Genealogy and the dog days of summer

 

                                                                Some of the pictures now on my dining room wall

I was able to attend a meeting of the PoCo Genealogy Group this past week, something I am rarely able to do as it is usually held on the first Wednesday of the month which conflicts with another meeting I attend. Before the presentation about the latest Ancestry updates started, one of the other attendees asked me, "Are you getting much genealogy done?" I nodded yes. Her answer to that was "I'm not." When I looked around the table there were fewer attendees that usual. I don't know if that was because of the change from the meeting's usual date or if the missing people had also been sidelined by the dog days of summer.

It has been hard to get into research lately as life speeds up as we head towards the start of September which is often a cue to start the usual work and school days up again. I'm hoping that some of my latest activity will bring me some inspiration on the family history front. The walls of my living space were mostly bare but recently a friend helped me to hang some of the many paintings and framed photos in my possession. Since I am related to not only the people in the photos but also to the artists whose paintings I have hung, I'm hoping that being surrounded by their works brings me insights into the past. 

Checking out WikiTree

 

                                                        My sparse family tree as it currently appears on my software

I'm always interested in learning new things related to genealogy and, with the advent of DNA testing and the various ways it can further research, I've added genetic genealogy education to my repertoire. Last year I signed up for the Study Group at Your DNA Guide where they talked a lot about their DNA Skills course. The study group members in the skills course seemed so much further ahead, so I signed up for that as well figuring that I'd have time to take the course since the yearlong Study Group would be over. Then, of course, they offered a special deal to join the second year of Study Group. So I signed up for that too.

Its has been interesting and, at times, overwhelming especially when the DNA Skills course was still happening but that's over now - well, sort of, I still haven't reached the end of the lessons. I kind of got distracted by my research goal which was to find the father of Mary Maidment, my 3 x great grandmother. Finding that link led to my interest in gamekeepers.

When looking for my Maidment links, I headed off in the wrong direction at first, adding many links to my new family tree software. Those incorrect links have been deleted and my tree on my version of Family Historian is looking sparse. I really should enter more family there but I've been offered another distraction. The latest session of Your DNA Guide Study Group was a session about WikiTree.

I'd heard about WikiTree before and have listened to well-known genealogists extoll its virtues but I wasn't sold on being part of a community that was working on a single family tree. that could be a holdover from listening to people's complaints about the single family tree on FamilySearch. But, after watching Connie Davis and Greg Clarke explain how the WikiTree site works, I signed up. So it looks like I will be filling in my family tree on that site as well as on my own software. It looks like there is a social side to WikiTree too as I've received emails welcoming me. Nice, except that I can't keep up with my emails as it is!

Sources:

https://www.wikitree.com

https://www.yourdnaguide.com

A new look at old research

 

                                                                              A carman on a London street

I sent a message off to someone on Ancestry thinking I might get a reply. That came about due to a prompt from an email from My Heritage which I couldn't fully access because I currently don't have a subscription. As I had no access to the family trees referenced by the email, I thought the same people might have trees on Ancestry where I do have a subscription. Of course, the email was about a line unrelated to my gamekeeper research but I didn't expect a quick reply. I mean, sending messages on Ancestry is like consigning them to the ether.

The person I messaged replied within a day! They had questions and the clarification they were looking for was about a line I'd done extensive research on, the Arments. They were a family who showed up on many records in many cases because of their brushes with the law.

As I leafed through my Arment research to answer the questions I'd been asked, I looked at the information I had with new eyes. Given my recent foray into working with my DNA, perhaps there was a genetic research question I could tackle. There was also another story that I hadn't looked into further, that of the death of George Arment, who would have been my 3 x great uncle. He was a carman or carter who met his end by being crushed between two hogsheads of lager. That looks like it deserves a newspaper search!

 Images:

By Internet Archive Book Images - https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14579853990/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/wandererinlondon00luca/wandererinlondon00luca#page/n252/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43453370

Taking research on historical occupations further

 

                                                                                    Gamekeepers' Cottages

When tracking ancestors back in history, research usually takes in the census as well as birth, marriage and death records. Sometimes when the object of interest lives in a town, directories can fill in some details which can be handy in the years between censuses but beware, the information on the directory entries was gathered beforehand. I've found recently dead people listed.

I haven't yet look at directories for my Maidment gamekeepers but, since their profession often saw them in court with poachers and the like, I decided a perusal of historic newspapers was in order so my subscription to Find My Past is coming in handy. I've just begun to look up the names of Elias and his sons and I've already hit pay dirt. There have been the reported on court cases where the Maidment in question had to give testimony about a person caught red-handed with game. Also of interest were some ads placed by one of the men looking for a new position, an ad that gave specifics of height and age and trustworthiness. I also came across the report of an inquest into the death of one of the Maidment men's wife. That's one I need to look into further!

Because I've been so successful in my search for the gamekeepers I'm interested in, I've started to wonder if I should perhaps try newspaper searches for those in other professions, like shopkeepers and publicans - I have a few of those I'd like to know more about. 

Sources:

FindMyPast newspaper search https://www.findmypast.com 

Image:

By Gamekeepers Cottages. by Mick Malpass, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108140086

Multiple uses for a DNA chart

 

                                                                 X-DNA chart with names from my family tree added

When I delved into the study of how to use genetic genealogy, I was interested in learning more about the inheritance of X-DNA. Its inheritance is harder to track that that of mitochondrial DNA  in that it isn't just handed on from female to female. Fathers of girls also hand down an x chromosome to their daughters as do their mothers giving the majority of females two x chromosomes. There are handy dandy charts to figure out the X-DNA pattern. Two possible sources are in the links under Sources at the end of this blog post.

As I filled out the name for my own chart, I realized that this different way of arranging the information from my family tree was useful in other ways as well. It was a visual of the lines I haven't been able to extend back very far. Many of those lines stop at females and I think that has a lot to do with the difficulty of ascertaining birth surnames for women whose identities were often swallowed up by the family they married into.

When I look at the names I've been able to fill out it appears that breaks in the line are frequently found after the 2 x great grandparent level. I should be able to update the chart a bit though now that I'm confident about who Mary Maidment's father was. Now I just need to confirm who her mother was and then try to extend both of those lineages back further.

Sources:

https://dna-explained.com/2012/09/27/x-marks-the-spot/

https://familylocket.com/x-dna-inheritance-and-recombination/

Researching ancestral occupations: gamekeeper part 3

 

                                                                                         Image of a gamekeeper

My search for gamekeepers among the Maidments is proving a longer task than I anticipated. With the documents that I've accessed so far, it seems like my 3 x great grandfather Elias was the first in the family to become a gamekeeper and many of his sons took up the occupation too. He had quite a few sons, many of whom were born in different places. From the information I've seen so far, these sons also moved across England. I suppose that makes sense because gamekeepers were hired by large landed estates and there would only be so many of those around so any aspirants to the profession would have to go to where there were vacancies.

The son I've found the most varied information sources for so far is Jasper who was baptized in Enford, Wiltshire in 1814. When trawling through information on the National Archives, I came up with a catalogue entry of the Appointment of gamekeeper: Jasper Maidment held by the Nottinghamshire Archives. Strange, as none of the information I have on him so far has a connection to Nottinghamshire. Ancestry also pointed me towards his very informative gravestone which gives the date and location of death as well as naming his longtime employer, George Spofforth Lister. I hope to parlay that tidbit into more records about Jasper's employment. Fingers crossed for similar luck with my continued searches. I wonder what treasures I'll be able to discover about the other Maidments.

Sources:

Ancestry – Wiltshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1922 for Jasper Maidment

Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/135991997/jaspar-maidment

Images:

By Internet Archive Book Images -  https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14593150360/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/withnatureandcam00kear/withnatureandcam00kear#page/n350/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43736289

Researching ancestral occupations: gamekeeper part 2

 

                                                These books about occupations are just the beginning of my research

Real life has cut into my research time lately, so I haven't gotten very far with researching the gamekeeping Maidments. The family's time in the game, so to speak, began with the patriarch Elias who lived from 1773 to 1825. I haven't yet found records that can confirm how early Elias took up the profession and it looks like he didn't keep up the work in his older years. As for his sons, I'm currently tracking the censuses in with they were listed as gamekeepers and the places they were living at the time.

Knowing that gamekeepers were employed by large estates, I'm also hunting for resources about large English estates. I'm should to be able to dedicate more time to this quest soon and hope my next blog post will be about the steady progress I've been able to make. A breakthrough would be nice but for now I'll keep following up possible sources.