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Has anybody else here read The Meaning Of Liff? I feel we need a new word to describe that very particular kind of frustration that comes when awaiting an historical death certificate, in the hope of filling a hole in the family tree. Or birth certificate, if you want to be a bit less morbid - it's just that it's mostly been death that I've been investigating of late. I don't know if you've noticed, but our ancestors are especially good at dying. They're almost as good at it as Anton Lesser. Or David Collings.
I'm feeling rather pleased with myself anyway (frustrations notwithstanding). The story so far: My maternal grandmother never knew her father. She knew who he was, but she last set eyes on him when she was about two years old; grew up several thousand miles away, on a different continent; and emigrated to the UK in the forties to find him dead and gone. The fact that she was illegitimate made her unwilling to talk about it all to the rest of us, but my mother has always wanted to know where she comes from. She had no idea where to begin though. Enter the internet, stage right. Armed with an unhelpfully common name, an estimated date of birth (we know he was 25 in July of 1922), and a vague idea of where he was living in 1920 (narrowed down to three counties, probably), I dived in and began to cross-reference. And hit obstacle after obstacle after obstacle! Dates that didn't match, names that changed spelling with the weather. Trails that led nowhere. It was like I was chasing The Man Who Did Not Exist. I was quite sure he and his parents had never filled in a census form, or registered a birth or a marriage. Nothing added up, anywhere.
And then, finally, I caught the little beggar. A wholly unexpected spelling of the surname, found in a wildcard search, a bit of patient checking back through the censuses to see what matched, and presto! Suddenly, in just a few days, the whole family finally fell together. Consequently I've spent the last week buried up to my eyeballs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in a world of penniless, itinerant Irish labourers, centered around Glasgow and the north of England. It's been quite a surprise to look up and see twenty-first century Gloucestershire out of the window.
So, from being Mr Mysterious, my great-grandfather has now coalesced into a fully formed family man, the eldest of nine children. Four of them didn't make it out of childhood. One remains as frustratingly elusive as he himself was last month, and has consequently become my latest obsession. I will find her. In the meantime, I've been able to give my mother a family tree going back to two sets of her great-great grandparents, including an 1860 marriage record for one set. Basically I'm AJ Simon. In a wig, obviously. I think I've probably also gone cross-eyed, and seem to be suffering from some sort of time displacement syndrome. So if I've missed anything major - sorry. It's not easy reading DreamWidth in 1911. I'll do some catching up, if I can coax my brain back to 2018. In the meantime, yay! It's only taken me two years.
Have a good long weekend. :)
PS: If you're looking for any ancestors in Scotland, this site is brill: https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/advanced-search. They certainly have stuff that isn't on findmypast.co.uk, and they don't just have the bmd records uploaded - they have the actual birth, marriage and death certificates, so you can see all the details, without having to wait for the government to send them to you (over one hundred years old only). It costs, but not vast amounts.
I'm feeling rather pleased with myself anyway (frustrations notwithstanding). The story so far: My maternal grandmother never knew her father. She knew who he was, but she last set eyes on him when she was about two years old; grew up several thousand miles away, on a different continent; and emigrated to the UK in the forties to find him dead and gone. The fact that she was illegitimate made her unwilling to talk about it all to the rest of us, but my mother has always wanted to know where she comes from. She had no idea where to begin though. Enter the internet, stage right. Armed with an unhelpfully common name, an estimated date of birth (we know he was 25 in July of 1922), and a vague idea of where he was living in 1920 (narrowed down to three counties, probably), I dived in and began to cross-reference. And hit obstacle after obstacle after obstacle! Dates that didn't match, names that changed spelling with the weather. Trails that led nowhere. It was like I was chasing The Man Who Did Not Exist. I was quite sure he and his parents had never filled in a census form, or registered a birth or a marriage. Nothing added up, anywhere.
And then, finally, I caught the little beggar. A wholly unexpected spelling of the surname, found in a wildcard search, a bit of patient checking back through the censuses to see what matched, and presto! Suddenly, in just a few days, the whole family finally fell together. Consequently I've spent the last week buried up to my eyeballs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in a world of penniless, itinerant Irish labourers, centered around Glasgow and the north of England. It's been quite a surprise to look up and see twenty-first century Gloucestershire out of the window.
So, from being Mr Mysterious, my great-grandfather has now coalesced into a fully formed family man, the eldest of nine children. Four of them didn't make it out of childhood. One remains as frustratingly elusive as he himself was last month, and has consequently become my latest obsession. I will find her. In the meantime, I've been able to give my mother a family tree going back to two sets of her great-great grandparents, including an 1860 marriage record for one set. Basically I'm AJ Simon. In a wig, obviously. I think I've probably also gone cross-eyed, and seem to be suffering from some sort of time displacement syndrome. So if I've missed anything major - sorry. It's not easy reading DreamWidth in 1911. I'll do some catching up, if I can coax my brain back to 2018. In the meantime, yay! It's only taken me two years.
Have a good long weekend. :)
PS: If you're looking for any ancestors in Scotland, this site is brill: https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/advanced-search. They certainly have stuff that isn't on findmypast.co.uk, and they don't just have the bmd records uploaded - they have the actual birth, marriage and death certificates, so you can see all the details, without having to wait for the government to send them to you (over one hundred years old only). It costs, but not vast amounts.
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(If you have anyone you particularly want me to try, I will, but let me know before 5pm on 4th April, or my month's sub will have expired!)
Btw, since you have FMP, Ancestry has free access at the mo for the Easter weekend, so you could always give that a try to see if its different records turn up anything or anybody extra. (If you're mostly in Scotland, though, Scotlandspeople is definitely the place to be!)
I am now mainly puzzled as to whether or not I have actually read The Meaning of Liff or just seen it listed in all the other Douglas Adams' books. Hmmm...
I feel we need a new word to describe that very particular kind of frustration that comes when awaiting an historical death certificate
Ha, yes!
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The records I've found do present a fascinating picture though. Mr Elusive Great-Grandfather was born in Liverpool in 1897, though by the 1901 census they were in Yorkshire. His father was born in Ireland, his mother in Glasgow, to Irish parents. She was the fourth of six children. One, Two and Three were born in Ireland, Four and Five in Scotland, and Six in Ireland, so you can see how they were all moving around, presumably chasing work.
And the deaths. So many young deaths. Makes you wonder how on earth they kept going.
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There were a lot of deaths. And I suppose you just do what you have to - I'm very glad that things have changed.
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I haven't read 'The Meaning of Liff' but I have read a book of emotions that has many odd types of emotions (and left me having to bite my tongue at people using 'jealous' and 'envy' interchangeably like it's the mediaeval age.).
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A book of emotions sounds quite fascinating, although I had no idea there were enough to write a book about! Happy, sad, angry... er... er... ;)
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I have a friend who is on Ancestry.co.uk who has found some things for me!
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I bet your mum is thrilled.
"I feel we need a new word to describe that very particular kind of frustration that comes when awaiting an historical death certificate, in the hope of filling a hole in the family tree."
Yes! It's worse when the 4 day PDF you've paid for is delayed by Easter. So many non-working days!
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Common names are so annoying. You can always rule some of them out, but not all, and it can be a looong process eliminating possibilities. Putting the mother's maiden name in the birth record was a big step forward. Shame it didn't happen until 1911.