Today is a great day for me. I’m moving on to the Webb family in my Family File Cleanup Project. This is a big deal because at this portion of the tree, all the research is my own. I will still have to properly source everything in a consistent way with the rest of the tree. I wasn’t so consistent with the sourcing. The great news is that I shouldn’t have any super crazy verifying to do at all. Everything from this point on is my own information, so hopefully I’m able to get this section knocked out quickly. That’s not to say that I won’t be doing a little research here and there, because I’m sure I will. For some reason, I’ve always loved researching the Webb family.
Pushie, Willa & I went to Oskins. I bought blue dress. Rained hard all afternoon. Sent Bill’s Aunt, Grandma, & Mama flowers. Took some daffodils home from M. Dudley at 15 cents a doz. Choir rehearsal at night.
It’s been a long time since I had something to post on Mystery Monday, but this one is a doozy! Before my vacation, I wrote about ordering Samuel Redford and Frances Travis’ marriage record. Now on top of the Duckworth/Redford mystery, I have a tale of two marriage records apparently.
Before I realized I could see a copy of the marriage certificate online, I ordered a copy from the General Records Office. I didn’t receive it until Saturday, which I think is pretty speedy for a record from another country! Anyway, I was cooking when the mail was brought in, so I asked my father to open the record for me. It’s always fun seeing records through a non-genealogist eyes. He immediately zeroed in on the fact that Samuel Redford was listed as a widower. Which prompted a variety of discussions, the biggest one being my shock at his widower status.
I thought it was funny that this was the first time I was hearing this, especially since I had viewed the record on FindmyPast.co.uk after I ordered it. Sunday morning when I had a little more time to investigate, I brought up the computer record and the certificate to compare. That’s where the mystery comes in! To respect the copyrights of the records offices, I’m going to just show you a transcription. You’ll just have to trust me on the differences for now!
click for full size
I changed the text color on the most significant differences on the records. You can see that on the transcription from Find my Past, it says Samuel is a bachelor and that Frances resides in Werneth. Frances’ residence makes much more sense in the FMP record since I’ve found her family’s census data for 1861, 1871, and 1881 all in Werneth. What I think might have happened when they copied the record down in the GRO (who knows when?) is that the record above Samuel and Frances’ got mixed up with theirs. You can’t tell from the GRO certificate since it only gives the one record, however on FMP I can see the full page. The other record lists the husband as a Widower and both spouses living in Hyde. So most likely a mixup happened somewhere, but it’s not a good thing when you’re researching your family tree from across the pond!
This does show that mistakes happen all the time in records and you should always double check things even from the most trusted of sources.
This week has been a tough one for me. I never realized how hard it is to get back to your routine after a vacation! My vacations are usually quick weekend trips somewhere. They’re usually filled with so much planning and activity that we’re on the road home before I realize the vacation had even started. That wasn’t the case last week though! My Aunt Melinda, cousin Patty, Patty’s daughters and my family all made a two day trek down to Florida to visit my brother. We spent a whole day in St. Augustine, FL to get things started. I think that helped the rushed feeling go away. Then we descended on my brother’s house in the Fort Lauderdale area. We had no plans for our time there. So from Monday through Friday, we got up, got dressed and decided then what we felt like doing that day. Sometimes it was shopping, sometimes it was sightseeing, and some days it was just walking around his neighborhood for a little relaxation. It was wonderful!
After a week of relaxing in Florida, I’m home again. It was so much fun to spend time with my family in a non-stressful situation. Now that I’m home I have tons of things I want to accomplish. I only wish it were as pretty and warm here in Maryland!
