Gone to the Family History Center

Whenever I feel stuck researching my British Isles ancestors, I go to the local Family History Center. Am very lucky indeed to have a fine one here in San Diego. On one specific day of the week the British Isles expert is there, delightful, and very willing to help. The strategy for me is to get organized so as not to waste her time shuffling papers, and pinpoint specifics before hand with which she can give some guidance.

My main task for this visit was to get more background on my great great grandmother, Jane James Williams (1815 - ????). I have been spending considerable time look for her coming to America with inconclusive results. Feel like I might not be looking in the right place. Something is wrong because neither Mom, Aunt Betty nor I can find any trace of the family here in the USA, in spite of having a photo of them all together taken in Troy New York. Stepping back from this brick wall, I want to know as much background as possible about their life in Wales leading up to their immigration.

I showed her the photo, proving once again to myself that they all came here, and then gave her the short version of my Welsh findings. She just up and asked what she could do for me right at the moment I was going to tell her what I was after! She's sharp!

What I wanted was her to just talk and tell me whatever came to her mind about life in Wales in the mid-1800s for a mining family in DYFED, South Wales. I'm glad I did it this way because she spilled out way more background information than I might have stumbled into otherwise. Here's a situation when asking an open ended question is way better than asking a closed end question:)

Here's a laundry list of just a few of the gems she brought up.

* The tin mining had dried up in Cornwall and so a lot of the miners went into Wales to work. Mining was mining and it didn't matter what was being mined.

* The miners were used to traveling for work and could easily be missing for census. She reminded me that the census was simply an inventory of who slept there last night, not family units per se.

* Filamore's Atlas and Index is a good source for finding towns and then looking for where the records were kept, the deposited dates, the IGI, and Registration District, all info needed to take the next step in finding the actual record.

* FreeBMD. She gave me an quick introduction to FreeBMD, my new fav toy, and how to find records. We plugged in what we knew and quickly went to Jane and Thomas's marriage record! Then she showed me how to order it online. Cool!

* My ancestors were religious non-conformists and were members of the Congregational Church when they got here. She said to look at Calvinistic-Methodists records as well as Congregational records. Checking it out on WIKIpedia I get a clearer picture of church affairs and notice a Peter Williams playing a roll. Wonder if he fits in to our tree... although Williams is as common as Smith here!

There was so much more in our two hour conversation! Am so glad I went!!

Image from the Archive:

Old Map of South Wales from
Filamore's Atlas and Index

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/09/gone-to-family-history-center.html

First Time Jitters

I went to the Family History Center in Mission Valley, San Diego, a couple of weeks ago and their resident British expert showed me how to browse and order microfilms online such that the films would then be delivered to the Center and ready for viewing. Good stuff for this newbie to know:)

Am looking for proof that my ancestor Nehemiah Newans actually was in the British army in 1754/55. After narrowing down the offerings (which I was shocked to see are VAST) came to a group of about six, and finally decided to order two.

Have received email updates twice: for the order and later that they were shipped as of August 26th. At the moment I'm waiting patiently for them to arrive. But I have the jitters. Did I do it correctly? Are they really ordered and in transit? How long should I wait before panicking? Someone told me that the Center only keeps them for 7 days so you have to run down there and get a look right away. OK, now I'm about ready to panic for real! That's a lot of pressure!

So I called the Center and just asked. They are very patient there... don't you just love patient people? She told me that yes, an email goes out when the films arrive so not to worry that I won't know when they arrive. And that it could take a couple of three or so weeks to get there and to call in a week or so if I don't hear from them and they'll be glad to check the status. That an email goes out from the Center telling me that the films are there waiting for me. Finally she said that I'd have 7 weeks (not days) to look at them. WHEW! Jitters gone.

A Trip to The Local Family History Center

It's Thursday so I know that the resident British expert will be at the San Diego Family History Center so off I went with my document binder and lots of questions. She's very kind, gentle and patient to this newbie so I can ask her the most basic question and feel comfortable about it.

I catch her up on my recent work looking into the British Archives online (see below.) She points me to FamilySearch's Library Catalog to check for a Place Search on England. Then we drill down to Army Military records. She turns me lose on the listings to sort and select. I can print out the ones I think might be a good fit for me with the click of a mouse and collect them at the reception desk printer.

Of course, as Randy Seaver of GenaMusing blog at http://www.geneamusings.com/ has pointed out in one of his posts, you can do all of this from the comfort of home and the Center will call and let you know when the films you ordered are in... if you know how to do that. Since this is my maiden voyage it was comforting to have my expert guide me through.

Once my selections were printed out I prioritized them based on relevancy and showed my expert. She agreed that the two I picked should yield results. "You'll find him, "she said encouragingly. It was a good morning:)

Getting Centered ... Again

Well it was off to the Family History Center in Mission Valley for me this morning! Met with their resident England expert to get a feel for the area called Derbyshire. In the little book, "Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers" it says that my Revolutionary war ancestor Nehemiah Newans came from Derbyshire and I wanted to know more about it.

The expert was there once again as she usually is on Thursday mornings. I refreshed her memory about my situation and asked her in the most general way to tell me anything she knew about the Derbyshire of the 1750s or Derbyshire in general. In genealogy we are usually after specific questions with pretty specific answers, it felt kinda strange to ask such an open-ended question, but it was well worth it:)

My expert was great and we chatted on for almost 45 minutes or so. I learned that Derbyshire is quite beautiful and scenic, the kind of place you'd go to on holiday as she had been a couple of years ago. It's hilly and you'd be in the moors. Jane Austen wrote of this place. All over those hills are large limestone rocks and boulders... the type used in masonry to build dry masonry field walls to keep your sheep in place, churches and grand houses.

Stone masons were of the working class. Nehemiah Newans' father was a military surgeon, and his brother were a "lawyer and a doctor", or whatever that meant in that time and place. Young Nehemiah wanted to follow his uncle's footsteps and be a stone mason: a working class man in a family of professional men. There's gonna be a problem there!

My expert also noted that in the mid 1700s the Lutheran community was building churches in the Derbyshire area. Interesting both because of the stone mason connection as well as it being noted in "Ancestral History of Thomas F, Myers." that Nehemiah Newans' wife from York PA, Miss Kepplinger, was from a Lutheran family.

My expert also told me that a military surgeon would be moving around, much like the military of today. So that confuses the issue of Nehemiah Newans coming from Derbyshire. Is that where their ancestral line comes from or is that simply where they were living at the time his father bought his military commission?

She also inferred that if he was a city boy he'd say he came from that city, like Derby. Derbyshire is the name of the county. It might indicate that it would be good to look at smaller towns ... where they were building a Lutheran church of limestone about 1730 or so...?

Getting Centered

Went to the San Diego Family History Center in Mission Valley yesterday and it was very much worth it! They could not have been nicer. I was super in luck because their expert on UK records is there on Thursdays. After a brief tour of the resources, she and I sat by a computer in a cozy nook while she surfed various web sites in search of Nehemiah Newan or his father, Thomas. It was a learning experience for this newbie to watch a pro do it.

Could see right away that it was worth that half-hour spent before arrival at the FHC getting my records organized and ready to be grabbed out of the file. I told her what I knew, in a nut shell, and what I wanted to find out. She went right to work.

First stop was the Bureau of Land Management looking for the land grant made to Nehemiah Newans. I sure would love to know exactly where his land was in Canandaigue, Ontario County, New York. We checked Pennsylvania and New York, then Ohio just for fun. Nothing came up on the BLM site but it was instructive for me to see how it works.

Next stop was Ancestry.UK.com. Unfortunately it was down for maintenance. Oh, well. Try again later:)

Then we surfed on over to the National Archives UK. I thought it was a pay site so I wasn't using it... rookie mistake;) Here's the link.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

There we found four possible matches for Nehemiah's father, Thomas. My guide looked at one location name and said, "That's not right." She knows her place names! Then she got a gazetteer for Britian and flipped through the pages to find Stoke Orchard, not Stoah Oarchrd as listed. Whatta pro! The three other listings for a Thomas Newan came from Essex.

We spent some time on Family Search, which I have not been using as much as I could. She searched around on it, as I watched her go and took notes. Lovely!

Finally she showed me In Search of The "Forlorn Hope", A Comprehensive Guide to Locating British Regiments and Their Records." It comes in two volumes and my guide took the first off the shelf (1640 - WWI). We browsed it a bit until I could browse on my own and then I thanked her profusely for her time. I didn't want to keep her forever figuring that she probably had a life:) Best guess is the we spent a bit more than an hour together.

She steered me to the Forlorn Hope because it will be important to know what regiment Braddock commanded when he landed at Alexandria VA in 1755... if I was going to find Nehemiah Newans in the roster under Braddock's command.

After a short break, I flipped open the Forlorn Hope and it opened right to the section page for the French and Indian Wars! I considered that a break... and then figured that I wasn't the first seeker looking for that era. It took just a moment to find the regiment that landed at Alexandria VA in 1754-55. Now I had a regiment number and name plus the place from which the regiment was recruited: Essex!

I came home exhausted, but in the best way:) It's so very nice to be working on an ancestor who served in the Revolutionary War over this 4th of July weekend. Nehemiah, as I think about the broad expanse of your life and times I like you better and better!

Uncle Harold and Aunt Dotty, May 1943.
Uncle Harold served in WWII.
Happy 4th of July to everyone and especially our veterans!

Look! Olive Tree Genealogy just posted that it's free UK access through July 8th. I'm gonna snag that deal! Thanks for the info:)

Here's the link: http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/07/june-30-july-8-free-access-to-uk.html