One Place Studies

Ever fancied undertaking your own one-place-study? I can highly recommend it as a rewarding activity, so if there's a village that's dear to your heart and ancestral research, why not adopt it? I'd be happy to help with advice and suggestions, so if you're toying with the idea just email me for a chat about it.

Big congratulations go to Sue, who's decided to take on Beachampton - hurray for another Buckinghamshire one place study!

Times Online

In my last post, I was using the Times Online index available from Thomson Gale via my library membership.

Now The Times themselves have just made their archives available online
Times Archive
You do have to give them a reasonable number of details to register, but it does appear to be free at the moment so if there's a particular historical event or person you're interested in you might want to pop over and see what you can find.

Recording where you've been

It is a truth universally acknowledged that genealogists should record the resources they've consulted, and exactly who/what/when/how they were searching for, even if there was only a negative result.

For example, people undertaking a one-place-study who have painstakingly trawled through several years worth of the Times Online Index, drilling down into all the results just in case there's something relevant even though most of the time it's a false alarm, should have recorded the search terms they were using and exactly which year they had gotten up to. Furthermore, they should not then lose the piece of paper and/or electronic file upon which they'd scribbled this incredibly useful information.

GGGRRRR!!

SUMMERFIELD

On Ebay there's currently an "acknowledgement of deed by a married woman", specifically a document signed in 1861 by a Caroline Sophia SUMMERFIELD, wife of Arthur, regarding a property in Wing. Other names on the deed are Mary Faulkner, John Archer, Henry Charles Adams, George Capes & Charles Evans.

I won't be able to buy it, but if someone else out there does get it I'd love to know the specifics of which property it was and how the other names tie in (tenants?). Mary FAULKNER and Henry Charles ADAMS both lived at Burcott in the 1861 census, the other names don't ring a bell. So if the lucky buyer does read this blog post, please leave a comment with the details!

June update

Some new will transcripts this month, thanks to Ros - check out the VEERE and WOODMAN wills if you have connections to the following Wing families:

DADFORD
DELL
ELLIOTT
KEENE
PROCTOR
PUTTNAM
SMITH
VEERE
WALKER
WOODMAN

Mary Woodman was kind enough to leave £2 10s to the poor of Wing upon her death in 1758!

I've also updated the links page to add the SHURROCK one name study.

Online books - update

A while back, I wrote about Google Books and Live Search Books. Microsoft announced last week that they are ending the Live Search Books Project (apparently the existing books they have scanned will still be available via the main Live Search - but no word on whether this will be restricted to US visitors or not, as the Books feature had been). Sad news for those of us who love books and love coming across hidden gems online - has anyone found anything interesting books online lately?

Emails

I haven't had any emails (well, non-spam emails, I have plenty of spam) for a few weeks now. I think this is probably the universe trying to tell me that I should be finishing all the existing lookups and little research projects that I've started for people lately...........I just haven't felt like staring at my computer screen so nothing's getting done!