Share your trickiest genealogy detective work

[Clariman]

I thought I'd start a topic for Lemonfools to share your best detective work. What has been your trickiest genealogy mystery?

Mine relates to my wife's family. We had found the birth certificate, marriage certificate and census records for her great-grandfather - and had traced his movements from the far north of Scotland to one of the UK's major cities where he worked as a stonemason and then a spirit merchant. He then disappeared. I could not find him in the 1911 England & Wales or Scottish censuses. Neither could I find a death certificate for him anywhere in the UK or Ireland. I kept going back to search again but to no avail.

Then I happened to get a Worldwide subscription for Ancestry and looked again. Lo and behold I man of the same name (first name, middle name, surname) in a death record in Toronto. It stated he was Scottish (which matched), a steward, but his age was out by 10 years. There was absolutely no current family knowledge of him having gone to Canada. So could this be the same man? I did a search on Scotlands' People for every person born with the same first name, middle name and surname. There were only 2 matches - our man and one other. I then traced the other one and found him still living into the 1930s. Coincidentally he too went to Canada and got married there. So only 2 people christened with that name. Both went to Canada. One got married there and lived on. Therefore, the one who died in the first decade of the 20th century must be my wife's ancestor.

Would you agree?

The mystery now is - why was he in Canada? Did he work on the boats between the UK and North America (a Steward isn't too big a leap from being a spirit merchant?), was he seeking a better life for the family, or had he left the family?

What is your best detective work?

C

[poundcoin]

Have you checked the newspaper archives ? Quite often an obituary gives some clues on other relatives .

[Dod1010]

Does the Toronto death certificate not give the parents names? Or how about ships' passenger lists? Liverpool was the main port although most passenger ships called at Greenock or other places on the west coast of Scotland before setting off across the Atlantic. I have found several relatives of mine in these passenger lists (much earlier though, in the 1860s) on the Allan Line which seems to have had almost a monopoly of the emigration trade to Canada. Out by 10 years of age is probably not altogether surprising if whoever registered the death had no access to a birth certificate.

My father's family also came from the far north of Scotland, Canisbay on the north coast and then Stroma. Emigration to Canada was very common.

I have done extensive research of my own family and have found no real difficulty back to around 1790.

[staffordian]

I'd second Dod's suggestion of checking passenger lists.

I've found several records relating to emigration of my ancestors to Australia and to South Africa as well as return visits to see relatives in Australia by a relative who remained in the UK. There may well be useful clues such as family members travelling with them.

Staffordian

[Clariman]

Thanks for the suggestion of passenger lists. I have tried them, but not done it very methodically. The trouble is that his first name and surname combination is very common, so there are loads of people who are potential matches on those lists. It is only when you add the middle name in does he become readily identifiable. Passenger lists don't tend to have that.

The death certificate in Canada has minimal information on it - does not mention relations. I think he would have been there on his own and perhaps a doctor estimated his age or a colleague guessed it.

We've been meaning to visit the grave where his wife is buried, to see what it says on the headstone.

[Slarti]

I've had 2 interesting challenges, one solved, one outstanding.

The solved one relates to my great grandma Emma Hume.
Marriage certificate to great Granda, 1895 check. Father noted as David Hume.
1891 census, there she is with parents David and Ann plus other kids
1881 census, there she is with parents David and Ann plus other kids

Birth should be 1875/6 by the censuses, but Ann's maiden name was Gordon and the 2 Emma Hume births at the right time and place gave no clue on the BMD indexes. Eventually I bought both certificates and found that one was great Grandma, but that her mother wasn't David's wife, but his little sister Mary Ann and that the father was unknown. There is no documentary hint, other than her birth certificate that David and Ann were not her parents.
I do wonder how they explained the new baby to their 7 and 11 year old sons.


The outstanding one is a 2 part one.
Who are the ancestors of my great, great grandma Ann Maria Lees and what happened to her husband Samuel Taylor
It took me a while to even confirm that they really were the parents of great granda Thomas Taylor as their marriage was mis-indexed at the GRO with him as TayTor and I was not sure of her. Eventually someone on the Rootsweb Staffordshire mailing list pointed me at a marriage at St Thomas Wednesbury and with that I managed to find her surname and order the certificate, having first confirmed the names by buying the birth certificate for great-great uncle Enoch Taylor Thomas' big brother.

But my problem is when and where did he die?

There are 3 brothers born 1874, 1875 and 1877 all in the mid Staffs coalfield area.
Also, I don't have a reliable hit on gt, gt granda Samuel in any census other than the 1861 and in 1881, gt gt grandma Ann Maria and her 3 year old son were in the workhouse with no sign of Samuel.
Had he died? Run off? Who knows?

Slarti

[Tymeric]

Re passenger lists, it might be worth trying Ellis Island...registration is free...

http://libertyellisfoundation.org/passenger

The Ellis Island Archive contains the passenger lists of more than 51 million immigrants, passengers, and crew members who came through Ellis Island and the Port of New York from 1892 to 1957. The period from 1892 to 1924 at Ellis Island was the largest human migration in modern history!

You could also try his full name enclosed in quotation marks directly in the National Archives catalogue.....you never know

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

We've been meaning to visit the grave where his wife is buried, to see what it says on the headstone.

An outside chance, but the following grave websites appear to be gaining popularity. Someone has already done quite a bit of work on the local churchyard...

https://billiongraves.com/search/#/

also google "find a grave".....Can't give the web address....only allowed 3 URL's

[tjh290633]

I have come to a grinding halt, using parish registers to trace them back. I have the names of father and mother of my Great Great Grandfather, John and Hannah respectively, but cannot find their births, marriage or deaths. There are possible candidates, but they are from a few miles away and the fathers name is wrong. Misspelling was rife, of course.

His wife's family was easier until I got to her grandfather, whose father could be any one of five with similar names. The marriage register does not give the parents' names. His birth was c.1720. I can go one generation further back for her grandmother, the record petering out about 1700. My great grandmother's family I can trace back to the early 1700s, but it's a pity that some vital information is usually missing.

[Clitheroekid]

What has been your trickiest genealogy mystery?

Not sure if this really qualifies, but it kept me occupied for a while.

I’ve changed the names and locations.

I'm the executor of an estate in which there were three residuary beneficiaries (the ones who share what's left).

Unfortunately, one of them, Derek, had disappeared. The Will had been made about 16 years ago, and I had been vaguely aware of him at the time. He was a rogue and a rapscallion, and had enjoyed the dubious distinction of having been the subject of a two page spread in the News of the World. This had described him as a `love rat' and detailed the various women he'd cheated out of their life savings during his `career'.

So hardly a worthy recipient, but ours not to reason why.

The main problem was that he had changed his name several times, and had almost certainly done so since the Will had been made. At the time of the Will he'd been married, but his wife had died several years ago and they'd had no children.

The last address I had for him was in a small town in the Midlands, but of course it turned out to be a rented house, he no longer lived there, and the current tenant knew nothing about him other the fact that he'd read tarot cards and had a Facebook page.

This was a promising lead, and the FB page was still there, but it was obviously moribund, the last entry having been a couple of years earlier. I tried the `messaging' facility, and even tried to `friend' him, but to no avail. I then tried the same with the 3 or 4 friends on the page, but without any result.

So the next step was an ad in the local paper - the "You may hear something to your advantage" type of thing. This did bring a response, though not from Derek. It was from someone who claimed to be a friend and could provide information, but required payment.

We eventually negotiated a mutually acceptable sum, and she told me that she'd lost touch with him, but could give me his GP's details, as she used to accompany him there. For some bizarre reason he had nominated her as his `next of kin', which meant that with her signature I'd be able to access information from his GP.

So I duly wrote to the GP, and they wrote back to say that he'd died about a year ago, and that his records had all been transferred to the NHS records department.

Unfortunately, although I'd asked for the date and place of death they never provided a reply to the several prompting emails. Without the date of birth I'm therefore struggling to obtain a death certificate. Also, although I submitted an application for copies of his medical records several weeks ago I've still had no response, and having waited over 25 minutes when I phoned their amusingly entitled `Helpline' I gave up.

His death further complicated matters, as I now needed to discover whether he had (a) made a Will; and/or (b) the identity of his next of kin, as they would potentially inherit his share of the original estate.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to establish whether or not someone has made a Will, particularly for someone like this, with no family or friends around at the time of death. I therefore decided to work on the assumption he hadn't, and to take out insurance to cover the possibility that he had.

I went back to his friend, who (very kindly without requiring further cash!) told me that Derek had fathered four children by 3 different women. All she knew was that the first wife had been called Susan, that they lived in Middlesbrough and that she had given birth to a daughter named Helen. Not a lot to go on. His second wife, Jackie, had apparently had two children, they had lived in Cambridge and they had been keen Jehovah's Witnesses. My trusty informant also gave me Jackie's maiden name.

He'd not married the third woman, called Julie, but she did have an address for her in Ipswich that was about 11 years old. Julie had produced a daughter called Sharon.

Of course there was a major problem, in that I didn't know what alias he had been using when with these women, and I couldn't therefore be confident of their respective surnames.

It was therefore time to do some detailed digging in the electoral roll. I managed to locate the address in Middlesbrough that Susan and Derek had lived at, but only up to 1993, and the trail then went cold.

Likewise, there was nobody in the Cambridge area that matched the name. In something approaching desperation I Googled for Jehovah's Witnesses in Cambridge and obtained a phone number. I rang it and spoke to a woman who was the local secretary. I mentioned the various possible names, but without any result, and then mentioned Jackie's maiden name, which she immediately recognised. She promised to make some enquiries and get back to me, though I wasn’t particularly hopeful.

But the next day I received a phone call from Jackie herself, who had been contacted by the JW. It was obviously difficult to have to break the news, but she wasn't concerned at all, and said it came as no surprise. She gave me the details of her two children, so this was excellent news - 2 out of 4.

Unfortunately, she had no knowledge of the other two children, but after some more digging I eventually found one of the surnames he'd used with a combination of Julie and Sharon living in a house in Ipswich. I therefore wrote to them, though it took some time to compose what was a rather difficult letter.

Bingo! I had a phone call from Sharon a couple of days later which confirmed she was child number 3, and even better she was in touch with Helen, child number 4, who now lived in Germany.

But she then dropped a bit of a bombshell, when she revealed that Helen had been adopted as a very young child, having been abused by the delightful Derek. This, of course, meant that she was - rather cruelly in the circumstances - not entitled to inherit from Derek's estate.

So that's where I am at present. I've found the 3 children who are entitled to inherit, but I can't pay them until I manage to obtain a death certificate for Derek.

I also need to establish that Helen was formally adopted. However, for perhaps obvious reasons I don't want to contact her directly if I can avoid it. The trouble is I don't know how to locate adoption records. I only obtained the information recently, so I've only made preliminary enquiries, but there doesn’t seem to be any form of central register, so this may prove tricky.

But it's been great fun playing detective, and I'm thinking that I might now diversify into the heir hunting game!

[Tymeric]

I don't have a reliable hit on gt, gt granda Samuel in any census other than the 1861 and in 1881, gt gt grandma Ann Maria and her 3 year old son were in the workhouse with no sign of Samuel.

Nothing like a challenge....there's an entry in the 1871 census that you may have seen before..?....RG10/2948 page 10....appears to be mis-transcribed

44 Bloxwich Rd Wednesfield.......Samuel Taylor (1852) Lodger Unmarried 19 ??? Coal Miner born Lanehead ?? (part of Willenhall?) Staffs

also

Enoch Taylor (1857) Lodger Unm 14 Coal Miner born Lanehead....this would be Samuel's brother..?

both children of Samuel and Harriet Taylor...?

Assume you have also seen the following..

..close by in Lucknow, Willenhall....RG10/2946 page 61... Maria Lees Boarder 19 Domestic born Wolverhampton living with Edward and Emma Corfield?? Emma looks like she was a witness at the wedding of Samuel and Ann Maria

[production100]

Hello Clitheroekid

An interesting series of events. It shows how complicated life can get nowadays.

I may be wrong - I have not checked - but I was under the impression that in most cases an adopted child inherited in the same way as a 'normal' child.

Not sure if this changes your case, but thought it worth mentioning just in case!

Chris

[Clitheroekid]

I may be wrong - I have not checked - but I was under the impression that in most cases an adopted child inherited in the same way as a 'normal' child.

That was my instinctive impression as well, but it's not the case. The legal position is governed by section 39 of the Adoption Act 1976 which states that an adopted child is to be treated in law as the legitimate (i.e. born within wedlock) child of the adoptive parents and not the child of any other person (i.e. not the child of the biological parents).

In practical terms this means that the child acquires inheritance rights from its adoptive parents, but loses them from its biological parents.

[production100]

In practical terms this means that the child acquires inheritance rights from its adoptive parents, but loses them from its biological parents.

Ah, yes, that makes sense.

Thanks for the clarification.

Best wishes to all for Christmas,

Chris

[Slarti]

I don't have a reliable hit on gt, gt granda Samuel in any census other than the 1861 and in 1881, gt gt grandma Ann Maria and her 3 year old son were in the workhouse with no sign of Samuel.

Nothing like a challenge....there's an entry in the 1871 census that you may have seen before..?....RG10/2948 page 10....appears to be mis-transcribed

44 Bloxwich Rd Wednesfield.......Samuel Taylor (1852) Lodger Unmarried 19 ??? Coal Miner born Lanehead ?? (part of Willenhall?) Staffs

also

Enoch Taylor (1857) Lodger Unm 14 Coal Miner born Lanehead....this would be Samuel's brother..?

both children of Samuel and Harriet Taylor...?

Assume you have also seen the following..

..close by in Lucknow, Willenhall....RG10/2946 page 61... Maria Lees Boarder 19 Domestic born Wolverhampton living with Edward and Emma Corfield?? Emma looks like she was a witness at the wedding of Samuel and Ann Maria

Last first.
Yes I've seen aria living with the Corfields and when she and her boys re-appear in 1891 in Northumberland, there is an 18 year old Emma Corfield, niece, servant, living with them, so I suspect that the Corfields are relatives.


RG10/2948 page 10 in ancestry doesn't give me anything resembling what you quote. Though I have to admit that since they changed the search engine I find it almost impossible to use. Do you have the folio number as well as the piece and page?

Cheers
Slarti

[Tymeric]

Do you have the folio number as well as the piece and page?

Apologies...my mistake.....RG10/2948 Folio 10 page 13....St Thomas, Wednesfield

I see within the Public member trees on Ancestry, that some are giving Samuel's death as 1879 but probably more a guess than anything

Re 1881, there is an Ann M Taylor 28 Married..? with son Samuel 4, living Shortheath, Willenhall but sadly no places of birth

RG11/2810 Folio 135 page 23

[jackdaww]

it doesnt help if your ancestors name is john smith .

maybe everyone should have a unique middle name ....

[Slarti]

Do you have the folio number as well as the piece and page?

Apologies...my mistake.....RG10/2948 Folio 10 page 13....St Thomas, Wednesfield

I see within the Public member trees on Ancestry, that some are giving Samuel's death as 1879 but probably more a guess than anything

Re 1881, there is an Ann M Taylor 28 Married..? with son Samuel 4, living Shortheath, Willenhall but sadly no places of birth

RG11/2810 Folio 135 page 23

Ah, got it. No I hadn't seen that one before. Thanks.
The parish of residence matches the church where Samuel and Ann Maria married, which makes sense, so it probably is them.

The data of death was entered by me, way back when anybody without a date of death was hidden in public trees. I've been doing this, off and on, for a long time.

The Ann and Samuel in the 1881 are, I think gt gt grandma and gt gt uncle Sam, with gt granda Thomas and gt gt uncle Enoch in the workhouse and gt gt uncle Edward somewhere else, possibly under the surname Taylor or Lee or Lees. Oh, and gt gt aunt Lucy Jane, who would have been 1 at the time is missing.
I didn't find her, one of her descendants found me! She was raised by the family they were living with as a niece, so I suspect that Ann Maria was in a bad way when she went to Northumberland with the boys.

Cheers
Slarti

[ten0rman]

What I've found about genealogical research is the interesting things that get thrown up which we, ie the present generation, didn't know. For example, my sister three years ago discovered that our deceased "only child" mother was technically illegitimate as her parents were unmarried. Why? Because her father was married to another woman with whom he had a son. It then turned out according to her address book, which we had kept, she knew about her step brother and was in contact with him. Yet we, her children in our 60's, were not to be told!

We then did more research and discovered another pair of oddities. Our maternal grandfather was one of 10: one of his sisters married a slightly older man with the name of Smithson (name changed deliberately). Agewise he was slightly older than the girl and both were in their 20's. But then shortly afterwards, one of grandad's brothers, let's call him William, married a girl with the name of, say, Carrie Smithson - he was 22, she was 32. Now it just may be my suspicious nature, but that stinks to high heaven of an arrangement of some sort. All this took place at Leeds in the early 1890's.

Now for the second oddity. In 1895 & 1897, William fathered two girls, the elder being named Wilhemina Augustine. Both girls were born just south of Sheffield. In 1899, Carrie died at Leeds. Two years later, William married again; to a girl with the name Wilhemina Augustine. This marriage took place just south of Sheffield. Now, that generation of that family had a propensity for naming the first born of both sexes after the parent of the same sex, so my grandfather gave his son the same two names as he himself had, and this actually caused us a lot of confusion until we twigged what was going on. So, unless it's my suspicious nature again, I suspect that Carrie Smithson was not the mother of the two girls.

On my wife's side, her father didn't have a father! In fact, her grandmother produced two children out of wedlock, neither of whom have a father! This was in the 1910 to 1920 period. Ok, I can accept one mistake, but two? Interestingly, my brother in law thinks that their grandfather was one Arnold Blakelock, a painter/decorator who might of emigrated. However, research has shown that the grandmother in 1930 married a Ronald Blakelock who had previously been married to someone else. Once again I wonder just what was happening. Was Ronald the true father? Were Ronald & Arnold related?

Lot's of questions, insufficient time to follow them up. Plus of course the obligatory costs.

ten0rman

[RowdyReptile]

The hardest one for me, and still is, is my family history in New Brunswick. The surname was common and there were so many Charles and Marys.

An incredible amount of disinformation presented as fact lead so many to believe that we were married into a family that came from the Mayflower. That sounds appealing until you really research and find that it wasn't so. The conflict was my gr gr grandfather's(Charles) marriage to Mary, and the debate over his first wife. All data seemed to be in order with other researchers, except for that bit. One had the line from the famous ship...and the other....well not so much.

I will spare you some time, but in the end, none of what was believed before was true. I put professionals up in York county, NB on it. I totally devastated some people with that news. The disappointing part is even the professionals draw a blank on my gr gr grandfathers past.

The lineage of my surname I hold is still a mystery. Oh, I have traced the other lines, and find I am Scot-Irish and English. But the killer is not being able to move forward from the time my name were UELs in New Brunswick. There are theories, but no real facts. Colonists in PA perhaps, and their loyalty to the crown gave them lands in Canada.

Very frustrating.

So I guess I have been a good detective in a way, but the main mystery is yet to be resolved.

RR

[RowdyReptile]

One of the reasons I love the mother country so much is that, well, that is where my people are from. There is one rouge French line, but most Americans are mutts so forgive me.

What is fact is some of my people came from Scotland. A William Hugh Starrett who was born in Paisley,Abbey,Renfrewshire,Scotland in 1655. This family is important to me as they married in to my current surname. Now William married a gal from Co. Derry Ireland.


So that is a sampling of the paternal side.

Maternal side was from St Cuthberts,Wells,Somerset,England back in 1650. I have data on his father but that is a bit sketchy.

So obviously, my current surname family came from the same places, but no idea exactly where.

I have done good detective work, with the help of others, and decimated past beliefs, so I am not popular, but the main mystery remains, and I think it always will.

RR