The family of my 3 x great-grandfather has fascinated me for almost as long as I have known that there exists a blank space on his birth certificate where his father’s name should be, and that he carries the surname of his mother’s deceased first husband (presumably to provide a veneer of decency…?). No annotations to his baptism record, not even an idealised name put forth on his marriage certificate … Somewhere out there exists an answer in someone’s DNA but as any link would be 7 generations back then it may just get lost in the noise of random mutation.
But his mother’s family – the Hallidays – have more stories to share than just one little old NPE (well, to be fair to Ann, 3 of her 8 children were born … without the benefit of marriage), so here is the entire Halliday Collection …
Halliday Posts:
Updates on Updates (Hallid-updates)
This shouldn’t be a long post, but I think that I may have blasted through the research quagmire of my Hallidays in Sherston that I mentioned last time. (Soon it’ll be back to business, i.e. more Holborows, more Murrays, some asylum records …) As I said, I think that I may have cracked the wall…
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Updating Old Research – The Hallidays of Sherston
I should be preparing for a dinner party (do people still have dinner parties?!) tonight – for which I did a heck load of preparation for yesterday – but instead I am sat here with a messed up foot (we call it a Dom Special – I fell out of my trainer, and also off…
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52 Ancestors: I’d Like To Meet / Favourite Photo
I have decided to do 52 Ancestors again this year, after taking a break in 2022. I’m already a week behind hence why this post is a bit of a twofer. In terms of “I’d Like To Meet”, assuming we mean a deceased family member and not – picking a name at random from the…
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Thomas Halliday Hurcombe – And The Father Isn’t …
The father of my 3 x great-grandfather, Thomas Halliday Hurcombe, has been a question mark in my research almost since Day One. However, the potential identity has often been posited. It wasn’t until last night when discussing centiMorgans with a friend (consanguineous relationships!) that I realised that the means to test this hypothesis was not…
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The Killing of George Marsh Halliday
It’s been 3 and a half years since I last wrote about George Marsh Halliday, and the one thing that always remained in the back of my mind was that I couldn’t kill him. Until today. I was supposed to be looking into the cross-pollination within the Australian Halliday families (which will still become because…
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Cottle + Halliday = Mystery … Solved?
There are many people and subjects that I could blog about within my own family or that of my husband. Long-standing mysteries, interesting stories that reflect the changing faces of our society, family members that are not connected in any way, shape or form with the Halliday family. So you’ll be pleased to note that…
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George Marsh Halliday
A long, long time ago (or at least that’s what it seems like to me) I mentioned in passing one George Marsh Halliday, the (half) brother of my 3 x great-grandfather, Thomas Halliday Hurcombe. I know I’ve talked about Thomas and George’s mother, Ann Adams otherwise Hurcombe formerly Halliday before now (on more than one…
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The Fascinations of Halliday, or The Perils Of Ignoring Old Research
Way back in the mysterious depths of time (aka 2002) when I was still something of a newbie and early on in my family history journey (following a move from the UK to France where I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands…), I was in correspondence with a distant relative based in Queensland,…
Keep readingHallidays In Australia
My previous post introduced the Halliday family via my 4 x great-grandmother, Ann Halliday. She was the oldest child – and only daughter – of John Halliday and his wife Elizabeth Angell. After marrying in Sherston Magna, Wiltshire on 12 October 1815, John and Elizabeth would have a total of four children. Whilst many families ‘lost’…
Keep readingWho’s The (4 x Great-Grand) Daddy?
On 14 January 1852 my 3 x great-grandfather, Thomas Halliday Hurcombe, was born. When I was first researching my family history – apart from putting out feelers regarding my American grandfathers – the Holborow/Hurcombe lines of my mother’s ancestry marked my initial steps into this world. My mother was very close to her maternal grandmother,…
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The Family Mess 