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Would you like to be on TV?

We’re on the lookout for anyone who wants to tell their family history story on TV.

Have you researched your family tree using findmypast.co.uk? Did you make any interesting discoveries along the way? If so, and you’d be happy to tell your story on TV, we want to hear from you. Your story would feature on a community TV family history programme and you’d need to be available to come to London for filming on one day between 7 and 18 February. Travel expenses within the UK will be reimbursed.

If you’re interested, please tell us about your family history stories in 500 words or fewer. Email your story to casestudies@findmypast.co.uk with ‘Family history research’ in the subject line and we’ll get in touch with anyone whose story is suitable. Please remember to include a daytime telephone number in your email.

The closing date for entries is Monday 31 January 2011.  We look forward to reading your experiences of researching your family tree with findmypast.co.uk

Your experiences – chance meeting

Thanks to all of you who sent us your experiences of researching your family tree. Read on for Anne Young from Canberra, Australia’s experience:

‘I have been researching my tree for quite some time and I have enjoyed very much the connections I have made with distant cousins who share the interest in family history. I have also found that understanding my own family history makes larger events much more comprehensible and immediate.

Perhaps the strangest coincidence I discovered was the brother of my great great great great grandmother (my 4x great uncle) having afternoon tea one day with the husband of my husband’s great great great great aunt (4x great aunt’s husband).

Both men were living in the Australian colony of Victoria before the gold rushes and both men were interested in Aborigines. Francis Tuckfield, related to my husband by marriage, was a notable Methodist missionary. My 4x great uncle, Henry Dana, formed a police force staffed by Aboriginal men. Perhaps it is not surprising they met, but it still gave me a thrill to find such a stretch of the tree meeting on 17 February 1840.’

If you have an experience you’d like to share with us and our readers, email casestudies@findmypast.co.uk with ‘My experience’ in the subject line. We look forward to reading your stories!

Your experiences – stage career

Thanks to all of you who sent us your experiences of researching your family tree. Read on for Glenda Lightowler‘s experience:

‘I have been desperately trying to find out anything about my grandmother’s (Margaret McDermott) reputed stage career, prior to her marriage. I did not expect to have it handed to me so easily. It took me some while to find her in the 1911 census, as I expected to find her in S Shields Reg district.

Suddenly, I saw this name in a Merthyr Tydfil district and thought: I wonder..? There she was with four other lasses, all called actresses. I suspect they were chorus, but that I cannot find out.

I was given this stage information briefly when I was 10 – I am now 75, so it is a bit of a success story for me, all her family contemporaries being deceased.

Sadly, I cannot find grandfather Alfred Lightowler in 1911. They were married in Yorkshire in 1912. He was not recorded with his family (Head Sam Lightowler) in Hulme, Manchester.’

If you have an experience you’d like to share with us and our readers, email casestudies@findmypast.co.uk with ‘My experience’ in the subject line. We look forward to reading your stories!

Your experiences – passenger list puzzle

Thanks to all of you who sent us your experiences of researching your family tree. We’ve received lots of fascinating stories – read on for Irene Conway in Walmer, Kent’s story:

‘My maternal grandfather George Wilce travelled to Canada in 1903 and was supposed to have died on board the ship he was on but I could find no record of his death. I had looked for several years but drawn a blank each time until a helpful man at the Records Centre, when it was in Islington, found him for me via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. I had been looking for an Englishman, who was in fact born in Aberdeen, and found that he had enlisted in Toronto in 1917 in the 48th Highlanders as a Canadian. That’s the background.

I had found a ‘G Wilce’ on findmypast.co.uk’s passenger lists shown as a plumber, single and aged 33 and ignored it as it didn’t fit with what I knew – as did another family history researcher. The man who found the CWGC death record told me to look up Canada collections and this I did. I also checked their passenger lists and it seems that when grandfather left Liverpool (a month after his marriage to my grandmother!) on the ‘Lake Champlain’ he was shown on the passenger list as detailed above; however, on arriving in Canada he was shown as a labourer, single and aged 21.

I sent to Canada for his military record and this was most definitely my grandfather, his record showing his mother as next-of-kin at her address in Woolwich, South-East London which tallied with the copy I have of my grandparents’ marriage certificate.

He didn’t see active service, however, as he died within a few months of landing in England and is buried at Bramshott cemetery in Hampshire – one of apparently 99 Canadian servicemen who died here in England.

When I was a member of a local family history group I was told that passenger lists should show the same information when leaving this country and when arriving at the final destination but obviously there are exceptions to the rule!’

If you have an experience you’d like to share with us and our readers, email casestudies@findmypast.co.uk with ‘My experience’ in the subject line. We look forward to reading your stories!

Your experiences – the beauty of the variants search

Thanks to all of you who sent us your experiences of researching your family tree. We’ve received lots of fascinating stories – read on for Michael Lonsdale from Tarleton, Lancashire’s story:

‘My great grandparents, Thomas Barlow Lonsdale and his wife Helen Elizabeth nee Wilson, have always been something of a mystery.

I tracked Thomas and his family from 1900 to the late 1500s in Burnley, Lancashire and found they had connections to the Pendle Witches.

Thomas married Helen Elizabeth Wilson on 19 February 1899 in Kilburn and I knew that a son (my grandfather) Thomas Alfred Lonsdale had been born 29 May 1900 at 6 Claremont Road, Willesden, Middlesex, but search as I may they were nowhere to be found in the 1901 census.

I found the records on findmypast within seconds. The original enumerators sheet showed Thomas Lonsdale with wife Helen and son Thomas living in Linden Avenue, Kensal Rise, Middlesex. The name was quite clearly Lonsdale – how it had been transcribed as Southall I will never know.

From the information from the findmypast 1901 census I was now able to start to look for my great grandmother’s birth. This hasn’t proved easy and even now I know nothing about her before the day she married my great grandfather. The 1901 census says she was born in Yarmouth, Suffolk in 1872. Her marriage certificate tells me she is the daughter of a fisherman named John who was deceased and that her aged tied in with a birth in 1872. I have been unable to locate her in either the 1881 or 1891 census and can find no registration of her birth.

I hoped that the 1911 census would shed a little more light but it was the complete opposite. In 1911 my great grandmother was living in 3 rooms in Clifford Gardens, Willesden, Middlesex but there was no sign of my great grandfather or his 2 children.

They had had a daughter, Edith, who was born in 1902 and I eventually found her living with an aunt in South London. I’d expected to find my great grandfather close by but eventually found him in a convalescent home in Bognor Regis, but there was still no sign of Thomas Alfred now aged 11.

Over the years of research I had found many spelling variations for my surname and I had tried all these. I had even searched for variations on both his first and last name, but nothing. I put that research down and started on another part of the family.

Some months later I went back to look for my grandfather but with wild cards and variations in use – still nothing.

I don’t know what made me do it but instead of putting in Lonsdale/Lansdale/Landesdaile/Sonsdale and all the rest of the variations, I put in Lousdale and up came my grandfather and a few other Lonsdales.

My grandfather was living with the Cripps family in Maidenhead in Berkshire. My first thought was to wonder who the Cripps were. When I checked the 1901 census I found they were living at the same address as my family. I wondered why, when the father had 2 sisters, a brother 2 half-sisters and a half-brother, his son was living with strangers.

After some months of research I have found many coincidences between the 2 families and I am hoping that I will find a link between them and my great grandmother Helen.’

If you have an experience you’d like to share with us and our readers, email casestudies@findmypast.co.uk with ‘My experience’ in the subject line. We look forward to reading your stories!

Your experiences – Chelsea Pensioner success

In our previous newsletters we asked you to send us your experiences of researching your ancestors. Thanks to all of you who got in touch – we love reading your stories. Read on for how Pat Trewin is getting on with her family tree research:

Pat’s story:

Many years ago, when I first started my family history and was interviewing my mum’s mum (both have now passed away) Nana told me that her father had been in the British Army for about 10 years prior to being married. She was their third child, born in 1901, so I was working back from that time. Until now I had never been able to find any evidence of this, so decided to try my luck with the new listing of Chelsea Pensioners. Imagine my delight when I found him straight away, including 7 items of his service records available for downloading.

He was in the East Surrey Regiment and served 4 years in India as well as 6 years in England. Poor chap would probably be mortified to know that his descendants now know he had a large brown birthmark/mole on his penis! More interesting to me though was a notation at the end of his Statement of Service saying he was ‘convicted of a felony by the Civil Power’ and sentenced to 15 months hard labour! They provided a date of arrest and also a date when he was discharged because of the crime.

So then I set about to find what he had done – and I found that too! He was sentenced at the Old Bailey for ‘Stealing a letter containing a gold ring while working at the Post Office’. So I even have a convict in my past – of sorts. A year later he got married and a couple of years later, with the three children, they emigrated to Australia on the SS Osterley, settling in Brisbane. So it’s nice that he was able to make a fresh start. Punishment was pretty heavy though, I thought.

Many thanks to findmypast – what wonderful luck I had finding him straight away!

Your experiences – mystery man

In our previous newsletters we asked you to send us your experiences of researching your ancestors. Thanks to all of you who got in touch – we love reading your stories. Read on for how Shirley Pizziferri is getting on with her family tree research:

Shirley’s story:

My great-grandfather, Michael White, was said to have come from Co. Cork, Ireland. He shows up in Maine, USA in the 1850 census with a young family and then dies before the 1860 census. The cemetery record shows his birth about 1812, but that is all I have been able to learn about him for the 30 years I have been researching my family.

The oral history is that he ‘jumped ship’, and I’ve accepted this as the reason his arrival in the US has been so hard to find. However, a search for him on your site reveals a record of a Michael White, born 1813 in Wicklow (County Cork) Ireland, who deserted from the UK Army! This has to be him and would explain the mystery surrounding his identity in the US.  Thank you!

Your experiences

In last month’s newsletter we asked you to send us your experiences of researching your family tree. Thanks to all of you who wrote in – we really enjoyed reading your stories. Read on for how Ann is getting on with the search for her ancestors:

Ann Barker’s story:

One branch of my tree is the Scadding/Scadden family from Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. I found information about my 5 x great grandfather John Scadding who was hanged, but nobody could find any newspaper reports.

Quite by chance I was reading The Western Gazette while visiting my daughter who now lives in Dorset. There was a section of news from 100 years ago, 50 years ago etc. I wrote to the editor to ask if there were any archives of newspapers in 1795 and if so where were they kept. He informed me that they were in the Somerset Studies Library in Taunton. So I persuaded my husband that we needed a day out!

There I discovered reports of his arrest, trial and subsequent hanging. He was arrested on 9th March 1795, his trial was on 11th March, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. He was hanged on 28th March 1795 in Dorchester Prison.

One of his accomplices Samuel Foster, who was also due to hang, was reprieved and sent to Australia the other one, Samuel’s brother Thomas Foster, gave King’s Evidence and was acquitted. Justice was swift in those days.

Your experiences

In last month’s newsletter we asked you to send us your experiences of researching your family tree. Thanks to all of you who wrote in – we really enjoyed reading your stories. Read on for how Liz is getting on with the search for her ancestors:

Liz Riley’s story:

‘I’ve had a lot of trouble locating people on one branch of my tree because they have changed their first names. The first one to come to mind was my husband’s great great grandmother who was christened Ellen Fawcett in 1809 and was named that at her marriage in 1832. Then on all the censuses she was Ellen Riley (her married name) and Ellen Fawcett on the birth certificates of her children. This was consistent until her death in 1874 which I could not find for many years.

I knew she died between 1871 and 1881, as I couldn’t find her on the 1881 census and couldn’t find a second marriage for her. I bought one certificate which looked close enough in DOB (1911) but it was the wrong Ellen Riley. So I gave up looking until recently I noticed a number of Eleanors among her grandchildren and great grandchildren and decided to risk the expense of buying the certificate – this was after checking the 1871 census for Eleanor Riley born about 1809 to ensure there wasn’t another person who this could be. It paid off and I now have the correct death cert for Ellen – I still can’t figure out why she suddenly changed her name though! I’ve noticed several others who had different names on official documents from the ones on censuses, but for Ellen this was a one-off.

This led to my reviewing a number of Ellen’s children and grandchildren who had seemingly disappeared without trace. Her daughter, always Ann on earlier censuses, turned out to be Susannah, her grandson Riley turned out to be Samuel (Riley was his middle name) and his brother Herbert was later known as John (his middle name) when he migrated to the US. Another brother, Henry, was known as Harry, so I was able to find some of his missing records when told this by a living descendant. I should have guessed these name changes earlier as my father-in-law was Lewis John, but was always known as John or Jack, and his sister Beatrice Maud (still living at 106) is mostly known as Maud, but was Betty to her husband. Also my husband’s grandmother was known as Annie, whereas her name was Ruth Hannah.

So my advice to others is to keep trying different variations of first names and second names, as they may have gone by different names at different times of their lives. You may also find clues in younger generations’ names (I now understand why my father-in-law almost insisted that we add John and Ruth as middle names to our first born son and daughter). It’s also important to get the certificates to ensure you have the correct person, but before purchasing them, check censuses if available to help rule out the wrong ones or you can spend a fortune on the wrong certificates. This is why it is important to have a subscription as it gives you the freedom to check all the resources available without worrying about how many credits you’re using up.’