find Francis Light anywhere. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks |
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Such families are difficult, mainly because they did not always go dutifully to the registrar to register their births and marriages; they had an annoying habit of changing their names; and of course they moved about all the time. Censuses are a good way of picking them up, especially as they are now fully indexed. Read S. Floate's My ancestors were Gypsies, SoG (1999) and join the Romany and Traveller Family History Society. |
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| Dawn Beasley | 15/05/2012 21:03:23 |
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Hi Anthony. I hope that you may be able to help me. I have found the burial place of my husbands grandmother in St Andrews cemetery in Newcastle where she is buried with her father. On the headstone it says that Edith Maud Crawford died on 2nd January 1935 aged 38. Why can I not find this death in any of the records? Thank you. Dawn Crawford |
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That is puzzling! At least you have the date of death from the headstone. One possible solution here is that the gravestone is wrong, either in respect of her name (maybe she had been married, but the family used her maiden name) or vice versa, or perhaps the date or year is wrong (it may have been put up retrospectively, years afterwards), or the age. Another possibility - maybe she died at sea, or in Scotland, and was brought back to Newcastle (which is on the sea) to be buried. Try looking for a newspaper obituary - that might enlighten you. |
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| June Woolford | 15/05/2012 21:01:04 |
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Help! My simple search is turning into a nightmare!!!! I have traced my great grandfather Scott Howard Wilson HATLEY - Auctioneer - ( born Mile End Middlesex in 1842) in the 1881 Census. I have his marriage certificate in 1876 showing Alfred Wilson HATLEY b. 1806 - Auctioneer - as his father, however I can’t find a record of Scott HATLEY’S birth. On doing a blanket search of HATLEY I find Alfred WILSON, Auctioneer, living with wife Margaret (nee Heron) in 1841 with Emma HATLEY, born 1821, servant ( the addresses match). I then found Alfred and Margaret’s marriage in the parish records in 1833. In 1861 census Margaret had died in 1860 and Alfred WILSON is living with Scott CAMERON - Auctioneer’s clerk and amongst others Alfred’s two sisters Sarah and Sophia BERRY aged 61 and 62!!!!!! If Scott Hatley is the result of a liaison between Alfred Wilson and Emma Hatley I have the death certificate of Alfred William Munton Wilson, year of death 1888 (correct address) citing the informant as Scott Howard Wilson Hatley - Son I obtained a copy of Alfred Wilson’s Will and he left Scott Hatley a very small amount of money but did not refer to him as a son! |
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Answered, above. |
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| Valerie Young | 17/04/2012 21:57:27 |
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Hi Anthony On the birth cert is says Ethel Young formerly Hilder. Informant E Young On the marriage cert: Editha Elizabeth Knight |
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Ah ha, and was this the name of the woman the father had married a few months earlier? If not, then we can surmise that she was claiming to be his wife, but was not really. |
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| Pauline McGinlay | 17/04/2012 21:55:56 |
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Did they tattoo the prison no's or would they have been by the prisoner. Thank you anthony.Last question. |
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I really don't know, I'm afraid! I enjoyed your questions tonight. Good heavens, I should have mentioned earlier - D.T. Hawkings’ book "Criminal ancestors; a guide to historical criminal records in England & Wales", Sutton (1992). It should be right up your street! |
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| Linda Mackinnon | 17/04/2012 21:41:39 |
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can I find any scottish details on this site or is it just england and wales |
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The records on this site are primarily English and Welsh. You want www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk |
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| Valerie Young | 17/04/2012 21:40:24 |
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Thanks Anthony. I have no idea of the other woman on the certificate, ive tried to trace her name but no one comes up around the area or time. Really dont know what to do about it. |
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This is a most unusual business. Could you state the names concerned, on the marriage record, and on the birth record. Is the woman described as 'X, formerly Y'? Who was the informant of the birth? |
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| Jane Stephens | 17/04/2012 21:39:15 |
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I am trying to trace Sarah Lily Stephens born in West Bromwich on 1st July 1885 - she disappeard from English records after 1901 and I think she may have gone to Canada/America (there is a record of a Sarah Lily Stephens being a witness at a wedding in Toronto in 1914) but I can't find anything from Canadian records after that. She was on a family tree in USA on Ancestry a few years ago but that has disappeared. Could you please let me know how to search Canadian and American records effectively? Thanks |
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My apologies for the delay - a neighbour's burglar alarm just went off, so I had to go and investigate. You could make a start here by looking for Sarah in the outgoing ship's passenger lists, on www.findmypast.com: failing that, as you have Toronto as clue, you could look for her there, in directories or in the marriage records, which are held in the archives there. |
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| Pauline McGinlay | 17/04/2012 21:39:02 |
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sorry was'nt very clear.Don't know the court she was sentenced her name is was Agnes Ella Berry(Nee Bailey) born 1878 died 1976. served time at holloway prison. Can she be found with just this info. |
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Oh I see - thanks for clarifying. Yes, I'd recommend proceeding as suggested in the earlier answers. |
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| hurry andrews | 17/04/2012 21:31:07 |
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I am unable to find the birthplace of my grandmother who was born in England but relocated to scotland at an early age. There seems no record that I can find anywhere of her birth, I have her death and marriage certificate. she was born in 1884 |
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Maybe you are wrong, and this lady was actually born, or at least registered, in Scotland after all. Or was she born in the Isle of Mann, or Ireland, or the Channel Islands, or at Sea, or to a soldier, in which case she will be in the army births, on this site. |
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| Julia Goodrum | 17/04/2012 21:28:31 |
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That's great Anthony, thank you |
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Yes, I was rather pleased with that result! |
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| Valerie Young | 17/04/2012 21:28:04 |
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My fathers birth certificate has the wrong mothers name on it? Were mistakes made? He was adement that she was not his birth mother. I have got the marriage certificate of his mother and father feb 1916 with the correct names on and he was born in the Nov 1916. Is there anyway I can check this out? Thank you.Val |
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Some mistakes were made, but what is recorded on a birth record is probably going to be an accurate record of what the registrar was told by the informant. The informant might well have chosen not to tell the truth, though - so I am curious: if his parents had married earlier in 1916, then who was the woman whose name was down as his mother on the birth record, if not the father's wife? |
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| Carol Martin | 17/04/2012 21:26:18 |
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I have been trying to find a Richard Fowler born 1776 .On the 1841 census in Birmingham it says Richard was born out of County,so i don`t know where he was born,he died in 1845. Any ideas how i can find out where Richard was born. He was married to Ann i found 2 children Martha born 1820 in Birmingham and John born 1830.but John was not living with Richard in 1841 cant find any birth`s for john and martha. Thankyou Carol |
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That's jolly bad luck, as in these cases you pray that the person will have survived until 1851! You could look for other Fowlers of similar age in the 1851 census for Birmingham, in the hope that they will turn out to be siblings of Christopher's, and that their birth place will lead to his. Otherwise, Fowler is a familiar local name in that area, and bear in mind that Birmingham (Warwickshire) was near the meeting point of Staffordshire and Worcestershire (and not far from Leicestershire), so those would be the counties worth trying first. |
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| Carolyne Price | 17/04/2012 21:19:52 |
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Hi Anthony, I've recently started to try and piece together my family tree but would really like your expertise to help with a problem I've come across. My nan who was named (Alice Maud Cullen) parents were John Cullen & Elizabeth Cullen nee Cope from nan's birth certificate. I can't find a marriage for them or on the census. On the 1911 census I found them but he is down as James Cullen not John. Searched for marriage on both John & James but nothing.Census says they married approx 1901 & Elizabeth remarried in 1917. I need advice on where to look next, have tried FREEBMD etc & parish records, Expect they would have married in West Derby, Liverpool Hope you can helpme, greatly appreciated Carolyne |
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Free BMD is not complete, and there are only a few parish registers on this site, and not for the period you want. You need to look in the General Register Office's marriage indexes. They have been indexed on this site, under 'search records'. As you know your great grandfather was called John, are you quite sure the entry you have found for 'James' is correct? Bear in mind that they may not have married in England and Wales. 'Cullen' has strong Manx connections. |
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| Elizabeth Dixon | 17/04/2012 21:18:25 |
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I am looking for Robert Stubbs who I think was born in 1815 and hopefully is the father of Edgar Stubbs born April 1839 in Cayton, Scarborough, my Great Grandfather. Any help in how to find him please. |
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Well, if you're not sure, you want to focus on Edgar, and learn more about him first, and this will provide you with greater certainty on his father. Look for both Edgar's marriage and birth records, as both will name his father, and seek him in the earlier censuses, where you will hopefully find him with his father. The censuses will say where his father was born, and roughly when, and you can then seek his baptism in the relevant parish register. |
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| Pauline McGinlay | 17/04/2012 21:18:08 |
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can gt.gt.grandmother be found by name.we were told had to know what court she was sentenced at.we dont know her name Agnes Ella Berry.nee Bailey. born 1878 died 1976 |
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I'm not quite sure I understand the question here (you say you don't know her name, and then say what it was), so please come back and ask more: you're right about court records, but you can make an educated guess as to where she is likely to have committed her crime, and been sentenced, on the basis of where she lived, and newspapers local to her home are likely to have reported her misdemeanours anyway. |
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| Jake Duffy | 17/04/2012 21:16:42 |
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Hi Anthony, i want to find out who my ancestors are and where they are from. how do i do this? im a beginner by the way. thanks. |
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That's a big question to ask! I wrote a book called Tracing Your Family History (published by Collins) that answers it. You can start by typing your family tree such as you know it into this site, and seeing if it results in any matches - these could be relatives, who may be able to tell you more. Then start looking for your parents and grandparents in the birth, marriage and death indexes (under 'search records') and when you get back to 1911, start looking them up in the censuses (also under 'search records'). |
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