The fourth day and we remembered to book our shuttle back to the airport on Sunday so that is all accomplished. We are hoping that being there two hours early will be sufficient as we have heard that checking in can be a little slower at Salt Lake City (in retrospect we had enough time plus to check in). Down to breakfast and then over to the library. The wheeled case with my computer in it is completely stripped down to keep the weight minimal. I will buy a backpack with wheels though for the next trip as I simply do not need so much room as is available in the wheeled suitcase computer bag. I have my camera in a small case around my neck and lots of pencils just in case I do want to write something down.
Again I have my lists ready for what I expect will be a frustrating day. I decide at the last moment to start with my family line that I know begins at Rugeley and it was an excellent choice. I already knew this line back to my 4x great grandfather for sure except I was missing his wife's surname. I started with the Parish Register and quickly found the marriage registration. It was really hard to read her name so I decided to check back in the register looking for the letters as they appeared to my eye. About ten years after the birth of her husband I found my 4x great grandmother. A most exciting moment. I also found her seven siblings, her mother's young death and her father's very very long life. However, her father was not born in the parish although he had married there in 1748. Her mother's surname, however, was found in the earliest registers. I extracted all of the individuals with her surname or a similar one plus all the others in my family line as I found that the earlier marriages for this family line were indeed my ancestral line and that I could trace back to my 6x great grandparents in this parish and found the death of one 6x great grandfather for sure and several others. The six times grandparents had not been married at Rugeley and my next visit I will pursue the registers in a parish nearby where this name occurs - Farewell. A very worthwhile few hours pursuing this most interesting family.
I decided to skirt around my biggest difficulty with this family line (my mother's mother) and look at the family of my grandmother's father's father's mother. This interesting family is found at Bermondsey, Surrey and as I read the burial register for the same I discovered the burial of my 3x great grandmother's mother in 1785. I had the will of her father from 1796 where he mentions his wife but not the name that I had for the mother of my 3x great grandmother. I checked the Surrey marriage register which is online at the Family History Library on their computers and there was a second marriage for her father about two years later. I continued to read the burial register and found the likely father of this young woman and he died about three months after on the same street in Bermondsey. I continued reading the register as my 3x great grandfather's family is a mystery at Bermondsey. All of his children appear to be baptized there but the marriage is missing (I expect it was a runaway marriage in one of the peculiars so will eventually do that digging). I did find a burial for a possible father of this man in the register on a street not far away. I copied it for future reference and wrote it down because I was going to be looking at this family later. Surprisingly it was now lunch time.
I had avoided the difficult task ahead for quite awhile. I finally went and got the films for the churches in Birmingham near to where my grandmother was born. I wanted to find the baptisms for her and her siblings. Hours later I hadn't found them but had found the baptisms for her mother's family for several generation back. Because my evidence for the female side of my grandmother's family is based on family lore and some census evidence I avoid doing research too far back. I recorded all of these and decided to move on to collecting material from books that I hadn't had a chance to look at. I then went back and copied the Poor Rate for the Rugeley area although I knew that my people here were into Inn keeping and victuallers but perhaps they might have a mention for the other lines. That occupied the rest of the day as I searched out the relevant information plus I decided to take a stab at Ashby de la Zouch.
I had seen the register for Ashby de la Zouch a year or so ago and knew the line that was pertinent to my ancestor (my 3x great grandmother married to the Rugeley ancestor) but there were three males by that surname and I wondered if he had had three wives or were there actually three males. I then started to pull all this family's data from the register and discovered that indeed there were three William's and that my William had had just the one child - my 3x great grandmother. His wife died young (only the first name known) and I copied the Poor Law just to see if it would be helpful. I haven't found his marriage and that is a necessary next step. I wasn't successful this time but I need to look at six areas in Leicester where this family name occurs and find him in one of them. The surname is relatively unusual but the name William is a common one in the family. With that my day was finished in the library.
Tonight we were going to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsal so finished up by 8:00 p.m. to get ready to do so. A quick supper and we were there by 8:45 p.m. A most fascinating evening and a not to be missed event if you are in Salt Lake City.
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