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Digit

Established Member
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Anyone ever tried to trace a relative?
According to the available (free) sites my mother was never born!

Roy.
 
Did my family research got back to 1152 over some 30 years research do it mostly in the winter on dark nights well the TV is rubbish mostly, started as a request for my Gran to find her Gran burial site never found it.

To find your living or family born after 1900 I would suggest going to the actual archive in the country you think she was born though local main library can hold all census and OPR prior to 1900 if you know who you are looking for. These are accessible through Computer systems now at National Registers and in my case the St Andrews House records are very easily researched for £11 a day last time I was there. Locally you can purchase birth and marriage certificates as long as you know they were registered at that register. You can do it online but it is for records prior to 1910 and can be costlier than £11 a day cost mentioned. In the families I have done for friends I can in most cases get back to 1800 in a days research as long as no single parents or illegitimate births, etc. But you can do no better in doing Marriages as this gives parents, ages, DOB & addresses at time and occupations. With the computer you can find actual christian -middle -surname and just research what you glean to find the one that fits data though will need to be confirmed with further data from birth or death to be spot on. From Census can be used to find siblings and build up families quickly and area they belong and more importantly trades. Then do birth and deaths to again detail parents, ages, addresses and causes which can be enlightening in their own right. A good rule of thumb for finding named children is that as a nation we followed this simple naming rule and helps a lot in research. First child a boy is named after the fathers father, second son after the mothers father. First daughter is named after mothers mother and second daughter after fathers mother. Then comes parents usually and after that any family names or uncles etc.

Families usually seem to have stayed in same trade or locality, in my case 25 mile radius from 1600 to present. I was lucky not a common surname but a lot of spelling differences and not a lot of Smith or Macs in my family thank god. Not unusual to find you name starts one way and ends up spelt totally different earlier due to clerics and how they spoke or spelt. Take one side family linked to mine called Don, this is actually Dun or Dunne. But in the locality it is commonly Don in its Scottish form. My own family beginning seem was fighting for King Malcolm Canmore or Malcolm with the big head who hired two brothers to come with him from England and fight Macbeth for money and land. I do not think they were English but could have been French origin. I would not discard some Viking blood for good measure. But they ended up in the Scottish borders which at the time was not a great reward due to pillaging that went on, least they defeated Macbeth and the family spread North which was better for mortality.

You can spend many hours on research and can be quite the detective in church grave research for example ands lead you down some interesting paths or origins. Good luck it can be a consuming passion.
 
I know where my mother was born, Bethnal Green in London, and that's it! I don't know the year or the address.
This came about when a few days ago a friend of my wife's approached me, she had recently discovered that she was Jewish, this arose 'cos she had decided to trace her maternal grandparents.
She new through my wife that I am Jewish so she approached me for help. Armed with a name, address, year of death....he doesn't exist!
That's when I checked my mother's birth, with a similar result.
I was/am unsure whether to be surprised or not, in my mother's case I can suggest a reason, but as to the lady's GF I am at a loss.

Roy.
 
I can only trace my Jewish ancestry two generations, it would seem that, Jewish records aside, Jewish births etc were simply not registered.

Roy.
 
I have a little Google now and then on my Surname - recently found some links but have to join Ancestory.c to find out the results.
I did most of the research about 20yrs ago when it meant visiting Offices, Churches, Mormons etc as very little on line.
Got back to 1791 but got stuck until this week as stated above.

The main thing is to talk to relatives before they pop off even if you don't intend to take it further at the moment.
Going back to Jewish records - didn't Synagogues keep birth records?
Ancestory do a free 14day trial?

Rod
 
Synagogues do keep records and there is a central office that I will be dealing with tomorrow Rod.
I'm reluctant to join such as Ancestry etc as I do not wish at this stage to cause the lady any expense.
I found it rather sad that the lady, in her 40s knew so little about Jews in Britain, to explain Rod why I did not really expect to find my mother's records is simple, untill relatively recent times, regardless of what liberals will tell you, Britain did not have a good 'Human Rights' record and Jews were the last group to be enfranchised in this country, long after Germany in fact.
Britain did not consider us as English, three generation born in this country and you were still not English, if you wanted that you had to apply for naturalisation, in your own country! Thus many Jews simply dug in their heels and ignored registration, census etc.
The Nazis did not invent the holocaust Rod, we did!

Roy.
 
For doubtless many reasons of personal importance haven't many jews changed/modified their surnames when relocating? Doesn't this sometimes remain secret even within families, again for valid reasons?

I joined Anc'UK to help locate my [living] mother. Still wrestling with the decision weather to make contact. Bad history v time running out.
 
I still feel you will need to spend some cash to get the records you want. It is the law after all to register all birth, death and marriages. I would doubt your relatives if born, married or died here did not leave a record or census. The church or synagogue would be my first point of call as they probably kept a record or copy as it would have been transferred to register, OK in in Ireland as well, in Scotland it was all transferred in most cases. Ancestry.com is good for before 1900/1911 census in England and may even have trees already linked or in progress on your family you never know, but it can be full of errors just like the familysearch the Mormon site, its free.

Changing there surname in the case of Jewish origin could be a possibility and foundlings are a case in point sometimes being given name of town or area found. You got to love the challenge though, do not let it rest, I never could.
 
I'm leaving the question of family and ancestors until I get to heaven, they should all be waiting to greet me at the gate? :wink:
 
My family come from West Yorkshire do I used to combine visits home with a bit of research especially as things were disappearing fast. I took loads of photos of headstones, locations etc - my old family home has been flattened and redeveloped since.
My earliest ancestor so far used to farm in Ossett cum Gawthorpe and I located the farm from a Tithe Map. A school now sits on it but the lane leading to it looks little unaltered - apart from the road surface?
On my mothers side we have some aristocratic blood if family stories are to be believed. My GGGrandmother was the illegimate daughter of a Lane-Fox of Bramham Park - her mother was a servant there!

Rod
 
Mike, Jews have taken 'English' names, both legally and privately, usually either to hide their ancestry or help with integration. Bejamin Disraeli being an example.
As to your personal circumstances I would say, proceed. Whatever the result it is likely to be preferable to spending the rest of your days wondering, 'what if?'

Ally, till I have exhausted the 'free' sites I will not spend the lady's cash. Last night I found that official Jewish serch service as well. As to where my mother is buried, I know the answer. When she was killed the coroner halted proceedings 'cos none of us knew her age and there is no birth record. I know she was born in Bethnal Green and that's it! Immigrants in her day, as today, keep their heads down.
My mother was born Louise Sarah, or perhaps Sarah Louise about 1897, I think, but the sirename I know not, as her mother married and thus ceased to exist in Jewish society.
The use of Jewish sirenames is fraught with problems as they didn't have any!

In my case DW they would probably look the other way. They haven't spoken to me in 40 yrs 'cos I married out, and I doubt that death would soften their views.

Rod, thankfully the area where my mother was born was destroyed by Hitler, Bethnall Green was the the slum that other slum dwellers shunned.

Roy.
 
Earlier this year I knew extremely little about my ancestors. Back in early March I was talking with my father about stuff and he mentioned he had come across a memoir written by his grandmother. I had no idea such a thing existed and asked him to send me a copy. shortly after I started reading it I was at the computer Googling names and places. Within a couple of hours I had found a huge pile of information and tracked ancestors back to the middle 1600's in Sussex. I also managed to locate a cousin of my father whom we knew nothing about. In less than a month I knew the location of the cottage where my dad's grandfather was born in Brentingby, Leics (there's a small clump of trees there, now) and I've made contact with a woman who is my second cousin. I talk to these two relatives every couple of weeks now. I have been filling in the family tree as I gather more information. It has grown from a sapling to a huge tree now. The program I used to make the tree indicates I would need a piece of paper nearly 200" long to print the tree out.

The sad thing is that my father died at the end of April and never had an opportunity to talk to either of these relatives.

It's amazing what information is available, though.
 
It ia indeed Dave, and it's beginning to look like the start of a journey. As I posted earlier this started as a search for a friends GF's grave so that she could visit, but reading the comments posted I decided to look up my mother's birth.
When my mother was killed the coroner asked me her age, and I replied, '73', at which point there was a commotion at the back of the court and the coroner suspended the sitting.
A relative of mine was waving her arms to attratct my attention and insisted that mum was 76! The rest of the family supported her and that was it!
Mother's mother was born into wealth, mum insisted that the name was Goldstein and that they were German immigrants via Holland. My mother's childhood was unhappy and very poor, same with dad and neither would talk about it so info is sparse.
But the little that I gleaned was that the Golsteins had a very good concert grand piano and they hired my maternal grandfather to tune it as he had perfect pitch.
It was love at first sight between him and the daughter of the house. Unfortunately he was an Irish Catholic!
They married and her father held a funeral service for her.
Such was the little that I know, I still do not, or rather did not till a few minutes ago, even know for certain mum's given names.
It was either Sarah Louise, Sarah Louisa, or the other way about!
The only certain fact I knew was where she was born as she dragged me to the cinema many years ago to watch the film, 'It always rains on Sunday,' as the filming took place in the street where she was born.
Anyway, inspired by the comments here I looked up the birth certificates for all the combinations of age and names, and bingo, out of all the possibles etc only one fits!
The hit came under Sarah Goldstein and 1890! As mum was killed in 1963 she was indeed 73. No other combinations came up and that one showed the home as Bethnal Green, which is correct!
Which as an aside means that mum was 51 when I entered the world!
Having found this it looks as though I have discovered another way of avoiding TV!

Roy.
 
Dave R":3axy2wp2 said:
The program I used to make the tree indicates I would need a piece of paper nearly 200" long to print the tree out.

If you do want to print it, I have an A0 plotter that could do it.
 
I've just found out that my dad wasn't very good on dates. He told me he was born in 1902, his Chritian names were Reginald Herbert and he was born in Royston, 'behind the Red Cow' he claimed. No comments please! :lol:
Anyway, it was 1905!
Like mum he talked little about his childhood, abandoned by his father as a child, his mother dead at 13 he took to the roads and lived rough till he married my mother, a widow with four children by this time, in his 30s.
Dad couldn't even get my birthdate correct!

Roy.
 

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