Geoffs Genealogy Update 12 July 2007

First the bad news. We have had to disable the email links on the Geoffs Genealogy website, so unfortunately if you send me a message via one of those links it will not reach me. The reason for this is that last Sunday some immensely clever person managed to send me 1800 returned mail messages. I know that once this has happened the volume of such spam is only likely to grow, so had no choice but to disable the address. This, I’m afraid, is the price you pay for using an email address on the web.

When we have time we will, no doubt, set up an alternative means of contact for visitors to the site to use, but that won’t happen immediately. I’ll keep you posted.

Of course, you can always contact me via this blog.

On the treeing front, not much to report this week. I completed my viewing of the High Wycombe baptisms at my local LDS Family History Center – noting all Wright entries back to 1750. To advance this research I need to look at some more films – marriages particularly. I’ll get to that eventually, all being well. For now, I’m giving myself a few weeks off from visiting the LDS Family History Center. My search of this film confirmed, again, that my Guyatts were only at High Wycombe for a short time. I wonder where they were previously?

Most of my time these past few days has been spent working on the next edition of the Shropshire FHS Journal, which will be with the members in September. It’s almost finished, and contains some good stuff.

I’ve also carried on updating my family history records with all the material we’ve discovered recently. The latest additions are the items I found when we visited The National Archives in May. Entries from the Calendar of Wills proved in the Principal Probate Registry.

Tonight we are off to see the open air production of Much Ado about Nothing at Stafford Castle. The weather doesn’t look too great, but fingers crossed! At least the audience are under cover!

Have a good week.

  • This page was last updated on Thursday July 12th, 2007.

Geoffs Genealogy Update 03 July 2007

This has been a fairly quiet week on the treeing front. My only excursion was to the LDS Family History Center at Telford last Thursday, where I continued my progress working on the baptisms registers of High Wycombe.

I took the precaution of re-searching the entries dated from 1820 onwards, looking for Guyatt entries. I had already looked at this period during my visit to Aylesbury in April, but reprised it in case I had missed anything. Sure enough, there was one entry that had escaped my eagle eye the first time. It was the baptism of the first child of James Guyatt and his wife, Elizabeth. Caroline Matilda Guyatt was baptised on 14 September 1845, and was duly noted.

I am now as confident as I can be that I have recorded all the Guyatt entries from this record.

I then started looking for Wright entries prior to 1782, when Joseph Wright was born. So far I’ve got back to 1770, and noted twelve entries. Of course, it is unlikely that all the entries are relevant to my research, but if I note them all now some of them will probably fall into place when I get more information to link up with them. It seems likely that my ancestor was Joseph Wright, who married Elizabeth Atkins in 1782. I am therefore noting Atkins entries as well.

For my purposes it is encouraging that there appear to have been few people named Wright and Atkins in the registers at High Wycombe at the time I am interested in. Hopefully this will be an advantage in trying to trace my line.

That’s all for now.

  • This page was last updated on Tuesday July 3rd, 2007.

Geoffs Genealogy Update 14 May 2007

Once again I have spent most of my available time this week adding information to my family history database. I’ve been concentrating on adding the recently discovered Guyatt material, and have made good progress.

As a consequence of our recent visit to Buckinghamshire Records Office at Aylesbury I have obtained some more potentially exciting information regarding the family of Hannah Wright (c1789 – >1841), who married “my” John Guyatt at High Wycombe in 1817. The Bucks Family History Society has compiled a name index for the county. They have obviously carried out a very thorough trawl through the county’s records, and against the name of each individual appearing in the archives they have logged the detail gleaned from each record. The result is a fantastic research tool; with luck, you can go directly to the information you want.

I should add that this index is not complete yet, but it is very extensive and if you have Buckinghamshire ancestry you really must make use of it.

Anyway, from this index I have gained a series or references relating to what seems to be “my” Wright family. From this I learn that Hannah’s parents were probably Joseph Wright and Elizabeth Atkins, who married at West Wycombe on 8 July 1782. I have a list of what appear to have been Hannah’s siblings. there were nine of them, born between 1782 and 1810.

This brings me to one of my favourite “hobby horses” (sorry!). If you are interested in family history you really must make use of family history societies. Join them, and avail yourself of the wonderful finding aids that they have produced. Typically, you may find that the society local to your research has produced census indexes, parish register indexes, indexes to quarter sessions records etc. All societies that I know of have members’ interests database, and offer the opportunity for you to have your interests published in print or on the web – or both. Not only that, members will receive a society journal several times a year. This will contain a wealth of information – members’ articles about their research, notices, members’ interests and the like. As if that wasn’t enough, you also get the opportunity to attend meetings of the society (usually held monthly) where you can meet other members and exchange experiences and ideas.

I have visited my local LDS Family History Center, and ordered the parish registers for High Wycombe on three months loan. The film may take a while to come, but when it arrives I should be able to view the actual records relating to the baptisms of Hannah Wright and her siblings, and thus add still more information to my records.

That’s another facility you should make use of – your local LDS Family History Center. Your family history society will be able to tell you where your nearest one is, and how you can make use of it!

  • This page was last updated on Monday May 14th, 2007.