Genealogy Chat

hi...I am bored today....thought id have a look around... Anyone got any ideas how i can get further back on my tree past 1656? And yes i realise i have got far.....and a lot cant get past 1800's but been doing this a long time now and thought perhaps some1 could help me lol....

Heidi Your best bet would be to go to the GRO. I got back to a marriage in 1670 that way - not much on-line from that period unless your lucky enough to find on familysearch, then you need to verify at the GRO If your bored, why not google the names and places you have, something may turn up? Elly

hi Elly....ta vm ...have done all that hun...i have a marriage....but now thought clever clogs me would try to find the fellas parents names.... but guesse not so clever hu?? im still bored xx

Parish registers usually let you down at this period. Either they don't survive before the commonwealth period, or they have a gap which virtually always is a generation wide. You may find people with the same surname, even using the same christian names, but no way of proving that they are your relatives. Church courts were in abeyance between roughly 1649 and 1659, so it is worth looking at wills on Documents Online as they were all proved in one place at that time. Manorial records are full of people's names - the Old Crone is particularly fond of these records! You can look on A2A or use this link: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/mdr/ to see if the documents are fully catalogued for your county. Lay subsidies are taxation lists. You can follow the family through if it stays in the same village. There are lots of other records, but these are just a few to start you off.

When I read that Brenda it is so frustrating for me because I have all these brick walls and I know that somewhere there is info which would crush them all and give me so much more. Its just knowing what and how to go about it. As they say 'does my head in'. I bet old Liz and Ed Horstead are hidden in some manorial docs. But I just dont have the nouse to sort them.

Have I misread Elly's reply? As far as I know, there is NOTHING before 1837 in the GRO??? If there is, will someone please tell me where it is, and why I didnt know about it LOL. Yerse, I DO love A2A! It has been very useful to me, to fill in the Interregnum gap. Although I can never be absolutely sure of relationships, the fact that the property is in the same hands often provides a bridge between grandfather and grandson. I realise this is far from perfection, but it IS an educated guess, and I am pretty sure I have grandfather and grandson correct, even if the father in the middle is a bit shaky. Also, although there are officially no Parish Registers during this time, I seem to have fortunately hit on a Parish Priest who was determined to keep secret registers. He transferred all this info into the PR when it got going again officially, and although I realise the potential for error here, he seems to have got it roughly right. Furthermore, many parish Priests insisted that those who had married in a civil ceremony during the interregnum, should be married again with the full rites of the Church, producing some surprisingly late marriages, if you dont know what was going on! Incidentally, those who refused to marry again were often spitefully punished by the Church, who henceforth gave them as 'alias' their married name, thus casting doubt on the legitimacy of their children. Good luck - it is truly fascinating to search this stuff and there is more than you might think. Olde Crone

I don't know where you live. For Bristol I found a list of who was called to fight and what they had to provide in the central library. Most of my lines end way before 1700 but i have got passed it with a couple of ancestors who left wills and a couple who married aristocrats. It is very frustrating as we know one family has been in the same town Stow on the Wold since the Norman conquest. We just can't link the missing generations. Who said family history was easy.

Olde crone I was talking parish records.... they do go further back - sorry to confuse! Elly :)

hmmmmmmm I am going mad,,,,

thank you all....but am researching Collins....from staffordshire....and later on in derbyshire.... Heeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllppppppppppp lol xx

It does not matter what name you are researching. The County Record Offices are the places to research your ancestors from 1800's back as far as 1538 and after 30 years of research I am yet to be bored of searching these places. Somebody has mentioned A2A and this may well give you some leads. I have managed a Smyth back to the 1500's just. You may well find that yours have hopped over borders which will lead you a merry dance. Once you have exhausted the record offices then there are the newspaper archives and the British Library for the Manorial Rolls as well as the National Archives at Kew. Apart from A2A you can google search your villages of interest, spend a lot of time online but find little of substance until you have made that visit to the County Record office. You can try a course of old French/Latin as this would help you to read those very difficult manuscripts at the British Library or any other main library around the country. Happy hunting. Janet

thank you Janet... I kinda do all this in my spare time and yes has been very interesting....and i have enjoyed every minute of it.... sometimes need a little help...as with 3 screaming kids not always easy to concentrate.... thank you for you comments...much appreciated....x