Saturday, August 15, 2015

The demographics for the 2016 Ancestor Challenge

Of the 64 people listed for next year's 52 Ancestor Challenge, 32 were born in the Province of Quebec, 17 were born in various counties in England (Hampshire (2), Dorset (2), Wiltshire (4), Devon (1), Somerset (1), East Riding of Yorkshire (1), Cumberland (1), Surrey (1), Leicestershire (1), Warwickshire (2), Norfolk (1)), 4 were born in Prussia (part of present day Germany), 2 were born in New York State, 2 were born in New Jersey, 4 were born in Nova Scotia, and 3 were born in the Province of present day Ontario.

Two of the people from Wiltshire will be the adopted grandparents of my paternal grandmother. Her natural mother raised her along with her stepfather so just two lines to look at there. The rest of my lines I talked about this year so will not discuss them again unless something new and exciting comes in. The other two that I will write about are the supposed parents of my great grandmother (my maternal grandmother's mother) and at the moment I have only family lore that is linking me to this set. Hopefully by the end of 2016 I will have more information.

The advantage to doing this ancestor challenge has already shown itself as I have found a number of interesting facts that I had not collected earlier. I have not visited some of these lines for six or seven years and there is so much material online. Plus I discovered a couple of corrections to surnames which have proven to be most beneficial breaking down brickwalls that have been longstanding for these lines.

The twelve people that I have omitted in this year's ancestor challenge were the ones about whom I knew very little or nothing. Sometimes I have just a first name for the wife and have not yet been able to break through that brick wall. I have two illegitimate lines thus far; my paternal grandmother (although I do know her mother's line) and the possible father's lines for her. The second illegitimate line is actually in this same line going back. It was my grandmother's grandmother Martha Peck who married George Lywood. Her mother was Elizabeth Peck and once again her mother raised her. I am somewhat suspicious that her father was a soldier fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Martha's husband George Lywood was a soldier in these wars and did fight at Waterloo and that is also the likely case for another of my 3x great grandfathers Thomas Rawlins. I have no paper reason to think that but I am highly suspicious.

Reworking your material on a regular basis can be very rewarding. Now that I am no longer heavily involved in any society other than a member, I hope to do that more and more. I want to have my material already to hand on to the person who is most interested within my family and perhaps I will be lucky to find that person.

My Blake material I shall either turn over to the Society of Genealogists (probably the best place) or to a person interested in carrying on the one name study. My Pincombe material, the same, either to the Society of Genealogists or another researcher. I have already made enquiries at the Anglican Church Archives here to give them all my fiche and other research material. They would like to have that material although with everything coming on line they may change their minds.

I think it is good to keep uppermost in my mind this allocation of materials that I have collected.

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