Long term nature of research

nikonuser

Jellybaby1

And to paraphrase Roy Scheider in Jaws: I'm gona need a bigger computer.

Just throwing this out there: did any one who started their family history have is easy, as in it only took a couple weeks / months? Or have most people found it to have turned in to a very long term project, years and years?

I thought that with the unusual name I was searching for (Meroe), it was going to be easy, at least easier than trying to find out exactly which 'Murphy' or 'Kelly' was mine. Not so of course.

Jellybaby1 suggested this is 'for the rest of your life', quite true.

J

Hermy

I'd say most people start out much the same - an unusual surname or a tale told at a family gathering or something inconsequential lights the spark and the search begins.


After that I reckon it's divided into two camps.

- those who find what they're looking for (or don't) and leave it at that

- and those who get the bug. If that happens there is no hope - just years and years of peeling away one layer after another as you try to find out everything there is to know about your ancestry.

With an unusual surname there's pros and cons.
On the one hand working with a rare surname, when you search a particular resource it's likely that all the entries you find will be of relevance to you and it's possible to make a lot of progress quite quickly as you're not trying to sort out your Pat Murphy's from everyone else's Pat Murphy's. But on the other hand you're gong to be dealing with far fewer people and consequently there may be far fewer records available.
Either way, if you've got the bug it's not just for Christmas!

nikonuser

Hermy, got the bug all right and with it, the frustration that comes with always wanting to find out that bit more, especially when the records run out.
J

pinkypinky

It's never done. There's always more records, more angles. And when it is done, there's other people's ancestry to work on too.

Hermy

pinkypinky wrote: »

And when it is done, there's other people's ancestry to work on too.

Rather, when it's not done it's because of other peoples research!:P

One of the biggest obstacles to progress can be trying to stay on track. Someone else's research or someone else's mistake or an unusual name or a strange occupation can see your own work not just drift but come to a complete halt as you explore other avenues not at all related to your own research. But it's never in vain as it all helps to make you a better researcher and sometimes you might even find your way back by paths you would never have known existed had your eye not been caught by that curious detail in the corner.

Thomas from Presence

It was never easy for me despite my odd surname. So much so, that I took it on to document every family with my surname. This turned out to be a whacky but necessary move and as I proceed it's starting to coalesce on a single patriarchal line for anyone that has the name which is really exciting.

shanew

for some people the quest never ends... looking into side branches, history of the area, details of farms, landlords, or businesses in the town or street, crawling around graveyards, browsing old maps and directories, searching for old buildings etc, etc - often with diversions into families of others, the unusual surname, occupation or place name can be a big distraction.

I think what started me down this path was a request to scan some old photos for an aunt, she had done some research on one branch, these plus a small hand drawn diagram of a family tree from another relative.

nikonuser

Well put Shane.
J

pinkypinky

I've often thought of printing something out, framing it or even putting a mural on a wall but ultimately, I'm always hoping to find more people, so the project would never be ready for printing.

Thomas from Presence

I suffer from that. The scary thing is that if we don't memorialise our work at a particular point then it might get lost if we expire!

L1011

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

I suffer from that. The scary thing is that if we don't memorialise our work at a particular point then it might get lost if we expire!

I've hit that - massive massive tree online which only has the list of members and has a branch on mine on it (actually has me on it, initials only, plus my father and my grandfather who was alive then). Creator is dead. Can't get access to the info he had to link him to us.

Should add that he may be wrong as I found a forum post by him where he'd done a 1+1=100 on both members of a couple dying same day and a vaguely nearby rail disaster around the same time. Both were elderly and he basically gave up when she died in the morning it seems.

Wyldwood

I've been at it for over a decade and just recently happened upon two new members in my great grandparent's families that I didn't know existed. I've had such fun uncovering these new relations.

I sincerely hope I never hit a complete blank wall as I really love digging into my families past and I've met so many new relations from all around the globe (and many more yet to be discovered I hope!)

Jellybaby1

I caught the bug in the 60's/70's but didn't know how to proceed. It was only since computers came along that I have been able to open many doors and discover so many families I never knew a thing about. It's an addiction. During lean times when nothing was coming up for me I was approached by friends and relatives to 'find out what I could about so-and-so', and I'd be off again with numerous sleepless nights on behalf of others. Although I haven't found insanity in the family yet, I must be mad!

L1011

Anyone who managed to do any extent of work in the 60s/70s required a dedication (and a wallet size for travel and possibly bribing parish priests...) I could never see myself having.

I had an accurate set of names at the time unprovable with records for some g-g-g-grandparents from a g-g-uncle driving where they came from and asking people who might remember the family when in college in the 50s; and a g-uncle did a huge amount of work using Church connections (was a De La Salle brother) around the same time. Whenever I find an error in his work my mother is hugely critical and tries to write the lot off - but I can see how extremely limited the options were.

shanew

I'm trying to think of when I started .. I know I had to go to Townsend St. for GRO research, and the BMD Index wasn't yet available on FamilySearch..

p.s. I use TNG to store everything, although it's not always up to date, and print out a graphical version of the tree using a poster print application - very hi-tech using sellotape currently abt 8 pages wide, opposite layout form the 'posh' royalty ones you see WDYTYA, but it's often my first reference and gets battered. I draw the tree in PaintShop and can be selective with the details - just names, year of marriage, birth & death.

pinkypinky

I remember having an argument with a prominent genealogist in the National Archives when I was, well, about 15 years ago, about why they hadn't got the census online. I doubt he remembers it! Definitely visited Townsend St for at least a couple of years. I used to use the indexes on microfilm in Pearse St library and then hop around there to get register copies. I was already studying in UCD when the first pilot version of those civil indexes went online on Familysearch.

Wyldwood

Those of you in Dublin don't know how easy you had it. I spent so many hours and a significant amount of money on train travel in the pre-online record days and then spent hours in the NLi on microfilms and in Joyce House with the indexes. I always had a long list waiting for investigation.

Online data has made life so easy for those of us outside the Dublin area. It also has speeded up the rate at which information can be found. No more lists now.

nikonuser

I see the phrases & words 'pre-online', '15 years ago', 'decade', '50's, 60's'. I think I've only begun.... what have I got myself in to????

And, by the way, not a single regret so far, apart from the exasperation, frustration & general screaming out loud when that one small thing eludes you.

The search goes on
J

pedroeibar1

I’m a bit like Jellybaby, started in the ‘70’s but did not really do much until computers, although I did do some research by snailmail and visited the GO when it was in the Upper Yard in Dublin Castle, long before the move to Kildare St. Being brick-walled at 1797 on my surname line is one reason why I’ve gone down the Y-DNA route to see if I can link to earlier generations for whom I have details; I also have built up details from that line's males living today to test against. That will occupy me for another few years. I have all descendants of the guy born 1797, except for some recent births.

As for the madhouse, I had a great great aunt (I christened her “Bloody Mary”) that baffled me for years, the only blank on the tree. . Mary’s name & dob are in a family record with a pencilmarked “USA?” I had many potentials and it was killing me because some had married. However, free access to the GRO came to the rescue, where after extensive searching I discovered her death in Clonmel Asylum age 55, single, Cause of Death was 'Exhaustion of melancholia' one year certified. No doubt that it was her, they had written the name of her townland address .

pinkypinky

The poor woman - that's very sad.

pedroeibar1

pinkypinky wrote: »

The poor woman - that's very sad.

To die like that yes, but Mary seems to have been comfortable until hospitalisation as her address was then given as the townland in which she had a brother living and the widow of another. Two other brothers lived elsewhere, none were impoverished so I guess she was OK until it became impossible to care for her.

KildareFan

The family tree will never be complete as long as archives continue to migrate online - I would love to print out an account for the family, but data continue to emerge which fill in blanks, add information, or sadly, make a hames of my wrong assumptions.

One example of my never ending story - a few years ago I paid a whole €4 in Werburgh Street to see the death cert of a chap with my surname who died in Mullingar Lunatic asylum. His occupation was ex RIC. I had a feeling he was related to my great grandfather, but had no proof. Then the will registers came on line, and I found that my gg grandfather had mentioned his son in the lunatic asylum, directing that his other sons should look after him if he ever recovered and left the asylum - sadly he never did. In the same will my great grandfather who was also RIC was left one shilling. Some years ago I had trekked in to Pearse Street to see the RIC microfilms, looking for my great grandfather's record which was virtually illegible. I made a note of the four others with my surname, including that of my great great uncle although I didn't know it at the time - his record said he had left the service because 'it didn't suit him'. Now with the wonders of online records, I can bring all that information together - my great grandfather's record online is crystal clear, so I can read all his postings. And I now know that poor Great Great Uncle left the RIC probably because of his psychiatric condition, but that his family did not forget him and provision was made for him by his father's will....Phew... and that's only one small leaf on the family tree.