28 November 2012

Quite odd, but not contrary.......

So there I was, waiting for the website to load up and passing the time by staring at the family tree chart on the wall......and I noticed something.

The name Mary.  On my tree.  Frequently.  To be precise it appeared twelve times out of the twenty-two great-great-great-great-grandmothers.  The others, to complete the count, were Elizabeth (five) and one each of the others.  Their husbands had a more diverse range of names, but even so there were six named Thomas and five called John.

By now, the website had loaded but I was intrigued.  First possibility - Royalty?  Unlikely, as the period in question (between 1730 and 1780) was completely George (I, II and III) and none of their wives was called Mary, or Elizabeth come to that.

So really, I'm left with what one might term the "minister's influence" for the Marys but........ doubting Thomas?

More soon.

19 November 2012

Check and check.....

There’s been a little bit of a gap since I last was here so I’ll cover my embarrassment with more embarrassment…


Having received an email from someone who taken the trouble to look at my website, I thought I’d better look at that side of the family before I replied.  And that’s where the embarrassment came in…

Not only did I have children who were born in one place in London with a birth registration in a district the other side of the river, I also had completely the wrong name for their mother!  And, unsurprisingly, completely the wrong marriage registration as well.  Oops…

Today, to take my mind off the above, I took a bus trip to Peterborough with the principal aim of finding the library and archives; Peterborough being an independent state these days within the northern boundary of Cambridgeshire.  Quite a long trip and, yet again, I almost got lost in the shopping centre but I was quite clear about how to find the library!  Looks like a useful Archives office and easy to get to so, a bit of research, and I shall return…

More soon