View Article
All Weather Walking
by Val Atkinson
Article ID: 41, First Published: May 2007In the countryside we can stroll, stride, wander slowly and aimlessly, or be focused. We can power walk or potter.
We can please ourselves how we do it. Where we walk is not always a matter of choice, (because we might not know the way, for one thing).
In pre-British Ancestors days, Carol Spillar and I were with a guided walk in the English Lakes on a rare and very ‘un-English’ day (sunny and warm).
One walker decided to do his own thing, and fell into a boggy pothole, not an overly deep one as potholes go, but enough to take him thigh deep in unmentionable mire (sheep country), which sucked his shoe off his foot as we pulled him out.
Research is like rising to the challenge of an unknown country walk in murky English weather with miry potholes ready to suck your shoes off.
RESEARCH DESTINATIONS:
Unlike walking, it’s impossible to anticipate exactly what you’ll need on a journey into family history. There are so many unlikely potholes, that you could never carry everything. Here is an effective list of ‘BASIC MAJOR MUSTS’:
- Have a good foundation
- Always expect the unexpected
- Take it on the chin then things go awry
- Carry some kind of implement for fishing yourself out of a miry situation
GOOD FOUNDATION:
Avoid Identity Crises caused by poor recording systems.
Basic identity is via pedigree charts and family group sheets, which record information in a clear concise and orderly way.
If your recording system is murky and vague, you’re on a walk without a guide, and you’ll eventually have your shoe sucked off!
Trust me in this, and say to yourself: Could a stranger understand this at a glance?
- ‘Proper genealogists’ have a system, and they never ‘jump into the middle of a family’ and scatter them
- A good clear informative pedigree chart is the best springboard for successful research
- Matching group sheets record your people (as they lived), in families
ALWAYS EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Have you noticed? It isn’t always other families who have illegitimate children, thieves and vagabonds, con artists, bigamous marriages, no marriages at all, murders, and other skeletons.
It may be difficult and traumatic to admit, but unexpected/unsavoury events happened in the past, they happen now, and they’ll happen in the future.
TAKE IT ON THE CHIN WHEN THINGS GO AWRY
You’ll know the feeling if you’ve ever followed the wrong line for a while and discovered your third Great Grandfather wasn’t yours at all. It’s like a bereavement, isn’t it?
You’ll know the feeling if your grandmother, who made scones and biscuits, the same grandmother who held you on her knee in far off days and told you stories, had three illegitimate children before she married your grandfather, and one of them was your father. Incredible!
CARRY SOME KIND OF IMPLEMENT TO FISH YOU OUT OF A MIRY SITUATION
(And here I am!). I have many clients who contacted a researcher from the start, but another function of the professional researcher is to pull people out of potholes, fish in the murk for the lost shoe, clean it up, make it functional again, and provide weather proof clothing for the future. No shoes for good researchers, WE ALL HAVE BOOTS.
If you feel I’m going on a little about the weather you have to understand that ‘Weather Conversation’ in England is an art form perfected by even the most average person. To us it’s normal, and the first comment most English people make when they meet, will be weather-related. My husband and I once visited friends in Utah, and on each successive sun soaked day we commented on the beautiful, glorious weather. We were oblivious to the odd looks, but soon realised we were a bit out of the ordinary when our hostess began saying: ‘They’re from England’, every time we mentioned the sun.
THE BEST RESEARCHERS FOR ANCESTORS IN BRITAIN HAVE TO BE:
- Seeped in weather traditions and totally versed in the weather art form
- Massively experienced in murky driving rain, churned up mud, dark rain soaked routes, foggy climbs, sodden people, and map defying landscapes
- Able to make compensations and adjustments en-route
My father had a policy that’s as good today as it ever was.
‘When you don’t know what’s going on, watch the experts, do what you’re told when you’re told to do it, and above all, listen to everything before you do anything’.
RESEARCH EXAMPLE:
Here, in a few lines, is a research problem that spanned seven years, and illustrates so well the research version of a weather nightmare.
George DOWSON was born in 1814. He was unmarried in 1851 and a widower in 1881. On the 1851 census his mother aged 62 was listed as ‘Coal Miner’.
I’ll spare you the total trauma, because we can now stroll over the bridge spanning those 30 years, beginning (of course) at the end, and ending (where else?) at the beginning.
1881 DOWSON: George DOWSON widower on UK census with two children
1871 DOWSON: George and Jane DOWSON with family on UK census
1861 DOWSON: George and Jane DOWSON with family on UK census
1861 BARRO: Stepdaughter Mary Jane BARRO listed with DOWSON family
1853 VARRO/DAWSON Widow Jane VARRO married George DAWSON
1851 FAYER: Widow Jane FAYER on UK census
1849 VAYS: Birth of child Mary Jane VAYS located in GRO indexes online but actual image says VAYRO
1849 VAYRO: Child Mary Jane VAYRO baptised
1847 VAYRO: George VAYRO married Jane CLEMENT
1813:VARO: 1813 George VARO was born
MORAL OF THE STORY:
HMM! It’s got to be ‘Stick to your task till it sticks to you. Beginners are many but enders are few’.
From one ‘Ender’ to another: How’s the weather where you are?
