Yesterday was one of my most lucrative and rewarding days in my research for a long time. I was half way through writing an article on a particularly stubborn brick wall, when I thought instead of my usual searches on Ancestry, I’d try searching for some records on Find My Past (which I had recently …
The following transcription is from an article in Weybridge Herald & News newspaper dated Friday 29th November 1974, with the headline “‘Misadventure’ woman dies of heart attack”. I was given a copy by my aunt, as it describes the circumstances of my grandmother’s death. A 56-YEAR-OLD woman who died from a heart attack while being …
The photo below was given to me by my stepfather’s mother. She has no idea who the children in the photo are. I still cannot confirm who they are myself, but my guess is that they are siblings, and it is likely one of them is the direct ancestor of my stepfather’s mother. Considering the …
All of my maternal family tree is English, whilst my paternal family tree is all Irish. I am just as proud to have English blood as I do Irish and as it is St George’s Day, I thought I’d write a relevant blog post. As I could pick any of my maternal ancestors, I thought …
Read more “Proud to be English – The Knights, Wardens, Sheriffs and Kings in my family”
About a week ago I decided to revisit some parts of the trees I am researching — parts that I haven’t looked at for a while, or ones where the trail has gone cold. I often do this to see if I can make any progress; sometimes there are new records available that weren’t before, …
Read more “The well-travelled Reardon family and the Royal Artillery”
I’ve finally got round to launching a dedicated website for my genealogical pursuits, and have chosen the name Distant Kin. I previously mixed my genealogy posts with web development posts on my personal website, nmcmahon.co.uk, which now focuses solely on web development and has recently been given a facelift too. In hindsight, I think merging …
I received a wonderful photo from my aunt a few days ago when she came to visit. Turns out she had it hidden away all this time. The bride and groom pictured are my maternal grandparents — John Lawrence Mitton and Joan Bradford. They married at St Mary’s Church, Long Ditton in Surrey on the …
Read more “Wedding Wednesday — John Lawrence Mitton and Joan Bradford”
Researching my Irish ancestry has always been much more slow going than that of my English side. I think it’s mainly due to the lack of records available; the fact that only the 1901 and 1911 censuses still survive makes going back any more than a couple of generations difficult. To give you an idea …
Unfortunately, I haven’t got anything even remotely as exotic as French ancestry in my personal lineage, but I have come across French ancestry as I am researching on behalf of my stepmother (as well her children, my half-siblings). Her paternal grandmother had the surname Jaques (pronounced “jakes”), a name of Huguenot origin. Huguenots were French …
Every genealogist will come across a brick wall in their research at some point; a time where you can go no further with a particular part of your research. Usually records cannot be found for an ancestor or they just seem to disappear without a trace. However, brick walls can be overcome. I have come …