families in Wales who have the surnames Simon and Jones

 Tell me about it..!  

Mind you, Jones anywhere isn't much easier

I'm almost doing cartwheels ending with a flip and a nice ending today.  One branch of my Fathers tree going past his 3rd great grandparents has been really difficult.  So as you do, on the off chance I googled the couples names together and found a forum post from 2007 from someone also enquiring about the same couple.  Luckily the forum displayed the users email address, so I took the chance and emailed them on Sunday.

This morning I got a lovely reply from a lady in Australia, with whom I share the same 8 x great grandparents and who is writing a book about her families history and she had a whole chapter on our mutual ancestors, which she kindly shared with me.  

Amazing, plus our 8 x great grandfather was a ships captain and she has managed to track his maritime movements up until December 1767 when he sets sail for a journey through the baltic and leaving their heading to Cadiz, after which there are no-more known records for him.

I am absolutely ecstatic with this find.  Funnily I was just finishing Dads book today and have been able to add all of this wonderful information in the back as a 'Other' chapter.

Chuffed to bits 

Starting Mother Cinds book now.  Hers will barely fill an envelope with the information I have for her fathers side, but her mothers I have a lot more.  So I am also going to include her fathers adopted family history too.

Also, how pleased was I when my copy of this arrived in the post today. 

Thats incredible - so pleased for you Cinds  Wow, you never know where things will lead eh?  

This fred's interesting reading.....the way things out in the end 

It is, been reading it myself 

I'd love to do this myself Sky, if I had the time 

Sprouty, I started it, after buying a Ancestry CD in Costco about 6 or 7 years ago, the CD included 3 months subscription to the website and since then I have been hooked.  Over the years I have fallen in and out of it.  Then I swore I would do a lovely tree in time for my parents Golden Wedding anniversary.  That went past and I still hadn't done it.  

So a couple of months ago, I thought, I'm going to do this, but decided to do them each a book with their own ancestry. I bought folders to put them in.  Massive underestimation.

Here is a picture of it.  On the left is the folder I initially bought to put Dads family in, remember I am only going up to his 3 x great grandparents.  On the right is how it ended up.

LOL Cinds!! I seriously have too much to fill my time at the minute, but it's on my bucket list 

I've been having a clear up today and came across a load of stuff I started some years ago.

Think I might start up again after Christmas. Is Ancestry.com worth subscribing to? What census records are available for free? I got quite good at all the tracking and tracing at one time but forget what I used to do.

Wow cinds what a great result 

Soozy if you want to dabble, have a look at familysearch.org. Completely free, but you cannot view the images. 

Soozy, I would recommend this to give you a taster.  It's £30 and includes 6 months subscription.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Family-Tree-Maker-Platinum-Edition/dp/B00FXJ5MAQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385548017&sr=8-1&keywords=ancestry

Thank you .....I might just give that a go. After Christmas I'm gonna get all my stuff together and make a plan of where I'm gonna go with all of it. I needed a bit of advice as there really is so much stuff out there and it's hard to decide which one is worth going for.

Now here's a puzzle.  I'm busy with Mothers book now.  To be honest, I'm getting through at a rate of knots due to having so little info about her Fathers biological side.

But anyway, I was busy with her Maternal Great Grandparents yesterday, and I found that her maternal great grandparents on her grandfathers side (does that make sense) both died in the same Quarter of 1897.  They had 8 children in total, the youngest 4 for some reason after their deaths ended up living in 'Mullers Orphan House' in Bristol, according to the 1901 census.  Their ages at the time of the parents deaths ranged from 12 to 9.  The next child older would have been turning 14.  I wonder why those 4 were sent to and Orphan house, and even more so, why Bristol?

I cannot find any family connections whatsoever with Bristol or that area on my Mothers side.  

Was there an epidemic going around, Cinds?  Perhaps they moved the kids away to a better environment?  It's been known to happen.

Have you traced where the 14 year old is in the subsequent census?  Sometimes following just 'one other' brings about a breakthrough as to what happened to the rest of the family.

This is when I wish I was more clued up on my general history!

Anyway, well done on your achievements; you should be feeling pretty pleased with yourself 'cos you've done a great job   

PS.  Francis Frith has some good snaps of the workhouses (incl Bristol) 

PPS,  This link might be worth a read.  

http://www.familytreeforum.com...-have-got-this-wrong

It's a complaint thread but it does have a few snippets about the Orphanage

Also:  http://www.culture24.org.uk/am18076

I've been looking at them today, and thinking I should buy some to put in Mothers pretty empty looking book 

*copy, save, print*     Francis isn't going to know, is he? 

Thanks for the links Cosi.

I'm going to add the information I know, because sometimes a fresh pair of eyes looking can see what I might be missing.

My mothers Grandfather was called Andrew Cummings born 1873 Sunderland, he married Betsy Ann Stanton.

His parents were George Cummings & Isabella Leithead:

The 4 Children that I found living at Mullers were:

Annie Cummings, born June 1884, I did find her back in the NE, she married William Henry Stanton Jnr (her brothers wife Betsy Ann Stantons nephew, also her sister Margaret Alice Cummings STEP son).

Margaret Alice Cummings, born 1887 Sunderland, she came back to the NE and married William Henry Stanton Snr (her brothers wifes brother)

(hey keep it all in the family)

Robert William Cummings, born 1888 in Sunderland.  The last record I can find for him after 1901 Mullers is 1911 living in Pontypridd.

Alexander Cummings, born 1889 in Sunderland.  Nothing after the 1901 census when he was living at Mullers.

You can't I've tried  Even the sly way by looking at them through 'google images' they come out all pixelated. 

You checked the immigration records, Cinds?  A few of mine upped and went in the early 1900's.

Definitely ADD   If nothing else, sometimes people have a habit of cropping up when you least expect it.

Are you on Findmypast too?  I've found a lot of records that Ancestry simply either didn't have, or their search engine couldn't find until I gave specific information.

I am, just joined.  Plus I've just recieved my copy of the National Burial Index cd, so if you want anything from that, let me know.

But I do keep laughing everything I see it's icon at the bottom of my screen.

In case you missed it on my bar

   I'd call the widget Nancy, in honour of Nancy De Loopyoh.  She jumped out of a coffin on Strictly - I've never laughed so much     

And thank you for your very kind offer; I may get back to you 

Bugger I have never watched Strictly.  But I would sure like to have seen Nancy de Crazio jump out of a coffin.

That's given me an idea.  I have some rather unorthodox ideas for my own funeral.  Maybe I should talk to Mr Cinds and Boy Cinds & let them know that instead of rolling in to the cremation fire I want them to 'PING' me out of the coffin and in to the fire, so it looks like I jump out of the coffin.

Sounds bad, I know. However both of them know what an off sense f humour I have.  PLUS, if Mr Cinds works it right, and gets them to make the coffin to his dimensions, it means he can use it again when he dies.  He'd love that, always one for looking at ways to save a few pounds.

A sort of catapaulting coffin,..? Triggered from inside; I'm sure it's do-able 

Patent it now before every other bugga tries to nick the idea 

Just found this record that goes with one of my ancestors on Fathers side:

"Pringle, James, fiar of Gallowscheillis, and Jeane Scot, douchter lawfull to Sir John Scott of Scotistarvat, Knycht, mar. in our Kirk of Halyrudhous be Mr. Harie Rollock Thursday, 16 Jul 1629"

Today I finished the Mothers book.  I feel worn out.  I know doing the trees is relatively easy, but extracting the information to put in to books has really worn me out.

But they're both done now 

Next quest is to, print it them all out again for my own copy.

Plus I have just obtained a digital copy of a book called "A Record of the Pringles or Hoppringills of The Scottish Borders". So I need to print that out (twice, one for Dad one for me), and bind it.

At the moment I am wading my way through Essex parish records looking for Patty Cole born c1790.  I have found her marriage record to Robert Melvin in Manningtree 7 May 1810, but I just can't find her baptism record.  But I have considered that Patty is more a nickname, but I can't find a Patricia.  Any ideas what else Patty could be short for?

Also can any of you lovely people decipher this?

Patsy?

Thomas of Thom ? Ryan/ late Elizabeth Double.....publicly baptized------------- 30th April.

To me it's saying that a Thomas Ryan was baptized on 3oth April to parents Thom ? Ryan and Elizabeth Double - who is (sadly) already deceeced.

However looking at the next entry I now think it is denoting the mothers maiden name, rather than her death.

Looking at it with fresh eyes - the 1st entry is Thomas [born] of Thom and Eliz Ryan/ late[née] Double. ------------------------30th April

2nd entry is similar - Daniel [born] of Rob[er]t & Eliz[abeth] Rundle(or Rusells)/late [née] Eliz ? (Airy?) -------------------------------6th

Although Patty is short for Patricia it could be short for Patience. And according to this link it used to be an alternative to Matty which was short for Martha

http://www.behindthename.com/name/patty

I would have thought that Matty would be Mathilda, rather than Martha.

Ooooh brilliant, thank you. 

Bumping for Cinds in case she missed the bit above El Loro's post.

The children I mentioned further up the thread who ended up at Mullers Orphanage Bristol. I got in touch with Mullers.org, they confirmed that they had records of the children and for a small fee have sent me photos of all the original documents on a cd. It included the letters of application sent on behalf of the children to go to the orphanage, when they arrived, who took them there, when they left and who they went to live with after the orphanage. Brilliant stuff.

Our family haven't planted any trees - that I know of so . . . .