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Find My Past Blog - Ask the Expert - elusive grandfather

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  • Find My Past Blog - Ask the Expert - elusive grandfather

    Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.
    From Jacky Leach:
    ‘I am trying to find out more about my granddad, Bernard Seaman. He was in the navy for most of his life and he lived in Wells next the sea, Norfolk, at 48 Mill Road. He was married to my grandmother, Barbara Dickerson. They had a daughter whose name was Audrey Seaman and a son whose name was Donald Seaman. My granddad had a lot of brothers but I don’t know their names. I would be most grateful if you would be able to find out anything about him for me.’
    Stephen says:
    ‘Thanks for your question.
    For anyone new to family history, the key thing to remember is to start with what you know and to work backwards. Don’t worry if you think you know very little. If you have English or Welsh ancestry, it is nearly always possible to research back in time from, for example, your own birth, the marriage of your parents or the death of a grandparent.
    You did not give any dates in your message but, using the combination of the names and the reference to Wells next the Sea, I was able to piece together the family back to the late 1880s in the space of half an hour and I’m sure you’ll be able to re-trace my steps using the resources on findmypast.co.uk.
    Firstly, I searched the indispensable website GENUKI to find out in which registration district Wells was situated. I usually do this by searching the internet for ‘GENUKI + the place name’. Alternatively, you can drill down through the county to the section on civil registration and find out there. This told me that Wells was in the Norfolk registration district of Walsingham.

    Then I was able to do some searches for your grandfather and found that Bernard Seaman married Gladys Barbara Dickinson in 1931 and died in 1970. The entry for him in the death index gives his date of birth in 1903. I could then check the birth index and there found the corresponding entry. He was born in Docking registration district and married in Walsingham.
    From the 1903 birth entry in Docking, I was able to find him easily on the 1911 census, which is fully name-indexed for all of England and Wales. This showed him as the sixth child of seven born to Isaac Seaman and his wife Elizabeth. His older siblings Walter, Jessie, Annie, Frederick and Redvers can be found on the relevant 1891 and 1901 census returns. The youngest sibling Charles of course appears only in the 1911 census. Frederick was the only one born in Wells; it seems that Isaac held various rural occupations and probably moved from farm to farm and from village to village in this part of Norfolk.
    Equipped with this information, it was then straightforward to find the marriage of your great grandparents Isaac and Elizabeth in 1887. Her maiden surname was Flegg. Isaac was born in West Barsham and Elizabeth in Little Walsingham. Hopefully, if you re-trace my steps to recreate the above information, you will see for yourself how the basic steps in family history can be traced. Once you’ve done this, I’m confident you will then be able to apply the same methods and, for example, find Isaac on the 1871 and 1881 census returns, discover who his parents (your great-great-grandparents) were, and so on. You can do the same thing if you wish on the Flegg line of the family.
    In this way, I would be surprised if, with a little digging, you were not able to get back to the first surviving nationwide census in 1841 and the start of civil registration in 1837. From there you’d need to start looking at parish registers and other resources. Filling out your family tree from 1837 to 1911, however, should keep you busy for a while! Good luck!
    As for biographical information about your grandfather’s life, he would have served in the modern era in the Royal Navy (or merchant service) and, therefore, few records are public, for personal privacy and confidentiality reasons. If he was indeed in the RN, however, as his granddaughter you should be able to obtain a copy of his basic service record from Veterans UK‘.
    If you’d like to send your question to our experts, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account. Unfortunately our experts only have time to answer a few queries each month. If yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!


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