Doing a one-name study has a knack to it and my ability to organize information has changed over the years. I can see that with the census record that I made for Siderfin from 1841 to 1891 (I actually did not have 1901 it was a blank form!). I had only just glanced at my collection (and I realize now I just downloaded the results from ancestry) before I commenced the task of extracting 1901 and 1911 on Find My Past - I usually work with both sets of data (Ancestry and Find My Past and also My Heritage - there is a lot of Siderfin information on My Heritage that I have only just scrapped the surface). My style has refined itself in just under twenty years and it is hard to believe I have been at this for that long actually. I have lost five years though as I did not do a lot of new research from 2018 on as I spent more time with Edward and helping Edward although that commenced in 2011 after he started into his ill period which required a pacemaker and quickly following (actually it was the doctor who had caught the need for a pacemaker who told him about the cloudiness on his lungs (I was with him)) the need for more care and examination which I do believe prolonged his life for another nearly decade as he was gravely ill in early 2012. We did a lot of traveling after the pacemaker of which I am very glad but my research got set aside mostly although I did publish my newsletter as I wanted to get my transcriptions out there.
However, I went to work on the census yesterday carefully dividing the results into families and gathering as much information from the census as was possible in order to better identify the families from decade to decade. I was still a novice in those early years. I had all the course work from 42 courses at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies but lacked experience in actually working on large data sets of historical material. I was used to working with large excel files as I created quite a number of them at work so that ability was very much there and I needed to apply careful logic to the historical data as well. It is interesting to me that in 2010 when I gave up the study I was really just at the beginning of understanding how best to extract and record information from an historical viewpoint. I just collected everything and had a well grounded filing system which is making it easy for me to go back and reclaim all of that work from the past but the internal deep organization of the files was more of an alphabetical look at the information which is my tendency to use that style. But my approach now is to look at families individually which can be readily done with the census in the 19th and 20th centuries. From the beginning I did start to do that with the Blake study but I did have my grandfather's memories to direct me in some ways as he knew his family history very well and often commented that he was related to half the village at Upper Clatford when he was a child - perhaps a little high but possibly close. Upper Clatford was a small place and he had eleven brothers and sisters although all did not survive to adulthood (two died as small children) and his eldest sister lived with and was raised by his Knight grandparents. It would be lovely to understand why a daughter would give up her eldest child but perhaps it was because she was not there in Turnworth and wanted her parents to have at least one person that was near and dear to them. I do not know when Louisa went to live at Turnworth but she is there on the first census after her birth in 1871.
But I digress and there is work to be done. That was such a treat to have that snow cleared away yesterday. I thought I would be an hour clearing it - I do really like this snow clearing company. They do a great job.
Prayers for Türkiye and Syria that more people can be found alive in the ruins.
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