Clues in an overlooked family tree?

 

                                                           Tentative family tree received from a fellow researcher

Last weekend's free access to Newspapers.com and MyHeritage's marriages distracted me but I think that's all to the good. It made me jump forward in my preplanning to take a look at the information I've gathered on the Strange family. I'd been able to find out a lot about this family of well educated nonconformists, most particularly about the Reverend Thomas Strange, the first minister of the nonconformist church in Kilsby, Northamptonshire.

When I pulled out the Strange family binder (I haven't gone completely digital yet), I found a bunch of papers stuffed in the front of it. That means I had new discoveries and decided to deal with them later. With them was an envelope from a fellow researcher which I received in '05 or '06 according to the post office cancellation. Sometimes it takes a long time for "later" to get here but the timing is perfect for it to come to light. Back in the day, an Australian cousin sent me her tentative tree of this family's descendants. Once I check out those family lines, I'll be well on my way to expanding this part of my family tree. 

DNA update

 

Last year I did some work with my DNA matches, searching out the parents of two of my 2 x great grandmothers, Mary Maidment and Sarah Minister. Since then I've been able to take their family lines back further. It was very satisfying to be able to use both DNA and genealogical evidence in that way. For a while there, I was on a roll but lately I haven't done much work with my DNA.

I'm still learning, watching webinars and taking peeks at my DNA matches, but nothing jumps out at me. One problem is that I haven't continued expanding my family tree. I did start broadening my tree by adding collateral relatives to the skeleton tree I have on Ancestry but I didn't get very far. That might be hampering my efforts to identify how my matches fit into my family. Instead of finding 3 x great grandparents, it's their descendants that I need to identify and tack onto my tree. Then the descendants of those descendants and so on. Maybe then I'll be able to sort out my Australian links and figure out why Ancestry has included Virginia and Eastern Kentucky Settlers among my ancestral journeys. Looks like it's time to stop thinking about expanding my family tree and actually get the work done!

Adding to a family's history through books

 

                                                            The book Northern Light and my family timelines

An avid reader, most of the books I consume are fiction but along the way a number of non-fiction tomes get included. Many of those books concentrate on history and I sometimes find facts that connect to my own family's history in surprising places. One of those reads was Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement. It was the pick of a books club I belong to or else I probably wouldn't have read a history of the suffrage movement in the US as the country I live in also has a long and fraught suffrage history of its own and I haven't read any books about that struggle. 

Still the US book related an interesting history and one chapter also gave a brief historical outline of the founding of the Dakotas. That added context to an address from which my long lost 2 x great granduncle, Alexander Matheson, wrote to his sister Margaret once he found her again. I'll have to look into that further. 

Another recent read related to this family line as well. I knew that Northern Light: The enduring mystery of Tom Thomson and the woman who loved him, would be about my cousin. Various books and articles about Tom Thomson and his mysterious death have added clues to this family history over the years. This latest read spun the theory of an illegitimate child, an interesting addition to the Thomson story which, if true, could perhaps add to my family tree. 

Families on both sides of the law

 

                                     Newly available newspaper stories about the Arment crime found on FindMyPast

I haven't completed the search plan for my Argent family yet as other things have come along to distract me. Now the plan is to get back on track this weekend. Fingers crossed that I am able to move on from the Argent family name in the next few days. But it wasn't like I shelved my preplanning completely. A fair portion of the data from previous research trips has become part of the notes I will be able to refer to so that I don't duplicate my efforts.

While checking out Argent records on FindMyPast, I did stray ahead a little to check out the next family line, the Arments. I've been able to find out quite a lot about this family especially my 3 x great grandfather, Thomas Arment. Criminal records can be a goldmine. So can newspapers as criminal activities are something they cover. I was happy to find more stories online about Thomas and his son Thomas as FindMyPast has continued to increase the newspaper records available since the last time I checked.

Looking at both family's records at the same time also made me wonder about the relationship between them. In 1840 when Ellen Argent, the daughter of James Argent, an excise officer, married James Arment, the son of Thomas Arment, Thomas ran a business but by 1849 he and his son Thomas were being tried in the Old Bailey for receiving stolen goods. I wonder how this was received in the family when one side looked to be upholding the law as James Argent worked for the excise service while the other side headed by Thomas Arment senior had two members hauled up for breaking the law in a case that was covered extensively in various newspapers.

I'm itching to put together timelines for both James Argent and Thomas Arment to see if they were active in London at the same time. But I know I should put that aside for now or else I'll never get my research plan drawn up.