Blood Detective

I read Dan Waddell's Blood Detective on my train journey on Monday. It was extremely good - though I had my doubts about it when reading the first two pages - 2 people threw back their manes of hair!! So I was thinking - oh no! - there are going to be too many cliches in this book! But it wasn't like that at all - or maybe I didn't notice them because of the exciting and complex plot.

A murder victim is found in London with what appears to be a reference number carved into its chest. This proves to be a reference number for the GRO registers of births marriages and deaths. Fortunately one of the detectives - Heather Jenkins - knows of a family history researcher - Nigel Barnes - and contacts him about it. Heather Jenkins and Grant Foster - the detectives - are then involved in an exciting to chase to try and second guess what the murdered is going to do next based on what happened in 1879.

My only complaint about the book was that some of the violence was a bit too graphic for my taste and that yet again we have a hard drinking morose policeman. I really wish someone would write a crime novel featuring a cheerful detective - maybe someone has done so - if so can anyone let me know who? In spite of that criticism I shall be reading the next one in the series - and skipping the violent bits.

Family History

I've been wandering far and wide in the outer reaches of my family tree today and following up various tenuous connections. I think I might have uncovered a link to the poet John Clare who was born near Peterborough in the late 1700s. I had noticed one of my Slator/Pepper ancestors had married someone whose surname was Clare but had not connected the two before. Then I looked up where John Clare was born and it is in the right area and he was the son of an agricultural labourer so there could well be a connection there. Even if there isn't a direct connection the Clares I'm distantly related to are from the right area. You never know who you're going to stumble across next.

Family History and books

I've found two unusual Christian names in the course of my research - Tryphena and Ethelinda - both female and both nineteenth century. I've not come across either of them before.

I've also come across an interesting lady called Caroline Slator. She was born in 1820. She never married and lived in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, all her life dying on 17 May 1898. For a lot of that time - according to the Census returns - she lived on her own and supported herself by means of dressmaking. I've always had the idea from reading social history that women - of any social class - rarely lived on their own, so I think she must have been quite unusual. Or does reality differ radically from social history?

On the books front I've finished reading Disasters and Miracles: How it was Then. This is a beautifully produced book of short stories retelling well known bible stories as well as lesser known ones - including one about St Paul by Anne Brooke. I thought the stories were really good - all of them - and I've posted a review on Amazon.

More family history

Except I am not being very organised about it and keep hopping off into interesting byeways such as scrolling through part of the 1901 census for Crowland to see if there are any Peppers and Slators I've not come across before. Naturally there are several though they've brought me no nearer finding my great grandmother Sarah Jane Slator. I'm beginning to think she may have gone to America. Some of the Slators from a couple of generations before her seem to have done so.

I've also found someone who was the President of the Chamber of Commerce in St Albans during World War I - a Mr W Fisk - whose parents ran a drapers shop there. These are not my direct ancestors but one of the offshoots from several generations back who are just as intriguing as my immediate relatives. There is also someone - an accountant - who appears to have been in prison in Liverpool in 1844!

It's amazing how much time can be taken up browsing online records and I'm really still only scratching the surface. I'm trying to build up a skeleton - as it were - and then filling in the details later.

Biblical names

I have just come across this fantastic collection of Biblical names:

Solomon Sharpe born in 1815 married a lady called Mary - surname unknown at present. They had the following children:

Hezekiah
Jeremiah
Uriah
Keziah
Obadiah
Zephaniah
Zachariah
Zekial
Delilah
Elizabeth
Solomon

Jeremiah had a son Arthur who married one of my Pepper ancestors - a 4 or 5 times great aunt called Susan Rebecca.

I wonder whether Solomon just opened the Bible at random when his children were born? I had wondered whether he was Minister of some sort but he was an Agricultural Labourer as were many of my ancestors on that side of the family.

A good day

I have been up to my ears in family history today - and sinking fast. I keep saying I'll just look at one more person and a couple of hours later I'm still plugging away and finding out all sorts of things. One offshoot of the family from my great great grandmother's generation lived in the same road in Spalding as the office I worked in until recently. I suspect the property they lived in is no longer there though I shall go and have a look next time I'm in the town. They were mainly chimney sweeps which was obviously reasonably profitable in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries.

Mainly people seem to have stayed in and around Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire though I've found offshoots as far away as Wales and Bradford with a few in London. The London ones were mainly where women had married people from elsewhere. I have also found one small family in Cannock in Staffordshire - strangely enough not far from my maternal grandfather!

Absolutely fascinating stuff and I think I could get interested in tracing anyone's family. It's a bit like doing complicated jigsaw puzzles.

Great Great Grandfather's second marriage

I received the copy of the certificate of Alfred Slator's second marriage today. Unhelpfully the vicar - it was a church wedding - has not given their exact ages and his handwriting is the worst I've seen so far! Alfred's second wife was a lady called Martha Butler but I can quite see why it might have been read as Baker. They were married on January 16 1882 at Thorney in Cambridgeshire. At least her father's name is on there - John Butler - which is a start.

Family occupations

Strange as it may seem I have only started looking at the occupations of my ancestors over the last few weeks. Since the last list I have come across someone - a great great uncle several times removed who was in 1901 the landlord of a pub called the Five Bells at Gosberton - which is a village about 4 miles from where I live now.

Currently the pub is empty and is being refurbished. I'm not sure whether it's going to re-open as a pub or restaurant so it will be interesting to see what its next incarnation is. I've been travelling past it on my way to and from work on the bus for the last 4 years without knowing.

More family history

I've just received the birth certificate for a lady born in 1884 and called Rose Hannah Slator - she would have been my great aunt and was half sister to my great grandmother Sarah Jane. I wanted to find out who my great great grandfather married following the death of his first wife. His second wife was called Martha Butler (or Baker) depending on which source you consult. So I have sent for the marriage certificate. I do have vague recollections of my father mentioning an Aunt Rose but whether this was the lady I'm not really sure.

I have been trawling through census records for the outer reaches of my family and have found - among other occupations -: general dealer; boy employed to scare birds in a field; colliery clerk; railway clerk; farm bailiff; jobbing gardener; farmer of 14 acres; maid of all work; domestic servant; grocer's boy; cow man; waggoner and of course the ubiquitous agricultural labourer. If I was looking for someone from the nobility then I'd have been sadly disappointed! Having said that though some of my ancestors were sufficiently well to do to have servants - possibly because they tended to have large families.

Frustrating searches on 1861 census

I've just spent a couple of hours looking for people on the 1861 census - both on Ancestry and on FreeCen. There are several people I'm missing from that year - in fact a large proportion of the people in my family tree who were around then! I belatedly bothered to check how good the coverage of Lincolnshire is on FreeCen and found it isn't anywhere near complete! I suspect spelling errors or transcription errors are the problem with the ones I can't find on Ancestry. I think 1861 is the year I've had most problems with so far. I also suspect the Ancestry site was busy today because of the records of Old Bailey trials being newly available.

Looking on the bright side I've ordered a copy of the birth certificate for a half sister of my great grandmother because I want to see who her mother was and therefore who my great great grandfather's second wife was so that will make interesting reading when I get it.

Tracing Uncle George

I now have birth and death certificates for Uncle George - full name George James Pepper Slator. The Slator is his surname and Pepper is his mother's maiden name and probably his paternal grandfather's surname as well. He was born in Crowland, Lincolnshire on 4th March 1918 and died on 19th June 1926 at home in Dunston - a small village not far from Lincoln - of chronic gastritis and Myocarditis heart failure. There was no post mortem and death was certified by the GP - so presumably it was expected. So all this time I've been cheerfully telling doctors that there has been no one in my immediate family with heart problems under the age of 40 I've actually been wrong!

I would assume though that perhaps he'd been suffering from either or both of those conditions for some time as my father implied he'd always been in poor health. He could perhaps have been Downs Syndrome as I think they often have heart and digestive problems - which could account for why my father was never keen to talk about him. At least I know a bit more about an uncle who was born and died before I was born. Fascinating.

Now I want to try and find out who my great great grandfather's second wife was and what happened to my great grandmother after 1891.

One domestic appliance that is all right and family history

We had our central heating boiler serviced today and I'm glad to say it was given a clean bill of health. The man who does it has just recovered from swine flu. He said that for him it was much like ordinary flu with a few more hallucinations. He says there are quite a few cases in Lincolnshire judging by the queue when his wife went to the hospital to pick up his Tamiflu. He's the first person I've come across who's had it.

I received the birth certificate for my uncle - who I never knew - today. He was born in March 1918. The GRO seem to think I gave them the wrong reference for the death so I am going to have to look at that again. It seemed very odd after being curious about this person all my life to actually see proof of his birth and it definitely is the right person.

Skeletons in the family cupboard

I had vague recollections of my father saying he had a brother who died young so I set about trying to find out yesterday. He would never talk about him apart from saying it was a good thing he died young and he never said whether this brother was older or younger.

I found him - born in 1918 and died in 1926 - so older than my father. I remember being told he died when he was 6 but he actually appears to have died when my father was 6. I shall be obtaining both birth and death certificates as I would like to find out the cause of death.

I replied to a message on the http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ noticeboard from someone who's husband's grandfather was the brother of my great grandmother! She'd only managed to identify 8 children in the family but I've found 12. My great great grandfather married twice and I don't yet know who his second wife was - I'm working on it.

I've also found out that my grandmother - father's mother - appears to have had a younger sister which I don't think I ever knew about. My father's parents did not speak to either side - his or hers - of their family so I'm not sure what went on there and probably won't find out now.

I had a good example of the perils of Census transcription. My great great grandfather was Alfred Slator. I knew he was on the 1891 census as I'd found him on FreeCen. There was no way I could find him on Ancestry until in the end I put in the reference for the address I knew he was living at. Bingo! It had been transcribed on there as Lackford Later and my great grandmother was down as Sarah Anne Later rather than Sarah Jane Slator! I have filed the appropriate corrections.

More family history

I spent several hours on the Internet yesterday tracking down various members of my great grandmother's generation on the census returns. I also manged to find great great grandfather on the 1911 census! He was living with a newly married daughter near Spalding and working as a jobbing gardener even though he was in his mid 60s. The State Pension was first paid in January 1909 and was the princely sum of 5 shillings a week (about £20 per week now) and you had to be over 70 to get it so he wouldn't have qualified at the date of the 1911 census. I've just found out it was means tested as well so if if you had other income of more than 12 shillings a week you wouldn't have got it.

Only 5% of the population was over 70 so at the time the Government weren't taking on a huge financial commitment. Apparently you would forfeit your right to it if you had been in prison in the previous 10 years, were habitually drunk, or had been unemployed even though there were jobs available. In 1928 it was expanded to include anyone over the age of 65.

The state pension was brought in because people were living longer than they were physically able to work and the workhouses and the outdoor relief under Poor Law provisions were overstretched. I think many elderly relatives were incorporated into families but if they had no families who could take them in then the state had to take over. Though 5 shillings a week was not enough to live on even then. How has life changed!

Great Grandmother Sarah's birth ceritificate

I received a copy of my great grandmother's birth certificate yesterday. It gave me a really strange feeling to be holding a piece of my past like that This is just the start of the story though because currently I have been unable to trace her marriage or death. She was born in July 1870 and I have found her on the 1871, 1881 and 1891 censuses. I cannot find her on the 1901 census at present ad I cannot find her marriage or death between 1891 and 1901 so what happened to her after 1891 I have currently no idea. But at least finding her birth and where she was in 1871, 1881 and 1891 is a start.

I now have another name to search for as well because Sarah Jane Slator's mother was Mary Sophia Scotney - born in the 1840s and died in 1881 just before the census. Scotney is fortunately not a very common name so if I want to trace her ancestry it might be easier. Sarah Jane's father was Alfred Slator and I also know where he was on the censuses from 1851 right through to 1901 even though his christian name and surname were variously misspelled. I also know when he was born and when he married Mary Sophia though he seems to have remarried after Mary Sophia's death in 1881 so I need to find his second marriage.

But I have made progress and much of the above information I uncovered in a few hours searching even though last time I did any research I got nowhere. This is really one blessing of the Internet - so much information out there even though you do have to back it up with original documents such as birth, marriage and death certificates.

Family history

Over the last few days I've started getting interested again in researching my family history. I haven't touched it for about 6 years and had got stuck with trying to trace my great grandmother. I'm totally astounded by how much there is on the Internet now. I've got a trial membership of http://www.ancestry.co.uk/
just to see how much was on there. As a result I've managed to track down my great grandmother's birth and have sent off for a copy of her birth certificate - from the GRO rather than via the site itself. Cost from GRO - £7.00 - cost from the same place via ancestry.co.uk £19.99!! Astronomical mark up.

I've also found my great great grandfather and his family on the 1861, 1871, 1881,1891 and 1901 censuses. I'd tracked him down on the 1881 census when I first started researching but had never managed to find him on the 1891 census or the 1901 census. As a result I now know that my grandfather and great grand mother were living at home again 2 months after his birth in the workhouse in January 1891. My great grandmother was one of 11 children - though the last few were half brothers and sisters as her own mother died in 1881 just before the census of that year.

It seems as though people moved around the country far more than we think they did as well. My great great grandfather was born in Lincolnshire, then worked at Thorney in Cambridgeshire then moved back to Lincolnshire and in the 1901 census is living with one of his daughters and her small illegitimate child in Beverley in Yorkshire