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Pearls Take Patience

by Val Atkinson

Article ID: 31, First Published: November 2005

There once was an oyster whose story I tell

Who found that some sand got under his shell.

It was only a grain but it gave him a pain,

For oysters have feelings for all they’re so plain.

I was reminded of that poem when talking to my sister, who has finally begun to take an interest in family history at the ripe old age of 42. She is channelling her considerable energies into her husband’s family, and has already come up against a few brick walls (as you do!).

She phones me frequently to discuss how to break them down. She’s making up for lost time, and she wants those walls down YESTERDAY! And if yesterday can’t be managed then NOW! will do quite nicely.

It is clear that:

� YESTERDAY is the ‘IN’ word

� TODAY is almost as good

� TOMORROW is a second class word

� Anything else is the dim and distant future

However, families don’t spring up in an instant. It takes nine months to start one and about twenty years to mature it (Longer if you go through the process more than once!), then the rest of your life to watch over and worry about it.

The ‘up-side’ is that you’re there from the word ‘GO’ in the thick of things with your hand on the helm.

If you start a family at age 42 you have the same rigmarole to go through in a lot less time, but there’s this thing about families: They just won’t be hurried will they? There’s no way to shorten the process.

Family histories start off as a grain of sand, and it’s a long time before there’s enough for a sandcastle, never mind a pearl. To avoid this grain being a pain, and to see its future pearly potential, takes ‘true grit’. It brings me to a subject I’ve mentioned before, that comes up so often in my work and play, (I do my own family history for fun!) that I’d like to give it a little more ‘talk space’.

So-called ’NEGATIVE GENEALOGY’. To explain:

POSITIVE Genealogical action brings positive successful results:

� Searches for births/marriages/deaths

� Census searches

� Searches in parish registers for baptisms/marriages/burials

NEGATIVE Genealogical action becomes necessary when straightforward POSITIVE action brings no result.

Features are:

� An additional extra step you have to take

� Usually a sideways/lateral step that takes you out of your direct line

� Usually costs money

� Always costs time

EXAMPLES:

A family has ten children and your direct line is child number 5 for whom you have obtained a birth certificate. The family is on all censuses and a marriage year is indicated by the birth of the first child, but you cannot locate this marriage.

POSSIBLE REASONS (Apart from the chance they did not marry)

Their names are spelled slightly differently every time they appear

� WOOLFINDER/WOLFENDER

� DAWES/ DOWES

� GEATES/GATISS/GATES

� MEIN/MEAN/MIEN

� FETTIS/FITTIS/FIDDES

� TORVOLA/TREWARTHA

� LINGFIELD/LINKFIELD/LINDFIELD

� JONES/TONES

They didn’t marry at the expected time

They married under a different name altogether

There is more than one marriage

All these scenarios require LATERAL or so called ‘NEGATIVE’ action that:

� Temporarily diverts you at a tangent from your main focus

� Takes time (Sometimes lots!)

� Often costs money (Painful!)

SPELLING PROBLEMS: Soldier through the records checking every variation

UNEXPECTED DATE: 19c marriages usually took place a year or so before the first child and it’s no use getting disgruntled if your ancestors are the exception!

Huge discrepancies I’ve seen are:

� A marriage twenty years before the first child with no infant burials to fill the gaps in between

� A marriage three years after the seventh child, with no apparent reason for the delay

DIFFERENT NAME ALTOGETHER: This is a difficult one. Locating the family on a census is the key here, or trawling through church records checking on forenames. My own experience is a couple who never married because the man already had a wife. They pretended to be married and used a combination of both their names to register/baptise their children. They were eventually tracked down by a thorough scrutiny of forenames in a parish register, thankfully aided by the fact that one of the children had the first name ‘Cuthbert’.

MORE THAN ONE MARRIAGE: Worst nightmare scenario was a multitude of siblings who appeared on a census as one family, and turned out to be children of three mothers. Here, more than one birth certificate had to be obtained to discover the true names of the children’s parents, plot the marriage(s) history, and identify the direct ancestor, who was one of the deceased wives. This ‘temporary diversion’ took three years and eight certificates before I had a clear picture and could move on with confidence. (See article ‘SEARCHES WITHOUT WAX’ for full details).

ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT SUCCESSFUL SEARCHERS:

Are suspicious, devious, lateral and extremely cunning

Accept the unexpected as the most expected

View the totally impossible as highly probable

Put the sublime and ridiculous down as daily events

See the bizarre as absolutely normal

Don’t take gilt-edged facts at face value

Double-check everything

Read everything (twice) before they do anything

Turn stones over every time they pass them and aren’t scared of mess, worms and beetles

Get used to family skeletons, learn about bone structure, and make the closet their first port of call

Are patient, long suffering, and always carry a pencil sharpener

Take pride in achievements and indulge in righteous gloating and boasting

Getting past negative or lateral scenarios in family history can be a gritty business, but don’t let it get under your skin. Remember the grain of sand that became a pearl.

It was messy, awkward and time consuming at the beginning, but ended up unique, lustrous and ‘richly aglow’.

IT WAS WHOLE, COMPLETE, AND FINISHED.