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  • Just started and hit the wall already!

    Hi all,

    I only started out a few days ago and using ancestry.co.uk and Scottish People websites, have already found my maternal 3x Great Grandfather - William Mundell. I didn't even know my Grandfathers name when i started out!

    The issue is that I've hit the wall already. William is last found in Falkirk in the 1851 Census aged 60, no wife listed but with 4 children all born in Londonderry, Ireland (or Inbrano, Ireland?). My 2xGGF is his son John Mundell who married and lived in Glasgow in 1857 and is then in Glasgow for the rest of his life and every other generation.

    He's also listed as having a servant in the house in the 1851 Census so I would assume they were fairly well off but then I can't find a will of any sort (, Job title of Tailor.
    The surname, as I know it, is Mundell but in the 1951 Census is listed as Mundele - could they have changed it when they got to Scotland or is it more likely a mis-spelling in the census?

    I can't find a death or marriage certificate for him (I've seen on someone else's tree his wife listed as Anne Wallace with no other details) so think this is the end of the road?

    My 2xGGM, Margaret, is also lead me on a brick wall. On her marriage certificate her father is listed as Robert James Findlay and her mother Margret Charmichel, this is as far as I can get in this line with no birth, death or marriage certificates for either of them.

    Anyone have any more idea of where to look moving further back? I had no real goal when I started but just wanted to see how far back I could go - think I've done pretty well so far but would like to see how much more of this tree I could fill. Are there passenger records for people who came to Scotland from IReland in the early 1800s??

    Any help or advice would be much appreciated!

  • #2
    Hello
    I too am very new to this but what I did when I came across a similar problem was to research each of the siblings as thoroughly as I could, quite a long winded way of doing it but with surprisingly good results.
    I have ended up with a very 'horizontal' tree because of this but the more the merrier I say!

    Good luck
    Debs

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    • #3
      Hi cgb and welcome to FTF. You say you only started researching a few days ago and have already got back 4 generations. I have to ask - how certain are you that you are researching the correct family? Have your living relatives been able to give you reliable information about relatives they remember or is it all guesswork? Even living relatives can perpetuate myths. My family has been well researched by people who came before me, but I discovered some minor errors in what they had done. So my advice is to bite the bullet and buy the certificates. Otherwise you may grow yourself a lovely tree with the wrong branches attached to it.
      Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

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      • #4
        I agree with Uncle John about purchasing certificates to make sure you are on the right line.

        The other thing I would add is that there is more to family tree research than just names and dates. It is all very exciting working back and seeing how far you can go but don't forget to explore what has happened in the meantime. Look at the social history, see if your ancestors were involved in the military, what sort of occupations did they do, any "black sheep" in the family (most of us have one or two!), did they move from one part of the country to another and if so why, did any one emigrate? It is these sort of things which brings your research alive.

        I would also recommend that you research one generation thoroughly before moving back to the next - by this I mean finding all possible census entries for the family, recording all siblings that are shown, making notes of when and where they were born, where they lived and what they did. Check parish registers if they are available to you (lots online now) - you will often find births and deaths of infants in the parish registers which will add to your tree if they have born and died between the census years - as well as finding useful baptisms, marriages and burials which help tie all your research together.

        .. and welcome to the forum.
        Elaine







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        • #5
          I'm guessing as you have Scottish ancestry and mention Scottish People website that you have accessed bmd through there? I shouldn't worry about the spelling anomoly, our ancestors had less need to write names and didn't worry too much about spelling, also -ll could be misread as -le. Was the servant male or female? If male he was probably working in the tailoring business, if female then probably paid very little to help out with household chores - doesn't necessary mean the family were well off enough to need to leave a will, though of course even people with very little did sometimes make a will.
          The person whose tree you quote probably got Ann Wallace's name from one of her children's marriage or death certs - lucky you that Scottish registration so often had much more info than English equivalents.
          Judith passed away in October 2018

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          • #6
            Are there passenger records for people who came to Scotland from IReland in the early 1800s??

            Unfortunately there aren't so all you could do is look to see if your names are present in Irish Records of which again unfortunately there are few censuses only 1901 and 1911 but there are BMD's - not all online yet.

            Familysearch.org is a good site for pre civil registration events so worth a look there.

            Otherwise I echo what has been said about verifying your findings with certificates, but obviously using scotlandspeople you get the equivalent anyway.

            Margaret

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            • #7
              Hi everyone,

              thanks for the great feedback. In terms of ensuring I have the right time line, I think I do, unless the first connection is wrong!

              I found a webpage through google which listed the correct name, address and date of death for my grandfather, it also listed his date of birth so I have been working backwards from this, confirming census records on ancestry.co.uk with marriage and death certificates on the scottishpeople website and everything flows right back to William.

              After reading these I went back and searched for something to backup the information from the google page and I found another person of the same name, born a year later in the neighbouring district. the 1911 census also list him as 0 years old and his mother and fathers names so this is a completely different person.

              So I guess now do I believe the google page which had the death date (I knew the death date as it was a couple of days after my older brother was born) and home address and my grandmother's name correct that it's also going to have gotten the birth date correct?

              The one other thing I have going which makes me think I had the correct line that it's clear that James, Anne and Margaret are family names as my mother, aunt and uncle have these names and they are repeated many times in the line I've traced but they are fairly common names!

              I was trying to do this on my own but I think I need to check with my mum if she knows what her grandmothers name was although if it IS the line I've looked at then both paternal grandparents died before she was born.

              Thanks again for the help!!! Any more advice is welcome but I think I'm stumped until I can check information thats less than 100 years old with someone!

              Comment


              • #8
                i think you need your grandparents marriage cert. if in scotland, this will give you your great grandparents names, if england, just your great grandfather's. then get the birth certs for your grandparents.

                if you can't download a cert from scotlandspeople, you just buy it, and the send it to you. it costs pounds not credits for those.

                Comment


                • #9
                  "So I guess now do I believe the google page which had the death date (I knew the death date as it was a couple of days after my older brother was born) and home address and my grandmother's name correct that it's also going to have gotten the birth date correct?

                  I was trying to do this on my own but I think I need to check with my mum if she knows what her grandmothers name was although if it IS the line I've looked at then both paternal grandparents died before she was born."


                  It seems that you can confirm the Google page as being correct - so I would accept that and the other details especially if they have exact dates rather than just a month and year which would indicate index information only - I guess that is someone's website page and it might be worth contacting them to see if they can help you further.

                  You can check information less than 100 years old but you have to buy certificates to do so.

                  Certainly worth asking your mother all she knows and even if people had died before she knew them she may have anecdotal stories that confirm what you find or point you in the right direction.

                  Margaret

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                  • #10
                    Well I spoke to my mum tonight and confirmed her parents names and then she said "hold on, I've got a family tree in the cupboard somewhere"....grr!

                    So it turns out a 2nd cousin of hers did a huge big family tree years ago and traced siblings and spouses right along the line. Like mine his goes back to the 3xGreat grand parents that I found but his doesn't have any locations on it. My mum was completley shocked to find out that they went back to Ireland as she'd always been told the family came from France and then into England and then Scotland and had always been in the Glasgow area. So already found something she didn't know.

                    Unfortunatly her mother was born after 1911 and she doesn't remember her grandparents as I suspected so can't go much further on that side and she knows nothing of my dads side of the family. Co-incidentally she is in the middle of a clear out so going to pass on any info on any death certificates she can find.

                    So for the moment it seems I'm at an impasse so will have to wait and she if she can dig up anything else (or turn this into a very expensive hobby very quickly ordering certificates myself!)

                    Thanks for the help and advice everyone! Will let you know what else I come across!

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                    • #11
                      You only need to buy your grandmother's birth certificate (or even her marriage certificate) to get the names of her parents, which will take you back into census land, so all is not lost.

                      OC

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