Tag Archives: family history

As I was working on my Oxborough family tree, I came across a new surname. My ancestor, Charles Frederick Oxborough, had married a woman named Grace Ethel Charlish. They married in 1931 in Beccles, Suffolk, England. When I discover a new surname, like Charlish, I want to find its origins. For my English ancestors, I use SurnameDB. Yet, this database did not have a listing for Charlish. I performed a general search on the internet. Forebear’s website showed that, in 2014, it was “most prevalent” in England. It was also […]

In 2010, I began researching my Aldous ancestors. Many were born in the county of Suffolk, England. As I built my tree “back into time,” I noticed there were few records for people living in the 18th century. James Aldous was born in 1710 in Fressingfield, Suffolk, England. The document that I found on Ancestry.com is a text-only record. This means that I cannot view the original document to verify its accuracy. The people transcribing these records are volunteer members of Ancestry.com. And, as such, there is room for mistakes. […]

This year I revisited some of my Aldous ancestors on Ancestry.com. In my search, I came across a marriage record for Herbert Lemon Aldous and Susan Oldham. As you can see, the document is missing one piece of vital information. Susan did not list a father’s name. In my years of being a family genealogist, I have come across this occurrence many times. In history, it was quite common for a woman to give birth to a child instead of obtaining an abortion. Religion played a large role in this […]

History tells us that Europeans immigrated to America in the late seventeenth century. Did you know that many surnames changed after the immigrants arrived in America? Most of these immigrants did not know how to read or write English. In fact, many did not speak English, preferring their native language. When a recordkeeper wrote an immigrant’s name on a document, he would write the name how it “sounded”. Here are some examples of “Americanized” surnames are: The German surname Fuchs became Fox. The Dutch surname Van Cruijningen became Cunningham. The […]

About five years ago, I had created a profile for Charles William Aldous on Ancestry.com. He was born in 1906 and, at that time, there were few records available to add to his life’s story. I had found him on the 1911 England census listed as one of the sons of William and Elizabeth Aldous. They were living in Bedingfield, Suffolk, England, so it was easy to find his birth record on the BMD. Other than those two documents, I was hesitant to add a marriage or death record to […]

Have you ever “lost” an ancestor while searching the England census records? There are many reasons that you can lose the trail of an ancestor: They moved to another area or immigrated to another country. They changed their names to elude creditors. They did not trust the government or the census takers. A sudden and unexpected death. The census records were faded and unreadable. The census records were not transcribed. The names were misspelled. The ages were incorrect. The census records were destroyed or missing. One reason for this disappearance […]

I have been an Ancestry.com member since 2008 and enjoy building my family trees on their website. They have a vast amount of records that you can search and are adding to their collections each month. One of the perks of being a member is having the ability to communicate with other family tree owners. They have a Members Connect area that shows you similar trees that may contain your relative. Clicking the “connect” button will notify the owner that you have a common ancestor and gives you the ability […]

I have been building my family trees on Ancestry.com since 2008. When I first started searching for records on their website, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to grow my tree. The little leaves (or hints) helped by pointing me in the right direction. For each of my ancestors, I like to complete a profile to its fullest (i.e. from birth to death). However, there are times when I “lose the trail” of one of them. There are many reasons this can happen, including marriage (for women), […]

Have you ever hit the “brick wall” while trying to find genealogical records on an ancestor? The farther back in history you search, the scarcer the documentation becomes. I had the same dilemma when searching for Daniel Wakenight, who was born in 1792 in Maryland. The earliest record that was available on Ancestry.com was a marriage record, dated 1816, in Washington County, Maryland. The few facts that I had collected on Daniel helped narrow down my search. I knew, from census records, that he was born in Maryland. I had […]

While building your family tree, sometimes you hit the proverbial “brick wall.” You can be tracking your ancestor through census records and vital records when suddenly the person seems to disappear! I have had that happen many times and found several different solutions to this problem. I use Ancestry.com to build my family trees because they have a vast amount of records available to search. However, there are times when even Ancestry.com cannot supply an answer. The following are examples of why you could lose your ancestor’s trail: Lack of […]