And even more caught up

Dec 2011, Jan 2012 updates also now included in OneGreatFamily

Even more catch-up

Last post refers, now October/November 2011 updates have also been included in OneGreatFamily

Catching up

I still like to upload my researches to OneGreatFamily .
Their overview tree is still one of the better available on line for getting a good grasp of a family, and if others have also uploaded, where they have people you don't, or where your information differs.
My updates have been lagging behind somewhat as the earlier parts of each year are by far the busiest for me on the few things that take priority over genealogy in my life , but my August and September 2011 updates are now included in their combined tree.
The overview of how the updates are selected for upload etc back here, still holds.

Up to July on OGF

OneGreatFamily updates now complete to end July, and yes, I mean 2011, so catching up.
Click here for an explanation of what this entails and why I do this.

24th: Really am catching up

Cold miserable winter's day - a good day to catch up on publishing a few more months of updates.
All of my updates for Feb, Mar and Apr this year have now been uploaded to OneGreatFamily
(see this prior post for explanation of what/how)

17th: Catching up even more

I'm sure it (this catch up mode) will be temporary, but for now, my December edits to published data have been uploaded to OneGreatFamily
(see this prior post for explanation of what/how), and my WorldConnect database LornaHenderson, which holds all my dead rellies and connections BDM data, has also been updated - so the links from the connections over the last week will now show updated info.

Recovery from my PC woes is proceeding, but not without its dramas, of course.
Desktop now working, but not all programs yet re-installed, so not fully functional.

5th: Up to Nov at last

Catch up mode continues.
OneGreatFamily now includes all my updates on people in my database edited up to Nov 2010 !! (This is a subscription site - I particularly like the way I can quickly find other people researching the same families)

The process I follow for this is to select everyone in my database marked as checked for publication and edited during the month I'm about to upload - my own relations, and the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN families I research for the one name studies and dna projects.
To put them in context and enable them to hopefully be linked correctly to any existing families already on OneGreatFamily, I then add their spice, and 1 generation of ancestors.
Then I recheck that I really do want to publish all of those people, deleting from the list those where I'm not adding to the sum of genealogical knowledge at all.

It's an interesting way to re-discover bits of research left hanging as I got sidetracked onto following some lead or other instead of finishing off my research, eg connecting a sister to the same parents as the brother she was with in a census, or realising that I'd not finished checking off BDM and census data for whichever family.

So yes, up to November is now there, but the initial set of people from December is shrinking by my May updates to finish off some unfinished research.

6th: IZON redux

How many John Parnell IZONs can there be?
Or more accurately, why can't I find the one I'm looking for?
In the process of loading some overdue updates to OneGreatFamily I realised that I'd never fully convinced myself about Madeline Hilda IZON's parents.
I knew her father was a John Parnell IZON, timber merchant, deceased when Madeline married Douglas Maes TURNBULL (turns out he'd only died 8 days earlier).
But the only census data I could find had a John Parnell IZON with a wife Emma in about the right area and timeframe, but no Madeline/Hilda to be found.
This time round I found the family in 1911 and Emma was relegated to the dustbin of history as Madeline's mother turned out to be a Marion instead - additional proof being supplied by the National Probate Calendar (must have been a reasonably prosperous timber merchant, he left L6,300 in 1914).

Those interested are no doubt following the Fairbairn blog anyway, but I thought I'd mention here that the One Name Study pages have been updated to reflect my last few months of research into how the earlier generations may connect, aided by dna evidence, and a couple of very helpful wills (with some more people from the latter that are not yet identified, so yet to be fitted into the jigsaw, as is the latest exact match to the line closest to the modal for all of the matching Borders FAIRBAIRNs).

Calverts of Cumberland

In my true (dis)organised style, I strayed back into one of my Cumberland families today, which will result in some small updates sometime soon to my WorldConnect db LornaHenderson.
William CALVERT showed up as a(n incorrect) match to another on OneGreatFamily, so I thought it was time to identify him a bit more accurately to avoid a repeat.
In the process I learnt where Torpenhow and Blennerhasset were, and helped another chap with his William CALVERT, given ancestry told me that he'd claimed the same entry on the 1881 census as I did for William, the problem being that the census entry showed him as single and younger than his married chap born the same place but several years earlier.
My connection to this chap is actually his wife Martha Maria SCAIFE.

15th: Minor updates to web

Reloaded my main family tree pages.
You'll have to search fairly hard for the changes, none are the published people with pages of their own, so the recent changes index doesn't have any new entries.
However several charts will now have new twigs on them and one or two added names as partners have been identified etc.
eg William Fairside HAMLEY's wife has been confirmed as Florence Mabel THYNNE, and will show up on the ROWE chart;
a couple of present day COMBELLACKs now appear in their rightful place at the end of the DAWE chart etc etc.
Made time to get more of my recent updates up to date on OneGreatFamily
as well.
Everything to end of July is now there, my own families, and the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN investigations which result in at least 3 generations of family trees.

But, as is usual these days, most of my current investigations will be reported under the dna blogs, or the one name study pages - see links at top left.
It's quite interesting seeing which family lines pop up unexpectedly on the other side of the world.
Have now placed an Agnes FAIRBAIRN (married a John CRIGHTON) that I came across recently marrying in Balmain, Sydney in 1876.
My initial thought was that she may have been one of the sisters of Robert FAIRBAIRN, the Resident Magistrate of Freemantle, grdson of the Robert and Janet (AINSLIE) FAIRBAIRN I've been investigating (and have now popped a summary on the dna Patriarch's page - as reported in the Fairbairn dna blog).
Don't yet know if any others of the family emigrated, but her marriage notice in the paper shows her to be the second daughter of the late Thomas FAIRBAIRN, M.D. of Edinburgh.

Delayed by bad weather!

Anyone waiting expectantly for a new post (well I do assume at least some people read this) may have a while to wait.
I'm in consolidation mode - both in rationalising my computing to eventually, I hope, simplify how I do assorted things. However that has meant a complete change to how I work with my emails and assorted email addresses and hosts, and buying a new laptop (a Mac, yet to arrive, but that's probably going to be an interesting new experience for this previously completely pc based computnik).
So that's all time away from research.

I'm also slowly working thru checking back over assorted things, primarily my updates to OneGreatFamily both to see that they've been connected up correctly, and to see if anyone else is working on the same families.

And I've committed myself to giving a course for the local WEA on comparisons of assorted genie packages in Sept, so that needs research....
The list goes on.

All that aside, a recent new contact will mean updates to a branch of the CREBER/WARE family as Hugh has provided a husband for Jane dtr of Richard CREBER and Elizabeth WARE, which involves connecting up assorted links, including a few stray STUTTAFORD/CREBERs that I had in my database suspecting there was a connection, and now seeing what it is.  Despite a move to London and back to Somerset (parents from Devon), she married a CREBER rellie.

Megsmire

Back in 1994 I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Nichol Forest in Cumberland, where my TURNBULL ancestors (great grandmother Ellen TURNBULL and her parents) came from, and to research them in the Carlisle Record Office.
While there I noted any likely looking information that may at some stage connect, even if I didn't know exactly how, where or when at the time.
One such was the 1842 will of Walter of Megsmire (which place I visited, or at least where I decided it probably was from census data). It was a very detailed will, and sexist (but of its time), dividing his moss up into sixths, with each of five sons getting one sixth but three daughters sharing the remaining sixth.
Walter survived to appear in the 1841 census as a 75 year old, but that didn't lead me to match him up to the known Nichol Forest families.
Yesterday however George, a descendant, provided me with a copy of Walter's 1842 death cert, which gave his age as 80, and an added impetus to try again, given that between then and now much more research on TURNBULL baptisms had occurred.
I now believe Walter to be the son of James TURNBULL & Betty BELL, and baptised in 1762 (at Canonbie). This makes George and I 7th cousins, which has taken us at least 9 years of (very) intermittent correspondence trying to prove our relationship via the TURNBULLs.

With both yesterday's news re Lester LESLIE aka Jack WALSH, and this TURNBULL reshuffle, my webpages have been updated, and the next batch of changes included in my WorldConnect database LornaHenderson (Walter has been shifted from LornaPotential, which has also had an update, as has the data I contribute to OneGreatFamily, which can include other families unrelated to me, but of relevance to the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN DNA projects and One Name Studies - FAIRBAIRN, RUNCIMAN).

I even had a rush of blood to my head and also gave the much less often updated Rootsweb pages a refresh. They don't contain as much supplementary information as my main pages, but will hopefully still exist long after I've ceased paying for my own domain name.

14th: OneWorldTree - check the sources

Oh the joys of "researchers" attaching people to their trees on the strength of Ancestry's hints without checking the sources.
I've just noticed that OneWorldTree, Ancestry's attempt to do what OneGreatFamily do rather better, has assigned a son Robert (born 1811 Anderston) to my John and Catherine (GRAY) BAIN, and he now appears in several trees, many of which erroneously include rather a lot of the descendants of John and Catherine as their relations.
I checked why Ancestry seem to think he belongs to John and Catherine and see that if you examine the sources, they've taken the data from two tree submissions, one being the Rootsweb tree of mine that they pinched many years back (and which I can no longer access to correct in any way shape or form - for the current version, see WorldConnect db LornaHenderson). That tree shows a male born 1826 to John and Catherine.
The other tree source is that of a Robert born 1818 Anderston Scotland to a John and Isabella (MacDONALD) and married to a Barbara FERGUSON, and dying in Polk, Minnesota in 1904.
Whereas John and Catherine have a large gap in their children that he could fit in, the Anderston Scotland Robert has siblings born in 1820 in Anderston when John and Catherine had Elizabeth up in Caithness, so it seems rather unlikely he fits with John and Catherine at all.
Check the sources!

Shifting Alistair

One result of the correspondence with Sheena was a re-examination of the family of Diana Berry BAIN and Donald SWANSON. (Their son John SWANSON married a relative of Sheena's).
My initial data on the family had come with two sons for Donald and Diana, John and Alister. I'd never been able to confirm Alister's existence, and have now decided that he is probably Alexandra Mowat SWANSON, John's son instead, as Sheena advised he was also known as Alistair.
Sheena's family story also assigns a son John George Waters SWANSON to John and Alexandrina (Alice) SWANSON, John being Diana's son.
The 1916 Manitoba census does show a John G SWANSON in the family of John and Alice SWANSON, who may or may not be this family - the doubt being that Alex M seems to have turned into an Alice T.
I found a London Gazette entry (Nov 1945) mentioning a Capt John George Waters SWANSON of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps being recognised for gallant and distinguished services in Italy who seems a likely match.

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been updated to include the latest round of updates, as has OneGreatFamily.

24th: Census enumerator defeated

Having uploaded some updates to OneGreatFamily , I reviewed the families concerned (those of the last few posts) to see if anyone else was researching them.
Lots of "conflicting information" symbols showed up, along with several greyed out boxes on the descendant charts which showed that someone else had more people in the tree than I did (or insufficient information on our respective records for OGF to have merged them automatically).
One family I strayed into checking was that of Ann HELSON, dtr of John and Elizabeth (HORTOP) HELSON, whose son Aaron I thought had married an Emma, but the investigation of same hadn't ever made it to the top of the growing pile of Round TUITs.
The first record I checked was the 1881 census, at Wimsdon, North Petherwin, Cornwall, and two of the dtrs were listed merely as M.E. and H W F. MEHTERAL.
Birth records eventually unearthed showed M E as Mahala Elizabeth, and H W F highly likely to be Hephzibah Florence.
I concluded that the names were just too much for the enumerator to spell!

(OneGreatFamily are having a cut price sub offer for a few more days if you're interested)

Update time

Thought it time to publish some of the updates from the last few weeks.

WorldConnect Database LornaHenderson has been updated.
Main changes are in the Devon families mentioned over the last few postings:

• Honor DAW and Nicholas COMBELLACK
• Joseph King ROWE's dtr Gladys
who married Norbert WILMERING - who now has her own web page so that I can publish the clippings sent to me by Bart.
• the CREBER/HELSON/PEARCE families mentioned a while ago
and
• the ALGARs
  

In addition I've incorporated all recent changes into OneGreatFamily , as usual. I was interested to note the results of an informal survey that Dick Eastman carried out recently that question 12 about usage of on-line genealogy programs showed that of those answering this question (admittedly not a large number of responses), most used OneGreatFamily, so it can't just be me that finds it useful.

PEEK /HELSON et al

With a couple of separate sets of information and new contacts re the extended PEEK/HELSON family of Devon it was time for a catch up.
Thelma left a note in my GuestBook. She is related to Elizabeth THOMPSON, wife of David COOPER, son of Ellen Jane HELSON (Ontario) and provided a couple of family write-ups from the ?1970s? and a photo of Ellen and two of her sisters.
Peter on GenesReunited found me and provided a link to his tree which is the line from Thomas HELSON and Elizabeth PEEK via son John (married Elizabeth HORTOP).
All of which reminded me that I don't think I've ever mentioned the local ALGAR link that surfaced back in May and led to an interesting exchange of emails with Richard, a 5th cousin twice removed who lives just up the road.
It led to a re-examination of my 5*great grandmother, Elizabeth ALGAR, wife of Richard PEEK, who appears in the tree as Mrs Elizabeth ALGAR, from my interpretation of this entry

in the Walkhampton Parish Registers.
Richard disputes the Mrs, given that he's sure he can claim Elizabeth as sister to his x greats grandfather, Samuel (and take Samuel's line back several more generations, mostly in Yealmpton).

PEEK descendant chart updated, as is Elizabeth PEEK nee ALGAR's page.

Also updated OneGreatFamily with the last few weeks of updates to anyone already on-line in any of my databases or web pages.

Update time

Don't seem to be keeping very good track of just what updates have been done for reporting them here, but regardless of whether they've been noted or not, all updated data will now be included in the full update of all the BDM data I've just run for my:

World Connect databases

• LornaHenderson
and

• LornaPotential

and the last three months of updates have been updated to OneGreatFamily where they will automatically be merged with any existing families there (and any differences with either my earlier data, or that from any other researcher for the same person, highlighted for further investigation, I do so love that feature).
My submissions to OGF only include the same data for those of my database that I publish online somewhere else, eg my web pages, the WorldConnect databases above, and some of the data from the Patriarch pages on the summary dna pages on the World Families Network dna projects (generally only the earlier generations in this case, and where I've checked off the data first as best I can, and they belong to linked families I'm particularly interested in), but there they get combined with other researchers' data and inter-connected families show up easily.
There were 685 of these in the last 3 months it appears.
To make sure that every "family" that had been updated had enough information to enable the matching logic on OGF to slot them into their rightful places rather than leave them as orphans never to be found again, I made sure that all families had two generations with spice/parents as applicable included. This resulted in about 830 people being sent to OGF this run.

RICHARDSON updates

Casting around as a result of the DNA match on the RICHARDSONs, led me to review what I had on some John RICHARDSONs. Made me realise that I should get around to checking a note I'd made to myself about 9 years ago to check whether or not the tailor in Edinburgh, born Morebattle, was the son of John and Elizabeth (SHIEL) RICHARDSON or not. He was, despite an erroneous transcription of his age in the 1891 census which threw me off the scent for a while. Along the way I also combined two Alexander Blair RICHARDSONs sitting awaiting some attention. Couldn't find what happened to all of John and Ann (BLAIR) RICHARDSON's children, but most have been accounted for somewhere.
Son Adam may or may not be the one with wife Mary showing up in census returns down in Chester as a musician.
So, because of this, and whatever other updates I've made over the last month, I've reloaded my WorldConnect db LornaHenderson and put the updates out onto OneGreatFamily
.

Also added a few more people and places of interest on AncestralAtlas too.

Oct 6, 2008: Lots of updates

Both LornaHenderson and LornaPotential updated, as was OneGreatFamily
.

As is often the case, went looking for something and found something else. Not that a letter from a 13yr old is of more than a passing interest, but it did result in including my great grandfather, William Henderson on at least one of my websites, at long last (basic bdm data only, the rest of my info still needs quite some tidying up for publication).

Updated Links pages to include a couple of the BDM Exchange network of sites: UK BDM Exchange and Australasia BDM Exchange. Both are free, or by donation for additional services (and to support the site). Contribute your certs, find others.
And for a bit of fun, a link to BookCrossing