It is one thing to show there is a likely link between a person or family across two locations, but it is quite another to eliminate all the other possibilities. In this part of Seeing the Wood for the Trees I look at how to build partial evidence into a compelling case. Previously – I […]
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The Woman Who Fell From The Skies – Part 2
Previously – In part 1 I introduced you to Mary Jane Hyland, my great-great grandmother. She married John Bowers in Warrington, Lancashire in 1894. I could find no prior record for her which constituted a convincing match and the 1901 census simply said she was born in ‘Ireland’. My objective was to find a birth […]
The Woman Who Fell From The Skies
This has happened to every family history researcher at one time or another. While researching a branch of the family in a census, one consults the Place of Birth column to see the unhelpfully imprecise, yet definitive statement: “Ireland.” My first thought was, “Terrific, I have some Irish heritage!” My second thought was, “Is that […]
We Build Our Own Brick Walls
“A Brick Wall” It happens to us all. We’re merrily researching a branch of our tree when we encounter a halt in progress. At first we think it’s temporary, then after a period of searching, failing, thinking and more failed searches we label it as “A Brick Wall”. It’s a metaphor that is much (over) […]
A new blog – well, who do I think I am?
Hi, my name is Phil. I’m a genealogist and I’ve started this little blog to share some of my findings and the things that I find interesting as I go through my journey of familial self-discovery. But Phil, I hear you say, there are hundreds, no thousands, of genealogy blogs out there. What have you […]
