We’ve all hit brick walls at some point in our research. Sometimes they are broken down quickly. At other times they persist for years despite regular revisits and different approaches being taken. The Medway Discussion Group met to discuss some of our own brick walls and the varying amounts of success we have had in surmounting them.
One member had been ‘stuck’ with one ancestor from the sixteenth century for several years when she was offered what appeared to be further information relating to the family line. This information linked her to both royalty and no less than two Lord Mayors of London. However, closer examination of this new information revealed a set of parents who would have been ten years old at the birth of their child and an ancestor who appeared on only one decidedly unreliable tree. So, it was back to square one!
Another member was interested in clarifying memories from her childhood trips to Port Victoria on the Isle of Grain. She recalled a particular building there and was interested in finding out what it had been used for. There was much discussion around the changes that have taken place in the area over the years and a suggestion that Medway Archives might be the next step towards uncovering more information.
Another puzzle came in the search for a great grandmother. Her life from her marriage in 1902 forwards had been established (where her father’s name was given, but was not the same as hers), but tracing her before that time was proving trickier. With a surname of ‘Johnson’ and a place of birth as broad as ‘London’, our group member had found a couple of possible families, but neither were conclusive. Suggestions included: try expanding her assumed year of birth by a year or two; consider that her parents might not have been married; try tracing the siblings from the ‘possible’ families to see if there are any matches for the father’s name given when they married.
One group member had been more successful in knocking down a brick wall. After failing to find death or burial records for a married couple in their tree, it was only when they researched what had happened to the couple’s children that a breakthrough came. Once the children had grown up and married, one of them had emigrated to Australia. This then prompted our group member to question if the ‘missing’ couple had done the same thing, resulting in their trail being picked up again as they followed their child to Australia.
Another puzzle took us to Wiltshire in the early 1800s where an ancestor had changed his surname at the time of his marriage. Suggestions for trying to research the circumstances surrounding this included approaching the local FHS to see if anyone had researched this family or could offer any local knowledge or searching local newspapers for clues.
There was another name change involved in our next puzzle. A child had been traced at birth and in the 1901 Census with one surname. There then followed a change of surname, the possible death of his mother, a stay in a children’s home and then being sent as a ‘home child’ to Canada, although his father was still alive and re-married in the UK. Why the name change? So far, our group member has not been able to answer that question.
A final brick wall involved trying to untangle a family tree where there are many possible family members all living in the same small area, all using the same names for their children and all marrying women called Elizabeth!
All in all, it was an enjoyable afternoon of shared ideas which has resulted in at least a few more leads to pursue.
Report by Helen Stenhouse