Motivation Monday - Top Ten for 2016

My genealogy 'to-dos' are numerous & I never seem to make much progess, probably because I'm too easily distracted by those pesky shaking leaves* on Ancestry!

So I've decided to list the top ten things I could really do with getting to the bottom of and hope that a list will keep me focussed!

1. Finish searching the French online records for my Oldham family in Calais. The Census and Birth/Marriage/Death records are all freely available online. I've found the family in 1866, but also need to look further back to see if the previous generation spent time there and also if any of them went to Australia.
2. Transcribe sections of Joseph Woolley's diary and finish reading/copying the remainder at the Nottingham Archives. Continuing with the Oldham family, but this time in Clifton, Nottinghamshire. Joseph Woolley was a framework knitter from Clifton, as well as his own business his diary documents he commented on his neighbours and local events. I need to transcribe the pages I've already photographed and finish reading the remaining sections in the Archives.
3. Finish checking the Methodist records at the Nottinghamshire Archives. I'm mostly looking for Oldhams in these records, but other family names have cropped up too.
4. Make use of the Nottinghamshire Family History Society's research room. To find more Oldham information, specifically Thomas Oldknow Oldham's birth/baptism around 1834. Also check their online databases.
5. Finish reading Percy Richardson's war diary and finish the blog posts.
6. Tidy and reorganise documents, certificate and books. Before ordering any more!
7. Check out parish records on Find My Past. Look for my May family in Frant, Sussex from 1600 working backwards.
8. Visit some local churchyards to look for gravestones. Sawley, Moira, Donisthorpe, Church Wilne, Draycott, Basford, Ashby-de-la-Zouch & others aren't too far away to visit and record any memorial inscriptions.
9. Look for tithe maps and census information for Pilsley. To find out who lived in and/or owned my late father-in-law's farmhouse.
10. Start scanning photos. I received a Doxie Flip as a Christmas present so I'm intending to scan and share many of my photos.

So - lots to do!



*if you have your family tree uploaded to Ancestry, they kindly add a little 'shaking leaf' to any family member they may have records available for, which is usually enough to distract me from doing what I'd orginally logged on to do in the first place!

Time Consuming Research

We're now three episodes into the ninth series of 'Who Do You Think You Are' on BBC1.  They've all been good so far; I particularly liked Gregg Wallace's episode and how the research uncovered a much deeper story than the one passed down through his family.

But the programme does tend to give a distorted view of how difficult and slow genealogical research can be.  The celebs turn up at various archives to meet a researcher who has all the answers ready for them, but they don't mention the hours of previous research that has been done to arrive at that point.

I've recently spent a full two and a half days in Nottingham Archives looking through their Methodist birth & marriage records for the family members I've failed to find in the C of E records.  The later Non-Conformist records haven't been micro-filmed yet, so it feels like a treat to be looking through the original registers.

Anyway, after all those hours of searching I have still only managed to find more distant relatives in them, Gervase Oldham's daughters' marriages are the closest ones. I also spotted some Bucknalls, who I've been looking for on behalf of my Great-Aunt.  I still have several more Methodist records to check and then there's the Baptist ones to start!

I don't see this as a waste of time, the registers are fascinating in themselves, and if you can't find your family members in the obvious ones, you have no choice but to be thorough and work your way through the lot!  But WDYTYA gives the impression that the answers are immediately available, which they very often aren't. I wonder how many people are put off researching their trees further when they realise it won't all be handed to them on a plate?