genealogy

52 Ancestors: Solo (Updated)

I don’t think that there is one solitary only child in my tree. Not anywhere. Even all the spinster aunts and bachelor uncles seem to be found in close proximity to their niblings in later years, and several of them make clear provision for them in their wills and testaments (yes, you may have several cauldrons of tallow, dear nephew …).

So I had to take a bit of a different tack with this week’s challenge and take a look at a line that’s just been hanging out for a while now. On it’s own. Kind of … solo.

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Holborow in America 3: New York, New York

I thought it only fair to officially start my next set of geographically-themed Holborow posts by looking at Holborows who have emigrated to America and their families. And I say officially as technically I’ve already started, with one historic post and another much more recently!

But onward and backward (only not as far as you might imagine) …!

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52 Ancestors: Holborow in America 2: Unexpected

So this week’s 52 Ancestors post – on the theme of Unexpected – is a bit of a three-for-one special.

Yes, it’s a 52 Ancestors post. It’s also a sort of … Ethelbert Update post (which doubles the unexpected side of things as I didn’t have any intention of doing another one – despite what some people might tell you …!). And it’s also part of the nascent Holborow in America series.

That’s a lot for one post. Oh, and there’s also some timely discomfort. Let’s get to it …

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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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52 Ancestors: Wedding

I have to say that this week’s theme has had me a bit stymied, hence why this 52 Ancestors post is so late. But I thought that I’d take a look through my family photos and pick out some wedding photos to share.

Turns out, I don’t have that many …

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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: Tombstone

Originally for this post for 52 Ancestors, I was going to get all creative and not do a post about an actual tombstone, or collection of tombstones, or anything to do with burial markers at all. I was going to go down the Tombstone, Arizona route and find me a cowboy or two.

But it turns out that I don’t have readily identifiable cowboys in my tree, in Arizona or otherwise.

But I do have family politics and farmers.

Yippie kayak, other buckets!

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William Cropley & Samuel Griffiths: Bacon Stealing Bad Boys

I mentioned a couple of months ago, as part of my Ethelbert Collection, that Ethelbert Holborow, cheesemonger of Clare Street, London, suffered the egregious loss of 2 shillings worth of bacon from his shop in September 1827. The culprits were 12 year-old Samuel Griffiths and 14-year old William Cropley.

But I wanted to know what happened to them after this incident … I was surprised at what I found but not entirely disappointed.

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