If you can't find a particular record for someone in your tree, please read this and take note.
I have been a family history enthusiast for many years now and, besides working hard on my own tree, I have helped others, both online and in a local genealogy group. I like to think I know how to go about finding those elusive rellies but now I'm hanging my head in shame over a gap in my own tree which I think I've just managed to fill. My great grandmother was Mary Lally (her married name). I have her birth and marriage certificates and her baptismal record but I have never been able to find any record of her death. The family lived in Lewes which isn't a very large place and they were the only Lallys in the town so I assumed she must have moved away at some time and could be any one of dozens of Mary Lallys who died after 1914, when I know she was still alive and in Lewes. This has been frustrating me for several years. This morning I suddenly wondered (I don't know why it came into my mind) if she might have remarried as she was widowed in 1908. I've just searched for a marriage for Mary Lally in Sussex after 1914 on FreeBMD and the only one that comes up was in Lewes in 1917 to a James Newman. Better still, Mary Newman died in 1939 in Lewes, aged 78...which fits with my great grandmother's birthdate. WHY didn't I think of that before? If it had been someone else who asked me for advice I would have suggested she had remarried but it just never entered my head with this one! I am kicking myself, not least because it is going to cost me £20 instead of £14 to get the certificates now!
Ann
I have been a family history enthusiast for many years now and, besides working hard on my own tree, I have helped others, both online and in a local genealogy group. I like to think I know how to go about finding those elusive rellies but now I'm hanging my head in shame over a gap in my own tree which I think I've just managed to fill. My great grandmother was Mary Lally (her married name). I have her birth and marriage certificates and her baptismal record but I have never been able to find any record of her death. The family lived in Lewes which isn't a very large place and they were the only Lallys in the town so I assumed she must have moved away at some time and could be any one of dozens of Mary Lallys who died after 1914, when I know she was still alive and in Lewes. This has been frustrating me for several years. This morning I suddenly wondered (I don't know why it came into my mind) if she might have remarried as she was widowed in 1908. I've just searched for a marriage for Mary Lally in Sussex after 1914 on FreeBMD and the only one that comes up was in Lewes in 1917 to a James Newman. Better still, Mary Newman died in 1939 in Lewes, aged 78...which fits with my great grandmother's birthdate. WHY didn't I think of that before? If it had been someone else who asked me for advice I would have suggested she had remarried but it just never entered my head with this one! I am kicking myself, not least because it is going to cost me £20 instead of £14 to get the certificates now!
Ann
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