Overwhelmed and trying to keep up

 

                                                           Battling the Reversing Rapids, Sunshine Coast, BC

Do you ever run into those periods when everything seems to be coming at you at once? The last week has been like that for me, so busy that I had to look at the calendar on my phone to reconstruct how the flow of events had gone. All of that, of course, meant that I didn't get much of my own genealogy done.

When last I updated my Chambers family members on my Ancestry family tree, I had a look at ThruLines to see if adding more family members to the tree had caused more matches to show up with links to my Chambers ancestors. No such luck, I still see one match only, my own offspring. So no big breakthrough yet. I'm starting to wonder if there ever will be. Still, I'll keep at it.

The lack of progress did make it easy to get distracted. The week before, Your DNA Guide had put on DNA Rush Week and I wanted to make sure I saw the webinars from that a second time to catch anything I might have missed or disremembered. There was also another genealogy group's meeting to check out, since the usual meeting for my local group which is usually on the same night, had changed for this month. Our group was welcomed by the Maple Ridge genealogy folks and they had an interesting presentation by one of their members. In the discussion afterwards, the speaker mentioned researching gamekeepers. My ears perked up at that and I now have ideas for other records to search for my gamekeeping folks, Elias Maidment and family. Even distractions might prove useful.

A will to continue my Chambers research

 

                                                           Chambers' documents including Joseph Chambers' will

My time to explore my Chambers family has been limited so far. I did find the 1785 will for Joseph Chambers and, as part of my preliminary study of it, I extracted the names of the legatees and their relationships as stated in this legal document. I seem to remember that my lot were Joseph's grandchildren by his deceased son John. These children were named as John, Joseph, Charles, James and Elizabeth who were to come into their inheritance of £5 each once they reached the age of 21. From this I surmised that the children were all minors in 1785 when the will was written. There were no changes made when the will was proved in 1786. After the 5 grandchildren were named along with their portion, Joseph Chambers named their brother, Thomas, to whom he left 1 shilling. It was an intriguing detail. Had Thomas already received something from his grandfather or was he in disgrace? Besides his grandchildren, the children of his deceased son, John, Joseph Chambers also named his own son, Thomas, as well as two daughters, Mary Smith (might be a bit hard to find more info about her with a name like that) and Susannah Killinger. Those names should help expand my family tree outward.

It has been difficult to keep to this research. Because my ancestors are far flung, relatively speaking, I tend to watch webinars about various genealogical interests as well as those about DNA for family history. There have been a lot of those lately over and above the ones on my RootsTech playlists. I really need to make some time to watch some of the sessions on my playlists soon. But, before I get off track again, I recently borrowed Everything is Tuberculosis from the library. I'm hoping reading that book will keep me on track with my Chambers research because that family, at least in my grandfather's generation as well as his parents' generation, was adversely affected by that disease. In fact, I believe it changed the trajectory of my grandfather's life. 

Sources:

Green, John Everything is Tuberculosis, Crash Course Books, Penguin Random House, New York, 2025

Northamptonshire Country Record Office: Ref: Peterborough Wills – Joseph Chambers, husbandman of Weldon, 28 – 7 – 1786 Copy Photo, Peter Moyse, A.R.P.S. Helpston, Peterborough

Digging up further info on Northamptonshire ancestors

 

                                                            Weldon Independent churchyard, Northamptonshire

After the webinar about weather brought Charles Pratt Chambers to mind last week, I entered him on my Ancestry family tree. Then I went looking for any documentation I already had. I dug deep into this family in the past. I even included them in a report that I wrote on the Strange/Chambers family from information I had found. 

I was able to take my Strange family back quite far because the Reverend Thomas Strange (1723-1784) was a well-known nonconformist minister with links to other nonconformists in England and there was a lot written about him. My research into this family was also helped along in the early internet days through RootsWeb which brought together various Strange researchers. I didn't get nearly as far with the Chambers family line.

Because both the Stranges and Chambers in my family appeared to be concentrated in Northamptonshire, I explored the county and its documented sources in person at one point. The Chambers were also nonconformists, unsurprising when considering the location and family connections. At one point they lived in the village of Weldon but had they been in that location for generations or had they come from elsewhere? This looks like a good time to review the information I've been able to dig up so far and then see if I can get any further back. I'll be sure to add more people to my Ancestry tree for this family line as I go along. Now to interpret the report that I left for myself on the Chambers family. It starts by citing a 1786 will for Joseph Chambers. Looks like one of my first steps should be finding that will among my documents. 

Inspiration from a Highland Historical lecture

 

                                                                            Fields on Islay in modern times

Some of my ancestors came from islands on the west of Scotland, Islay and Skye and maybe some others too, if I ever find a link. That's why I'm interested in many of the lectures put on by Highland Historical Research – see lectures@highlandhistoricalresearch.com if you're interested in what's on offer. Most recently the lecture was Climate Change in the Highlands 1810-20. These were years of cold and rain (snow in August was mentioned), a hard and deadly time in an agrarian society. The years before and many decades after weren't the best for farmers either.

I wanted to watch because my people in the area would have been greatly affected and perhaps that's why they eventually left and went to Canada. Strangely, as the lecturer presented her subject, my Skye and Islay ancestors didn't come to my mind first although they came from the area. My first thought was of the older brother of my great grandfather William Strange Chambers. Charles Pratt Chambers (the Pratt middle name was probably a surname from an ancestor much like William's Strange middle name) was interested in the weather. I have copies of some of his lectures about weather phenomena.

So I had to check Charles Pratt Chambers' dates but I didn't have him on my Ancestry tree. Turns out that Charles wasn't born until 1852 which was not in the time directly affected by miserable weather but the climate change did affect the land for long after the period highlighted in the talk.

So it was a presentation that left me wanting to see how the challenging weather had affected my families on Skye and Islay. I know that some of them at least, worked the land and scarcity of food and the resultant depressed economy would have been hard on others in the community as well. That was a natural result expected from the topic of the talk. But the fact that I now want to update the Chambers part of my family tree because it invoked the memory of my grand great uncle's weather interest was an added bonus. You never know what historical talks might inspire.

Sources:

Society of Highland and Island Historical Research   https://www.highlandhistoricalresearch.com Lecture 34: Climate Change in the Highlands 1810-20 by Karen Dean (unpublished thesis)

Finding family history through place

 

                                     

                                     The Congregational Church at Kilsby where Rev Thomas Strange and family lived                                                                                 one of my Greater London to Southern East Midlands family connections

So far I've only attended two of the RootsTech sessions for 2026. The first was a session on how to use the FamilySearch Research Wiki. In this session the viewers/attendees were advised not to search by name, a common default among genealogical researchers, the wiki gives information about place or locality. So an idea of the area where the family being searched for lived or came from is needed when seeking information from FamilySearch's very informative wiki.

The second session I attended was Diahan Southard's initial DNA presentation. She advised us that knowledge of place and time was key in finding information about ancestors who passed on their DNA to us. So place also matters when building our family trees to make sense of our DNA matches. The various DNA testing companies have different tools to point us in the direction of what places our DNA is related to. At Ancestry they are called ancestral journeys. She also showed us how to toggle through the timeline of these journeys as the migration patterns change over time.

Immediately after the session, I checked out the journeys on my Ancestry account. They can be found under DNA in the Origins section. I now have 3 ancestral journeys which make less sense to me than the original communities or whatever they were called in previous DNA updates. I used to have one that included Ontario which fit in well with the known whereabouts of a branch of my family. Now I have Virginia & Eastern Kentucky Settlers which is no help with my family lines that I can see, Greater London to Southern East Midlands which contrary to expectations is on my maternal side (my Dad's family lived in London for generations) and Eastern Australia which is on my paternal side although the family line which I've traced to NSW is on my maternal side.

The Greater London to Southern East Midlands made sense when I looking into it further as it included Northamptonshire and various people from my family tree were also included although not all of them were from the maternal side of my family tree. The timeline for the Eastern Australia journey only had one entry, no change from date to date. It does remind me that I should track down the family connections on my father's side to see who ended up there. The ancestral journey that still baffles me is the one for Virginia & Eastern Kentucky Settlers but I'm encouraged by Ancestry to keep adding to my family tree and, if I enter a relevant family connection on my own family tree, they will show up in the information for that ancestral journey. Maybe it's time to add more connections to the part of my family tree that could possibly be relevant. 

Ready for RootsTech?

 

                                                            Snow at the Salt Palace site of RootsTech March 2025

Have you signed up for RootsTech yet? It's that time of year again when the big conference happens in Salt Lake City. It didn't used to be such a big thing. I remember someone in my genealogy society talking about going to the RootsTech conference some time ago back when my society used to meet in person. (I miss getting together like that.)

Back then, when that person talked about attending RootsTech, I thought it would be interesting to check it out someday. Then I remembered that it snowed in Salt Lake City and the conference was in early March so I put it off. So I didn't get to see any of the conferences in the beginning years. Since then they've grown exponentially as we moved online during the COVID years and now the RootsTech conference reaches viewers in many corners of the world through the magic of technology.

I finally did get to check RootsTech out in person in 2025. There were many classes to choose from and sometimes I wondered if I would be able to get from one end of the Salt Palace Convention Center to the other in time for my next class. Planning distances became part of my strategy for the sessions I chose as well as figuring out which classes I would be able to follow up on later and which ones I could only see in person. And yes, it did snow while I was there but it disappeared quickly and I spent most of my time inside. 

Wikipedia distraction

 

Last year at this time, I was trying to make sure I had everything ready for a two week long family history foray. It had been a daunting task trying to get everything together. I've reached the point in my research where I've gone beyond the easier initial steps of filling in family knowledge. Now it's a case of picking some particular family branches to find out more about. That in-depth research requires more time and thought but, with the advances that have been made in what is available online, so much more history can come to light. Often that's where the stories hide.

I was in search of those stories when I sat in front of a computer at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. As I had prepared, I started with the research I'd planned. I was disciplined at first, taking various family lines further into the past but then, as so often happens, I got sidetracked. I stumbled on a line of ancestors who had Wikipedia pages! Oh, I know I could have done that research at home instead of spending my precious hours at the library leaping from page to page on Wikipedia but the hunt was on!

I did get back to my research plan eventually, but finding those stories written about people who were connected to my family tree was a thrill. Finding information written about my various Hinton connections felt almost like discovering a gateway ancestor to the past similar to attaching a family line to noble or royal lines whose histories were recorded. Although finding a real gateway ancestor would probably open up more doors into written histories. If only I could get back that far!