Family Historian User Group

Just saw this post via twitter and thought it was an interesting little task to try

https://noisybrain.wordpress.com/2018/1 ... -surnames/


My eight are Mullins Pitcher Bowditch Batten Crabb, Scadden Record Gooding

My Husbands 7 (because he has two cousins of the same name marrying)
Taubman Kelly Mitchell Purcell Coughlan Sheedy Byrne Byrne

His 7 were much harder than my 8 as the last 4 are from Ireland and only recently with DNA have we knocked down that wall.

If you don't want to have to think I have attached a query to extract them. (updated)

Wright, Harper, Brookes, Staines (the English Midlands side) and Jones, James, Roberts, Jones (the Welsh side). So 7 here as well although the two Jones are not related.

If I were to stretch it to 16, I'd add: Brown, Nightingale, Page, and that well-known surname Unknown on the English side (birth record of Mary Ann Harper not traced); and Hughes, Walters, Prichard or Ap Harry (Parry), and another Unknown on the Welsh side (Margaret Jones was illegitimate).

An interesting challenge on a Saturday morning to do this without opening your file. I failed when it came to my wife's adoptive family getting only 5 of 8. Mine were easy

Newton, Otter, Wildgoose, Elliott, Fretwell, Baker, Baker, Tivey (Bakers were 1-st cousins once removed)

and the 4 in my wife's birth family also easy (father unknown)

Paskin, Wilson, Standring, Clayton

and a further generation was more of a dig to get 8 names

Paskin, Ambler, Wilson, Bamford, Standring, Turner, Clayton, Hall

wife's adoptive family, I failed at numbers 4, 6 and 8 in the list,

Watson, Simpson, Horne, Bennett, Baby, Fisher, Hayward, Connelly

I guess this implies something about which parts of the file I visit the most

David

Mine were easy

Spencer, Copping, Lefever, Edwards, Bramble, Baverstock, Binstead, Cook.

My wife's were more of a challenge as her father was Polish and her mother Swiss

Sikora, ?, Czempik, ?, Spoker, ?, Brungger, Sulzer.

Hopefully we will get some more from the Polish side in the not too distant future.

I feel a bit bereft as I only have five and two of those are Lummis, the others being Collins, Frost and Godbold.

By way of explanation both my parents had the surname of Lummis (their common ancestor was born in the 18th century). I do not know the name of my paternal grandfather as my father was illegitimate and on the maternal side my grandmother was also illegitimate and both fathers are unknown. As you can imagine there are a lot of blank spaces in my tree!

Brian

An interesting exercise and useful confirmation that the brain cells are dying too quickly yet

Results:

G-GPs > G-G-GPs G-G-G-GPs

ASHBY > ASHBY = GREEN > ASHBY = MEARS and GREEN = [BRICK WALL]

BATH > BATH = HADDRELL > illegitimate - BATH (née GALES) = [HOLLY?] and HADDRELL = [TAYLOR]

ELLIS > ELLIS = BARNS > ELLIS = [TOWNSEND] and BARNS = [CHAPMAN]

PENFORD > PENFORD = HODGES > PENFORD = REEDER and HODGES = PENNY

AUDSLEY > AUDSLEY = HUGHES > AUDSLEY = ILLINGWORTH and HUGHES = JONES

BALLS > BALLS = HALL > BALLS = [STONE] and HALL = DEWHIRST

HAYDEN > [HAYDEN/ADEN? = ?] > [VERY SOLID BRICK WALL!]

COTTERILL > COTTERILL = BAYLEY > COTTERILL = LOWE and BAYLEY = [SUTTON]

The highlighted [bold] entries are the Brick Walls and the Surnames I struggled to remember without a prompt.

Mervyn

Firstly, there is a minor typo in Jane's Query. The Rows tab should test for is grater than 15 not 16.
More significantly it includes non-blood ancestors (without an Ahnentafel number) such as via adoptive parents.

My 8 are Tate, Olden, Dodd, Nicholl, Bradshaw, Fox, Ayton, Brown

My wife's 5 due to unknown grandfather and unknown great-grandmother are Fennell, Cutcliffe, Wilson, Waterhouse, Whitely

I have changed the query to exclude null Ahnentafel numbers

Here's a related challenge: How many of those 8 (or 16, or 32) do you have photographs of?

Obviously this will depend on how good your ancestors were at keeping precious photos and telling the successive generations who the people were. (Praise be to those who wrote on the back of the picture, especially if they added a date!) It will also depend partly on how old you are yourself, relative to the birth of photography! For those of us born in, shall we say, the mid 20th century, finding photos of the 8 is not impossible.

Of the 8, I have photos of 7. (The 8th died in childbirth at the age of 25 but thanks to the power of the internet I do have pictures of some of her sisters and even her mother, via distant relatives in Canada.)

Of the 16, I have photos of 4, all reliably sourced.

Of the 32, I have a picture alleged to be one, a very formidable looking lady. The attribution is not watertight but the style of clothing make it plausible.

For my husband's family we have 6 of the 8 and just 1 of the 16. For the families of son-in-law and daughter-in-law I haven't had access to family albumns but the potential number of photos will be greater because they are a generation younger.

My eight, of which I immediately recalled 7, (had to look up the missing one, Heath)! They are

Loney,Haley,Sellers,Moore,Thompson, Heath, Howard/Banks, Smallbone

My Howard Great Grandfather was actually born Banks, but adopted Howard from his step-father, when his father died, and his mother moved in with the lodger Charles Banks!

I only have one photo, my greatgrandfather Alfred Loney, whom I was fortunate enough to meet, and who died when I was about 18! His first wife died after more than 25 years marriage, and he had a further 25 years with his second wife!

My eight are Wilkinson, Palmer, Bowtle Oakley, Gillingham, Boulter, Edwards and Payne.- two photos, one reliable the other possibly dodgy.

My wife's eight are Ransome, Hines, Butcher, Norman, Overett, Stevens, Simpson and Green - three photos all reliable

Picture of my great-greats... Absolutely none -- is there a gene for being allergic to cameras? If so, both sides of my family have it.

I have a few pictures of my parents, and a single picture of my maternal grandmother (received when I made unexpected contact with a cousin on that branch of the family).

Otherwise, a big fat zilch.

6 out of 8 of mine have photos and only one of my wife's

Hi
My 8 are: Mayer, Shepherd, Yale, Woodvine, Parr, Pickering/ill, Parr, (different from previous one), Garner.
My 16 : Mayer, Wright, Shepherd, Stevenson, Yale, Skelton, Woodvine, Powell, Parr, Caton, Pickering/ill, Maddock, Parr (to my shame could not remember Lovatt ,sorry Hannah), Garner, Bennett.

David Newton I have Wildgoose (Shepherd > Upton> Wildgoose in Burton upon Trent)

Had to think hard about husband's : Simcock, Boon, Hulme, Bettany, Beech, Rowley, Hulme (different), Hughes
The 16 I must admit could not always attach them to the correct line, particularly with the Hulmes, making it more complex as there are other Hulmes related to my tree!.
Having cheated they are: Simcock, Breeze, Boon, Llewellyn, Hulme, Nixon, Bettany, Malkin, Beech, Hill, Rowley, Lunt, Hulme, Brundred, Hughes Cook. I have to have a tree for Alan's lines as I get the generations confused. My excuse is old age!
I did have to write it down.

I have photos of Gt Grandad Mayer and Gt Grandma Shepherd, no Yales or Woodvines, have Gt Grandad Parr and Gr Grandma Pickering, Gt grandad Parr and Gt Grandma Garner. Perhaps Gtgt Grandma Maddock.
Enjoyed the exercise
Ann

I recalled 5 before opening the File:
Here are the lot
Tildsley - Photo, Morris - Photo, Andrews, Massey - Photo, Sagar, Barnes - Photo, Collinge - Photo, Birtwistle

Very interesting exercise

My wife's are:
Maunder - Photo, Studte, Collard - Photo, Reed - Photo, Ridewood, Hedington - Photo, Henning - Photo, Eagles

I didn't realise that we had photos of 10 out of the 16 until I did this.

Regards

Roger

My eight are Cooper, Marr (p), Smith, Webster (p), Davey (p), McKinnes, Green, and Lovejoy (p) - five photos (p)

On the other side I believe they are Loftus, Brown, Barrowclough, Beadle, Pears, Fannon, Corrigan, and Rothwell. Had to look most of those up, and recover the tree from a back up made in 2015. Have 3 photos - I believe more exist.

We are not great for photos, we have 5 photos on my side.

On Stephen's side none at all. We only have a couple of Grand parents and one GG Grandfather.

@gwyilum'smum
My Wildgoose family came initially from Matlock area and later on from Sheffield, I have none from Burton upon Trent but geographically all of theses areas are close together so there may be a join at some time. As an aside have you looked at the Wildgoose one-name site Gaggle of Geese?

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~willgooseweb/genealogy/

David

Writing from memory and in order across a conventional chart -
- Bruce, Bates, Taylor, Salter (at the 2nd attempt on the brain cells!),
- Griffiths, Purcell, Cooper, Cadman (I think...).

Checking... Yes, it was Cadman. Where the brain cells were wrong was my emotional reaction: "We don't have any photos except for a couple" - in fact, on that generation, I have 6 out of the 8 in photos. It's the next generation where I only have 3 photos out of 16. And since G-GF Griffiths' father was a bigamist who obscured his tracks by using 2 surnames randomly, it's a moot point whether Griffiths should be that or Maddocks (the alias) or Williamson (his mother since the marriage wasn't legal!)

Going further back still, I can also confirm that we were Windsors long before that lot in Berkshire used our name - indeed my 4G-GPs were George & Mary Windsor long before HM KGV! But arranging that lot on a chart from memory? - I couldn't...

Oh, bigamists -- at least my grandfather re-used his first name and surname and invented a middle initial, so didn't complicate these matters...

I was able to remember all eight surnames for mine. They are:

Henshaw, Shoemaker, Driftmier, Niewedde, Mork, Hauge, Gaard, and Bauge (went by Boyd). I have photos of all eight.

On my wife's side I could only remember 3. Hers are:

Nayematsu, Inouye, Mikami, Hidaka, Matsumoto, Shinnaka, Taniguchi, and Matsuno. We have a photo of only 1 of these.

Hi David Newton
Yes thank you I have looked at it. Not been working on that line lately so will look again when return to it. I did have a DNA match who had Wildgoose but he said he had got to a Viking and when I asked him if he had looked at it I never heard from him again!

Ann

Sat down with genealogical insomnia and then remembered all of my eight, without opening the database. However, my wifes were more troublesome and I only managed four.

My eight are as follows: Paternal = Rayner, Mittell, Houle and Huxtable. Maternal = Baker, Bishop, Bridgland and Thirkell. I have images for all eight individuals. Counties of birth, in the same order = Kent, Kent, Devon, Devon, East Sussex, Kent, Kent and Kent.

My wifes eight are as follows: Paternal = Anderson, Donald,Sinclair and Sprott. Maternal = Needham, Joyce, Hughes and McLellan. No images for any of these individuals. Counties of birth, in the same order = Midlothian, Dunbartonshire, Renfrew, Lanarkshire, Galway, Galway, Wigtonshire and Stirlingshire. All four maternal families originated in Ireland.

Diversity is the spice of life and having raked through our forebears cupboard skeletons, the old adage of "There but for the Grace go you or I!" holds very true in our thoughts when researching or reviewing predecessors lives.

Good health to you all, Bill