General Chat

I have begun "operation find Graham" and wondered if there are any people out there who wished to assist in the early parts of the campagne. Partly because I have been through the records (census) and I don't see a clear candidate, and partly to show people who might read this how they might get started. It is a typical start - a few names and a date.

As usual I have little information to go on.
John Graham was my mother's grandfather, his wife was called Edith Welford and they married in Dec 1916 in Morpeth, Northumberland. Welford is not a common name, and I have had some luckk tracing that family, but Graham has proved more difficult.

My mother remembers going to Ashington in Northumberland in the 50s to see George Graham, an elderly chap thought to be Johns bother, and him speaking of Annie, thought to be their sister. So we have George, Annie and John, John married 1916, so we're looking at births in 1880/90, probably around Ashington/Morpeth in northumberland. I have no knowledge of any free transcripts of baptism records for the North East, so if you can point me in that direction please do - not that I mind a weekend up north sorting this out :).

Thanks for any help, Good Luck.
Andrew

Start with what you know - you need a marriage cert to find out a fathers name for a start

This ref will get the marriage cert for you, cost £7

Marriages Dec 1916


Graham John Welford Morpeth 10b 801
Welford Edith Graham Morpeth 10b 801

Yep, thanks for that, I forgot to say that I have ordered the marriage certificate already, but I find it quite interesting to have independent answers to these questions, then if they verrify each other, chances are strongly in your favour.

So I will know John's father's name soon, and his occupation, and possibly an andress from the certificate, and that will help me in the 1901 census, where it is easy to view everyone living at one address on the transcripts.

This is why it is an interesting one for the community, in the next few days the search will be over, so might aswel have a go at it.

Search results from FamilySearch.org for baptisms of John Graham in Northumberland show only one in Morpeth, which is promising. The parents names are listed as

JAMES GRAHAM
ELIZABETH

and show John could have been born in 1882 - However, that would make him 34 at the marriga - not impossible, but no spring chicken.
There are many other Graham families listed in the baptism records near by the area, and at this time it isn't impossible that people were moving around (e.g. into newcastle docks etc).

He could have been anywhere!

That's the spirit Minnie - the problem is insurmountable, and yet we can beat it. :)

Oh I hope so Andrew.... I am still searching for my Cornelius Kelly.....
I know he is there, he is my G.G. Granddad, but I cannot find his death ANYWHERE!
Deanna X

I think this highlights the need for sites like GR to have better database management, especialy where the transcription exists anyway. In this way one could search using logical operators, such as AND OR NOR and so on.

I could then search the 1901 transciption for:
john AND george AND (annie OR ann OR anne),

if somebody did a propper job of it, I could also specify that John and George should be sons, annie a daughter, certainly that John should be single... It's all about the meta data!

Just a thought - perhaps needs its own thread if there are other "computer geeks" like me around.