family history

An Ethelbert Update – Part II

At the end of May I was having a a chat with my friend, fellow researcher, ex-colleague (and self-confessed ‘bad blogger’) Carole from over at Davies of Mold and Ancestry Examiner and we got to discussing the status of certificate ordering from the GRO in the current … environment.

Whilst the website says that certificates shouldn’t be ordered unless for official reasons, I wondered if this was true for PDF versions of birth and death certificates or if ordering them would be a bit of a … dick move. We both decided that as the scans are on a central server, the archivists working from home could access them without too much hassle or – more importantly – risk to themselves or others. And if it was small order then there shouldn’t be a big problem. So I did.

Remember Little Ethelbert? His certs were the ones I ordered, so this post is a little addendum to his story!

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52 Ancestors: Handed Down

As the youngest of four boys, I’m well versed in the concept of hand-me-downs. However, I feel that this isn’t what Amy Johnson Crow had in mind when this week’s theme was laid out, so I won’t even mention the very 1970s brown polyester trousers with the Tom & Jerry patch that I sported for about a fortnight in the late 1980s…

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An Ethelbert Update – Part I

Because I don’t know a) what’s good for me, and b) when to quit, I decided to research all of those pesky Ethelbert Neals to see how – or if – they all connected when added into my tree. As it happened, all of them tied back into ‘my’ Neal lines and did so quite nicely … for the most part.

Until, that is, a transatlantic voyage cropped up.

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When Is A Holborow Not A Holborow?

Fun question, right?! Well, more for me than for anyone else reading this I suppose. But an interesting example of a surname … migrating. There’s probably a word for that phenomena, but currently I haven’t found it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself slightly. What am I on about?

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52 Ancestors: Travel

I don’t have any travel agents in my tree, so this week’s theme for Amy’s 52 Ancestors had to take a different turn. Of course, my first thought was to talk about passenger lists and some wonderful Holborows who appear on multiple passenger lists, but as I’m working on my Holborows in Australia series (and other countries too!), and that I do have other family lines that aren’t Holborow related at all, I thought that it might be nice to switch gears and switch sides.

I actually got to thinking about the families that didn’t travel. The ones that stayed put. The ones whose lives were nevertheless impacted by the rumbling storm of the Industrial Revolution.

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Joshua Lock Murray, uh, Morey

It feel slightly strange to start a post knowing that it will be followed by an update post, but not knowing when that update post will come … however, I thought that I should round out my great-grandparent collection with my father’s maternal grandfather, Joshua Lock Murray aka Jesse Lock Morey, and see what additional information I could find about him.

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52 Ancestors: Where There’s A Will

I have a few way to go here in this post for 52 Ancestors. The full phrase, of course, is “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” meaning that if you’re determined enough in the face of adversity then a way forward can be found. Alternatively, it could be used to refer to wills in the sense of probate and legacies. A third option is the name, William.

Determination … Probate … Williams …

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Joseph & Edith May Holborow

I’m slightly surprised that I haven’t written a post dedicated to my mother’s maternal grandparents here yet. Why am I surprised? Partly because my great-grandmother, Edith, was the oldest person I ever knew as a child. Or at least that I remember knowing.

She also had the most amazing puff of white hair that I’d ever seen.

But who was she, and what about her husband, Joe, who died two years before I was born?

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In Search of Ethelberts

I like strong unusual names, so when I came across an Ethelbert Holborow in my tree it was too good of a rabbit hole to ignore. Although I don’t have a direct Ethelbert Holborow as an ancestor, I do have a number of other Ethelberts in my tree – mostly all connected with the Neal family in some way.

We’ve already seen one Ethelbert – Harry Ethelbert Stevens/Teagle/Holborow – but there are a few more stories attached to other Ethelberts in my tree, as we shall see …

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Holborow in Australia 2: William the Convict

When you’re researching Australian family, there’s always the spectre of transportation, much like Massachusetts in the late 17th century. Back in 2007 it was reported that up to 22% of living Australians were descended from convicts (over 4 million people). There is also a one in 30 chance for us Brits.

I remember studying the topic of transportation when I was at primary school (er, about 30 years ago), but I thought that I could do with a bit of a refresher course – and its amazing to find what records are out there for individuals, alongside the social and political history that goes along with it.

And spoiler alert: I feel some degree of sympathy for our William …

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