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Have I come to the end?

Genealogy, Local, General
ten0rman
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Have I come to the end?

#265176

Postby ten0rman » November 18th, 2019, 3:46 pm

Well now, it’s cold again so I’m back on the genealogy trail. Still chasing Richard Forrest of Bradford, but in particular his paternal grandparents.

It goes like this:
Richards’ parents are Tom Forrest & Bella Forrest nee Hall and this family can be traced through the 1901 & 1891 Censuses, and then separately through the 1881 & 1871 Censuses. The 1871 & 1861 Censuses show Thomas Forrest (+ siblings – see 1881 Census) & his parents Joseph & Ann Forrest. All these at Bradford.

So far so good, but I have been completely unable to make any headway earlier 1861. It seems as if the births of both Joseph & Ann were registered at Knaresborough which should have been sufficiently unique to have identified both of them, but nothing doing. I have even tried using their eldest daughter, Hannah Jane, who, although born at Bradford, may have been born before the 1851 Census date, but again nothing found. I have looked on FreeBMD although I think FreeBMD is not particularly helpful in this respect, FindMyPast & Ancestry. I do find the former rather more helpful than the latter, although, eg for church marriages, Ancestry does seem to come up trumps rather more often than FMP. I’ve looked at Family Search but I think there is too much info to be easily sorted out.

I have found two Joseph Forrests in the 1851 Census, unfortunately one was married to the wrong woman and for which I’ve got the church notice, whilst the other is shown as a Police Constable in the Mendicity Office in Leeds. This latter Forrest could be the correct one, but I’ve not been able to find any other information to link him with Ann.

So, what have I missed? Or have I indeed come to the end of the trail?

ten0rman

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265239

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » November 18th, 2019, 9:00 pm

ten0rman wrote:Well now, it’s cold again so I’m back on the genealogy trail. Still chasing Richard Forrest of Bradford, but in particular his paternal grandparents.

It goes like this:
Richards’ parents are Tom Forrest & Bella Forrest nee Hall and this family can be traced through the 1901 & 1891 Censuses, and then separately through the 1881 & 1871 Censuses. The 1871 & 1861 Censuses show Thomas Forrest (+ siblings – see 1881 Census) & his parents Joseph & Ann Forrest. All these at Bradford.

So far so good, but I have been completely unable to make any headway earlier 1861. It seems as if the births of both Joseph & Ann were registered at Knaresborough which should have been sufficiently unique to have identified both of them, but nothing doing. I have even tried using their eldest daughter, Hannah Jane, who, although born at Bradford, may have been born before the 1851 Census date, but again nothing found. I have looked on FreeBMD although I think FreeBMD is not particularly helpful in this respect, FindMyPast & Ancestry. I do find the former rather more helpful than the latter, although, eg for church marriages, Ancestry does seem to come up trumps rather more often than FMP. I’ve looked at Family Search but I think there is too much info to be easily sorted out.

I have found two Joseph Forrests in the 1851 Census, unfortunately one was married to the wrong woman and for which I’ve got the church notice, whilst the other is shown as a Police Constable in the Mendicity Office in Leeds. This latter Forrest could be the correct one, but I’ve not been able to find any other information to link him with Ann.

So, what have I missed? Or have I indeed come to the end of the trail?

ten0rman

I've shown your post to my better half. She's done a little of this sort of thing in the past, especially before the advent of the internet. She's a Librarian with 36 years experience and (if I recall correctly) started her career in the reference library when the library kept microfilms of the census. We followed my paternal family back to (approx.) the late 1700's. We did hit a brick wall. The father of my paternal ancestor was recorded as "unknown" and the child was given the status of "bastard". We learned from speaking to another librarian that The Borthwick Institute in York kept old Bastardy records. We made the trip and drew a blank.

The purpose of my little story is more to try and illustrate that it may be worth some of the old fashioned style of looking for the family tree. Often the spelling of names was not consistent even though the record takers and keepers were able to read and write there were often significant discrepancies. We've never used the internet to look at these records. If you have sight of the original record then it may be that your search may have come to a close. Otherwise the option to look at the original records may help? Obviously with all the usual caveat that it may make the process more costly and time consuming.

AiY

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265420

Postby genou » November 19th, 2019, 12:57 pm

ten0rman wrote:I have found two Joseph Forrests in the 1851 Census, unfortunately one was married to the wrong woman and for which I’ve got the church notice,


Can you trace this pair forward in time? Is there any chance she died and he remarried ?

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265534

Postby GoSeigen » November 19th, 2019, 6:27 pm

ten0rman wrote:So far so good, but I have been completely unable to make any headway earlier 1861. It seems as if the births of both Joseph & Ann were registered at Knaresborough which should have been sufficiently unique to have identified both of them, but nothing doing. I have even tried using their eldest daughter, Hannah Jane, who, although born at Bradford, may have been born before the 1851 Census date, but again nothing found. I have looked on FreeBMD although I think FreeBMD is not particularly helpful in this respect, FindMyPast & Ancestry. I do find the former rather more helpful than the latter, although, eg for church marriages, Ancestry does seem to come up trumps rather more often than FMP. I’ve looked at Family Search but I think there is too much info to be easily sorted out.
[...]
So, what have I missed? Or have I indeed come to the end of the trail?



A GRO search shows Thomas's mother was a Robinson. His birth record is:

GRO Reference: 1855 S Quarter in BRADFORD AND NORTH BIERLEY YORKSHIRE Volume 09B Page 44

Sisters Hannah and Mary's birth records are:

GRO Reference: 1851 S Quarter in BRADFORD AND NORTH BIERLEY YORKSHIRE Volume 23 Page 109
GRO Reference: 1853 S Quarter in BRADFORD AND NORTH BIERLEY YORKSHIRE Volume 09B Page 38



Joseph Forrest age 24 married Hannah Robinson age 21 on 21 Oct 1850. Their fathers were George Forrest and Thomas Robinson. Hopefully you can find the baptism with this information.

In the 1851 census Joseph age 27 and Hannah, 21, are shown living with Joe's parents George and Hannah Forrest.


I haven't looked for Joseph and Hannah's births but will try if you have trouble yourself.


Good luck.

GS

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265589

Postby ten0rman » November 19th, 2019, 9:10 pm

AiY,
I think I understand what you are getting at, ie looking at original records. This is what I've been doing, looking at Census transcripts followed by Census originals where there is any doubt about the transcript (and yes, there are some deliberate errors in that some transcripts are not a full transcription. The point is, all the transcriptions and originals of the Censuses are available via FindMyPast on the internet. Where necessary, and I've been able to find sufficient data to make it worth while, I have been obtaining BMD certificates as well.

genou,
Your idea of trying to trace forward is one that I hadn't really thought about, and have now tried, unfortunately to no avail.

GS,
There appear to be two different Joseph Forrests knocking about, both having birth locations in Knaresboro. The one that I want was married, I assume - because I've no marriage details, to Ann "maiden name unknown". They had, according to the 1861 Census the following children: Hannah Jane (b.1851), Mary(b.1854), Thomas(b.1856), Eliza(b.1860), Maria(B.1861), and in addition according to the 1871 Census: John(b.1865) & William Henry (b.1871). This Thomas went on to marry Mary Hall in 1885 (church wedding) and one of their children was the Richard Forrest I am looking into.

The other Joseph Forrest was indeed, as you said, married to Hannah Robinson (church wedding) in Bradford I think (I haven't kept a copy of the licence). It was because the wife's first name was wrong that I have discounted this family - unless as genou has suggested, Joseph was married twice because Hannah died early. It would be nice if this was the case although it would still leave Ann's origins unknown. Another thought was maybe Ann was short for Hannah, but I haven't found anything to support that view.

Many thanks to all, I suspect that I've hit the proverbial brick wall because although there are many possibilities, I have been unable to find two or more pieces of corroborating evidence to help get past it. I suppose I might just have to accept it.

Regards,

ten0rman

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265628

Postby GoSeigen » November 20th, 2019, 12:08 am

ten0rman wrote:
GS,
There appear to be two different Joseph Forrests knocking about, both having birth locations in Knaresboro. The one that I want was married, I assume - because I've no marriage details, to Ann "maiden name unknown". They had, according to the 1861 Census the following children: Hannah Jane (b.1851), Mary(b.1854), Thomas(b.1856), Eliza(b.1860), Maria(B.1861), and in addition according to the 1871 Census: John(b.1865) & William Henry (b.1871). This Thomas went on to marry Mary Hall in 1885 (church wedding) and one of their children was the Richard Forrest I am looking into.

The other Joseph Forrest was indeed, as you said, married to Hannah Robinson (church wedding) in Bradford I think (I haven't kept a copy of the licence). It was because the wife's first name was wrong that I have discounted this family - unless as genou has suggested, Joseph was married twice because Hannah died early. It would be nice if this was the case although it would still leave Ann's origins unknown. Another thought was maybe Ann was short for Hannah, but I haven't found anything to support that view.

Many thanks to all, I suspect that I've hit the proverbial brick wall because although there are many possibilities, I have been unable to find two or more pieces of corroborating evidence to help get past it. I suppose I might just have to accept it.

Regards,

ten0rman


ten0rman

Ann is a very common variant of Hannah (along with Johanna, Anna, Hana, Chana, etc.)

I think you will find that this is the correct family, especially as the mother's maiden name matches!!! [Did you look at the bith records I referred to before writing the above rejection/rebuttal??]

GS
P.S. You listed Joseph's children. Did you notice that I gave references to the births of the first two, Hannah and Mary? Did you look up thise records?

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265702

Postby ten0rman » November 20th, 2019, 10:11 am

GS,
I'll have another look at it all. I'm now wondering if I've blinded myself to what's going on, you know, got stuck on the wrong thing, barking up the wrong tree etc.
I'll report back later, but unfortunately it may be a few days due to other things happening in my life.

Thanks,

Ten0rman

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265725

Postby GoSeigen » November 20th, 2019, 11:00 am

ten0rman wrote:GS,
I'll have another look at it all. I'm now wondering if I've blinded myself to what's going on, you know, got stuck on the wrong thing, barking up the wrong tree etc.
I'll report back later, but unfortunately it may be a few days due to other things happening in my life.



ISTM you're hung up on the first name being "wrong". This is seldom the sole basis for rejecting a fairly obvious family connection. Not seeing the wood for the trees might be the right expression...



GS

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265813

Postby ten0rman » November 20th, 2019, 3:42 pm

GS,
Ok, I've discovered what I was doing wrong. Essentially, it was lack of knowledge on my part. I was aware from searching done last year that there was a problem with seeing mother's maiden names prior to a certain date (1911? But not important) and indeed, FreeBMD still does not show them for early births, but I was not aware that the GRO records did indeed show this information. Indeed, although I recall ordering a few certificates last year, I do not recall seeing mother's maiden names, so maybe it is something new. Perhaps the new GRO website from Sep 2019 might be the reason.

Then, there was the use of Ann in place of Hannah. I had never come across this before, but was aware of the possibility yet my first search did not reveal it. I have now found some limited evidence of this, a bit farfetched I believe - unless it's my 21st century mindset! - and thus I'm reasonably happy about what's going on.

I haven't yet sorted out all the minor details, but that's by-the-by. What's more important is that I've learned something, and for that I thank you.

I now need to go back to all my downloads & notes, delete those which no longer apply, download those records which do apply, complete the family tree, and update my notes. And that will take some time.

Regards,

ten0rman

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265884

Postby GoSeigen » November 20th, 2019, 9:04 pm

ten0rman wrote:GS,
Ok, I've discovered what I was doing wrong. Essentially, it was lack of knowledge on my part. I was aware from searching done last year that there was a problem with seeing mother's maiden names prior to a certain date (1911? But not important) and indeed, FreeBMD still does not show them for early births, but I was not aware that the GRO records did indeed show this information. Indeed, although I recall ordering a few certificates last year, I do not recall seeing mother's maiden names, so maybe it is something new. Perhaps the new GRO website from Sep 2019 might be the reason.

Then, there was the use of Ann in place of Hannah. I had never come across this before, but was aware of the possibility yet my first search did not reveal it. I have now found some limited evidence of this, a bit farfetched I believe - unless it's my 21st century mindset! - and thus I'm reasonably happy about what's going on.

I haven't yet sorted out all the minor details, but that's by-the-by. What's more important is that I've learned something, and for that I thank you.

I now need to go back to all my downloads & notes, delete those which no longer apply, download those records which do apply, complete the family tree, and update my notes. And that will take some time.

Regards,

ten0rman


The GRO website has shown mother's maiden name (yes for records prior to 1911) ever since they introduced an online birth and death record search, as far as I am aware. Certainly I have been using it for a few years now. Search results for the death show age at death, which is also useful.

For discussion of the name Anna see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_(given_name)


I'm glad this is falling into place for you now: often a disinterested observer can spot the pattern more easily from their neutral/unclouded viewpoint...


GS

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265888

Postby Lanark » November 20th, 2019, 9:37 pm

I have done a bit of this on Ancestry, what I found was the biggest source of errors was relying on the automatic OCR, I would say that at least 50% of the time the OCR data contains significant errors.

There are two effects of this, firstly you have to read through every original document to make sure you have the right details, dates etc.
But then they are doing matching against other records that have also been scanned with OCR errors, so you may never get a match for documents even when they do exist.
To be fair its amazing that OCR works at all, on the old script handwriting.

I managed to dig out a huge amount of family history from Ancestry going back to 1719, but I still wonder how much more may still be out there waiting to be found.

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#265910

Postby GoSeigen » November 21st, 2019, 6:16 am

Lanark wrote:To be fair its amazing that OCR works at all, on the old script handwriting.


[OT] This comes as a surprise to me. I assumed no handwritten documents were transcribed using OCR, only typeset documents. Could you link to some information about Ancestry's handwriting OCR please -- I have googled but no luck.

GS

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266106

Postby Lanark » November 21st, 2019, 7:51 pm

GoSeigen wrote:
Lanark wrote:To be fair its amazing that OCR works at all, on the old script handwriting.


[OT] This comes as a surprise to me. I assumed no handwritten documents were transcribed using OCR, only typeset documents. Could you link to some information about Ancestry's handwriting OCR please -- I have googled but no luck.

GS

I have no idea, but in my case some of the errors were so glaring they cant possibly have been done by a human, unless they hired someone with a staggeringly low IQ.
Some examples: on a christening document it would fill in the address of the parents as being the address of the church.
On marriage certificates it would fill in the name of the vicar as the name of the father or groom.

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266132

Postby Nimrod103 » November 21st, 2019, 9:32 pm

I agree about there being mistakes in the digital database. I found that a whole page of the transcribed Census for one year was missing in The Genealogist, reason unknown. I only discovered this when I got access to Ancestry for a short time.

I found the Census data absolutely invaluable. Before the 1851 Census* I found it very difficult and patchy to trace any ancestors. A lot of people had the same or similar names, even within a family, and without the Census data on residence it was impossible to be sure who was who, and what their real relationship was to each other. Hence as you go further back everyone probably hits a brick wall at some point. In my own case it was in the early 1700s, where the church registers contained only minimal information, and insufficient to identify people with any confidence.

Another issue is that the data in the public domain doesn't yet include full records from Scotland.

*The 1841 Census contains much less information than later ones.

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266197

Postby GoSeigen » November 22nd, 2019, 8:53 am

Nimrod103 wrote:I agree about there being mistakes in the digital database.


I doubt anyone would disagree with that. Nimrod has misunderstood my point, which was not about mistakes or lack thereof in Ancestry's transcriptions (or "the digital database" as Nimrod describes it). What I was querying was whether those mistakes could be attributed to the use of OCR in the case of handwritten documents -- which is a much narrower question.


Lanark has now clarified that his comment about OCR was his own assumption without any evidence so I am satisfied that there is nothing to see here.


GS

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266236

Postby ten0rman » November 22nd, 2019, 10:49 am

Well now, I've made a start on correcting everything - and immediately run into another snag, only this time it's a sort of very personal one! My one remaining grey cell is struggling to come to terms with the fact that there are four grandparents, and in turn, even more great-grandparents and so on and so forth. Experience of life tells me that I won't be alone in this problem, but it does mean that I'm going to have to think of someway of keeping track of each individual and their relationship with other people, perhaps by means of a temporary database just until it's all sorted out, etc, etc, etc. And more importantly, just how much investigation I've done on the individual. Oh well, c'est la vie, n'estce pas?

ten0rman, struggling with memory overload!

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266287

Postby staffordian » November 22nd, 2019, 1:55 pm

ten0rman wrote:...but it does mean that I'm going to have to think of someway of keeping track of each individual and their relationship with other people, perhaps by means of a temporary database just until it's all sorted out, etc, etc, etc. And more importantly, just how much investigation I've done on the individual. Oh well, c'est la vie, n'estce pas?

ten0rman, struggling with memory overload!

I'm unsure if you are referring to an issue relating to this specific set of ancestors or keeping track of all your research.

But for both problems I would definitely go for a bespoke genealogy program.

I use Legacy, which offers a free version then the ability to upgrade to a paid for deluxe version with additional features.

As well as tracking all your entries and offering the ability to produce ancestor charts etc, it is brilliant for documenting sources, and logging research.

A bit hard to get into, but IMHO well worth persevering with.

Staffordian

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266288

Postby GoSeigen » November 22nd, 2019, 1:56 pm

ten0rman wrote:Well now, I've made a start on correcting everything - and immediately run into another snag, only this time it's a sort of very personal one! My one remaining grey cell is struggling to come to terms with the fact that there are four grandparents, and in turn, even more great-grandparents and so on and so forth. Experience of life tells me that I won't be alone in this problem, but it does mean that I'm going to have to think of someway of keeping track of each individual and their relationship with other people, perhaps by means of a temporary database just until it's all sorted out, etc, etc, etc. And more importantly, just how much investigation I've done on the individual. Oh well, c'est la vie, n'estce pas?

ten0rman, struggling with memory overload!


Don't worry, we've all hit this problem.


Ancestry.com's online trees do a superb job of holding, organising and presenting this data. Here are my top reasons for considering them the best option for us amateurs:

-Work on your tree for FREE if you don't need to access Ancestry's records.
-Ancestry has the widest range of records available; searching and viewing them is very straightforward
-With a subscription you can attach all the records you find to your tree with automatic insertion of relevant data. This means your work and, vitally, the sources are properly documented.
-Your tree can be exported in a standard format (GEDCOM).
-Your work can be shared or kept private as you see fit.
-Ancestry has pretty good technology for exposing relevant documents based on the work their other users have already done (the "shaking leaf" hints). This can save a lot of duplicated effort.
-You can easily link to other users' trees so that you don't have to repeat entire family branches.
-Integrates with DNA results to show suspected family links with other users and their trees.
-Works on all platforms including major mobile devices.
-Very attentive and free customer service. I do believe they have implemented features I've requested (perhaps along with other users).

Ancestry.com online trees are a wonderful tool, very powerful and enhanced by the fact that there are many members who use it properly and have well-documented trees shared on the platform. If you work on your tree in phases -- adding records with a monthly subscription, then taking breaks to analyse and beautify your work -- then it can be pretty inexpensive too.


I supplement my use of ancestry.com by keeping a well-organised archive of portraits, photos of headstones, homes etc and images of original documents. I also keep a log of my activities and transcripts of interviews with family members, and though I don't do it properly I know it is good practice to carefully log all the searches you do within the various archives, especially off-line ones.

GS
[No connection other than happy user]

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266323

Postby ten0rman » November 22nd, 2019, 3:47 pm

staffordian & GS,

The other day I did have a good look at one of the commercial offerings, I forget which, but really struggled attempting to get into it. I see from my rough scribbled notes that one of the alternatives was indeed Legacy. Now either I thought it too expensive, or, as I use Linux, it wasn't directly compatible - ok, the blurb claims that it is compatible provided I use a virtual machine, eg VirtualBox. I have used VB in the past with a DOS based database and found it rather slow in some respects, but I did have a lot of success using DOSEmu with the same database program. I also tried to use a tax program via VB with limited success - it may have been me that didn't progress far enough, but as I found the HMRC program satisfactory, I abandoned all thoughts of using VB. I should also point out that by modern standards, my computer is darn near in the ark, it being 12 years old next January, and with 2gb RAM & a Celeron M CPU 520@1.6GHz it is hardly the fastest, more Ford Model T than Aston Martin Lagonda, but nevertheless reasonably satisfactory for my meagre home computing needs. Of course, when working on-line, the limiting factor then becomes internet speed.

However, as I do have a subscription for Ancestry, and GS gives a good recommendation, I think I'll try that. If successful, it will at least avoid me having to program my database program, plus it will allow me to gave direct access to my elder son who has shown some interest in genealogy.

Thanks for the suggestions,

ten0rman

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Re: Have I come to the end?

#266959

Postby stevensfo » November 25th, 2019, 10:05 am

I can second the recommendation for Ancestry, and it's paid via one of my very few DDs that I have, so I don't forget. I had a terrible experience about 20 years ago with a free program that disappeared when the PC completely broke down. I didn't lose the actual tree info since I always did regular Gedcom back-ups, but I did lose an awful lot of info about photos that I'd scanned and put in the program, simply because I hadn't kept separate notes about who was who.
When I worked in Mill Hill, I sometimes caught the underground a few stops to the Records office and remember spending days trying to decipher census returns on microfiche. I can only assume that the error rate for transcribing them must be pretty huge!
It really is a daunting task, even with the help of Ancestry, and I'm realising now that I need to keep better track of what I've done and what still needs to be done. It seems to go on forever!

Steve


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