Shake the tree and nuts fall out!

How many trees to make a Forest Family? So, I ask this question? How many trees does it take to make a family? Many people will probably wonder what I'm on about, think I'm mad etc as trees make forests (and paper) NOT families. This is semi true, trees also make families if you are doing a family tree! So I ask the question again - How many trees does it take to make a family? Many people would say one. In many ways I agree with this BUT in another way I totally don't agree, read on and I will explain my reason and logic for this. As it stands I currently have 15 family trees on my family tree maker. You may be think who needs that many or do I have so many etc. Let me tell you. I have my "main family tree", this doesn't get people added to it until I have a proven link that they are related to me. I have in the past added people as I found them only to find out down the line that they didn't marry my joe blogs, but joe blogs round the corner and had to ...

From Amy Johnson Crow - There can be all kinds of unexpected discoveries when we research our family history. What have you found that was unexpected? Have you found anything in an unexpected source? What about an ancestor who experienced something unexpected? So, we have got to week 25, almost half way through the year of stories on my family. I had pondered this from day 1 when I saw the list of titles and to be honest had not idea of what I could add that was “ unexpected ”. Did I go the route of things I had done in the tree, things that I had found out or something else linked to the title, no. Nothing or no-one jumped out at me. That was until I found the 1939 census for my great grandparents and saw something “ unexpected ” on it. If you take a look at the image below you may not see anything wrong with it, I certainly didn’t upon 1 st glance. It was only as I went back to the tree did I notice the name of the 3 rd person wasn’t their daughter Dora. The census image defini...

From Amy Johnson Crow - Who in your research has been nearly forgotten? Another angle you could take: using a record that was nearly forgotten. For this  week’s theme of “ nearly forgotten ” I have decided to go with my Great Uncle Victor A (? Arthur after his father) Bland/Thompson. The main times he has ever been mentioned is at funerals as “the deceased brother of……”, therefore to me he seems “ nearly forgotten ”, only once did my Nan Doreen Bland talk about him (and that was only as I questioned her on him). Victor has been quite a mystery (and still is). Word from Doreen was that he was born a few years before her, so about 1922-24, he was in the Royal Navy and died at sea in the 1940’s. It is not known whether he is a “Bland” (supposed Mother’s maiden name) or a Thompson (supposed Fathers na...