Genealogy Chat

I know Paul..I've looked....but unless I can find a murderer or a genius in my family...I have little hope of finding anything in the newspapers..especially for a coal or lead miner...unless he was killed. IGI is brilliant but like any registers they just give the bare facts. I get so wound up ....keeping looking..hoping just for a glint of recognition in a family

Someone said that Genealogy is 90% look and 10% luck. Sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and move on. After all, each generation we go back gives us double the number of Surnames to search, unless they lived in the inbreeding capital of the Country. Lol. I have branches going back 500 years, and branches lopped in the 19th Century. We can only say our Tree is finished when EVERY line ends with a brick wall. Some lines are expressways into the past.

Of and for every rellie I've found in the 18th century I've got one stuck in the 19th!

It#s very likely that the further you go back in a small village, the fewer names there are and the more candidates you have. I've got a few with alternatives. It's likely that all the Riggs you've found are connected to yours in some way. Parish records, not just registers, can help, but it does mean spending ages looking through stuff in the relevant archives. Any clues with occupations?

Don't forget, you can often find supporting information on websites like A2A, several newspaper websites, Historical Directories..... don't just rely on BMD and census records.

When people say they have gone back with family, to say 1600's...how on earth do you do it? Take my William Ellwood..in 1841 his wife is Ann born 1799/1801 On IGI a William Ellwood married an Ann Rigg in 1820...all the dates and place fit.......but when I try to find the birth of Ann Rigg, or for that matter William Ellwood, there's loads that would fit. I've traced each family, and their children, through the census for a hint that they are one I want. Maybe a cousin or aunt is staying...I now have six Rigg families that fit. Even if I went to look at Parish Records and found their parents...I would be none the wiser! This is just an example, all my families are the same....there doesn't seem a way to prove it.....and I sit for hours....I'm sure people must just take a guess or am I missing something. I think I've done it.... hooray

See below....trying cut and paste that someone mentioned earlier