family history
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Misheard, Misremembered, Passed Down
I do love a good mondegreen. What’s a mondegreen? The term was coined in the 1950s by American writer Sylvia Wright, who recalled that as a child, her mother had read her a Scottish ballad. The original lyric read, ‘They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray / And laid him on the green.’ But Wright Continue reading
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Twenty-sixth post…
Today I have added a page to the site on some musings on some of the mathematics of family history. ChatGPT tells me I’ve looked at… The mathematical complexity of tracing ancestry, highlighting that if considering the simple series of multiplying parents, we would theoretically have over a billion ancestors 30 generations back – an Continue reading
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Delving into an old photograph
In a previous post https://myancestors.blog/2023/09/21/two-almost-orphaned-photographs/ I revealed a bit of a soft spot for old photographs. In my ‘About this blog’ https://myancestors.blog/about-2/ I also spoke about why I think it’s important to remember the ancestors and use the records we have to reconnect some of the dots. This wonderful photograph includes all the twenty-one descendants Continue reading
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Arctic whaling: Tay, 1874
Delving into a document This is a Seaman’s Allotment Note issued at Dundee on 28 April 1874. My 2 x great grandfather William Taylor CLARK (1819-1902) was in his mid fifties, but still working as a harpooner, travelling to the Davis Straits off the west coast of Greenland in pursuit of whales. The Allotment note Continue reading
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Catching a glimpse
Sometime it can be frustrating as a family historian when we catch just a glimpse of what must have been a fascinating life, and yet it seems that no record remains (at least outside those tales that must surely echo amongst their immediate descendants). Hannah Elizabeth DURLEY (nee HORNSBY) (1870-1971) is surely a case in Continue reading
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Blenheim of Hull – Part 3
The story so far Part 1 recounted how an inherited drawing set me on the trail of my whaling ancestor Thomas CLARK and his capture by the French in 1806. https://wordpress.com/post/myancestors.blog/199 In Part 2 I explained why English sailors were being held by the French and delved into a contemporary account of conditions in the Continue reading
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Great Grandad’s Names
My great grandfather fascinated me as a young child because he had 4 names – Joshua Whitley Gill CLARK (1855-1901). Growing up, I didn’t ever came across anyone else with more than 3 names. Surely it was only royalty that had lots of names? Why would my great grandad? Of course, researching the family history, Continue reading
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A family tragedy
The Birmingham Daily Mail for 17 April 1888 includes a report on an inquest into the death of 22-year-old William ROBERTS. Richard David ALLEN, fireman in the employ of the London and North Western Railway Company at Monument Lane Station, said that on Sunday morning he was engaged, together with the deceased, in shunting railway Continue reading
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Missing census entry as a key
The puzzle For many years I couldn’t find my grandfather Sidney Walter JARVIS (1889-1986) in the 1891 census. He would have been just three weeks short of his second birthday when the census was taken on 5 April 1891. By the time of the 1901 census the family are in Sheffield. The record shows his Continue reading
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Eighteenth post…
Today I thought I’d change tack a little. I found myself writing something that wasn’t tied to one particular ancestor, but about a topic that I keep noticing in my family history travels, and that’s the topic of money. Wills are useful documents that help confirm family units long before the census returns allow us Continue reading
My Ancestors 