Family history.
In
the world of family history, there seem to be two types of genealogists, name
collectors or branch collectors. I am more of a branch collector! I always feel
that if any two people in the family tree hadn't tangoed together, I wouldn't be
here.
Finding a definite connection is hard enough. It occurs to me that the thing that seems the most reliable person to go on, is the mother. At least, it's likely, that she will have given birth to the child that's christened. Unfortunately, sometimes in the earlier days, they just put down the name of the father. It was considered that he was the head of the house & some vicars failed to put down all the information they should do. (Adoptions are usually noted, especially in the old church records). You can assume that most of the fathers are the father but there is no guarantee, other than they were there raising the children.
The trend to call yourself by your fathers name & hyphen your mothers name, gives thought to say, why stop there? Logic says that your full name should change with each maternal grandparent. Carrying this to it's logical conclusion, I should be called: Lowe-Hebden-Gooderham-Lund-Gummersall-Haiste-haven't found her parents yet. So with this illogical bit of logic ringing in my ears, I thought I'd start with the name that I feel I definitely am.
Looking at photographs I am actually growing into another Billy Hebden, my granddad!
I started the family tree 25 years ago. Like so many people, I got lots of help from family members, didn't keep good records, chased the wrong name and can't prove where I got the information. All I do know is, I owe a lot of people a lots of thanks. If only I'd have made a note of their names at the time!
I started off with the known family information, progressed with the Records office, census returns, Boyd's marriage index, help from people on Gene Reunited & sites like the Hebden names. You're looking at years of ferreting, mistakes and hours of work. All I can tell you is, it's addictive & wonderfully satisfying.
Links to genealogy
The Mormons, with a free access to the 1881 census
Build your own tree with Genes reunited
Free Hatched, Matched & Despatched
