Ancestors Online

Finding half great aunts – is that correct?

beingmaisie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:32:49 +0000

My great grandfather William James Reynolds was married twice. Or to be precise he married his first wife Catherine Fielder in 1872. By the 1881 census he had 1 child with her, Ellen Louise and they were in Poplar Union workhouse together. Just 2 years later in 1883 he had a child, Frank with presumably his second wife, my scottish great grandmother, Jane White nee Taylor who was born in Glasgow. My grandmother, Lillian Beatrice came along in 1890. I say presumably because i have never been able to find a marriage record for William & Jane which has raised to question did they marry at all or marry bigamously somewhere else?

Up until now for some reason i had never wondered why they only had the one child when they had been married for 9 years, so, i began investigating using Ancestry’s London parish records and have so far found another daughter born in 1879.

The thing that i want to work out now and im making it my next project is why in the space of 2 years he was with someone else. Probable reason being that Catherine and the girls died, or at least Catherine as the girls would have gone to relatives.

Can someone confirm that daughters, Ellen Louise and Catherine would have been my half great aunts?

Reynolds success on Ancestry Parish Records for London

beingmaisie — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:18:13 +0000

Just when you think you can’t go any further with some names you suddenly come across the records you have been looking for. This has happened to me.

I was filling in a pedigree fan chart of my dads side so that i could see what info i have and what i need to research further, like birth, marriage and death dates. Within an hour of doing so this morning i have found 2 births and 1 marriage allowing me find my 3x great grandfather James Reynolds’ wifes name at last. Its Esther if i am correct.

It has also given me brand new 3x great grandparents of William & Anne Robins of Limehouse. I now have 2 certificates to send off for to confirm this information. I’m hoping it may let me go back to 4x great gandparents on both Reynolds and Robins.

This is the best set of records Ancestry has added for some time.

Welcome to my past

beingmaisie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:50:00 +0000

I have been blogging for some months now about many things that have been going on in my life but felt that it was time to begin a seperate blog for the passion i have for family history. My previous genealogical posts on my other blog were getting lost amongst all the rest. Another reason for starting a blog purely about family history is that i hope to connect with other like minded people from all over the world as well as in the UK, and, who knows maybe find a cousin or two who share my many and varied ancestors.