ENGLAND BEGINNING RESEARCH: THE TIDSWELL FAMILY UK CENSUS RECORDS

The Genealogists in Second Life group has been taking a course Tuesday nights
with "LadyClaire Ashbourne" on England Beginning Research.  There are video
lessons from FamilySearch to view and assignments to do before each class.
This week we'll be discussing the English Census and Civil Registrations, and
part of the assignment was

"Pick an English family and follow then through 2 or 3 census records on a
different site for each year."

All  of my English ancestors came over long before the English census began
in 1841, but my great grandmother's first husband, Charles Tidswell, had immigrated
to America in the late 1800's. I knew Charles'  parents were John C Tidswell
and Elizabeth Mary Sharpe(I'd found their names on FamilySearch in the record
of Charles' second marriage.) I tried FamilySearch first but the few hits I got
led to pay sites, so I turned to Ancestry.com where I have a World membership
and had better luck. First I found Charles and his parents on the 1861 Census in
the Clerkenwell St James Civil Parish, Middlesex County. Their Registration
District was Clerkenwell in the Goswell St  sub-registration district in Enumeration

 District 12. The family is listed as follows:

From this I found out that Charles' father John was a plumber by trade, was born
in Middlesex St Lukes Parish, and was 39 in 1861. Wife Elizabeth was a year
younger and  had been born in Shoreditch, as had four of the six children. The
oldest, John, had been born in St Andrews Parish and was employed in something
 having to do with with art and photography.(I can't read the last word). The
youngest, Robert, was one year old and had been born in St James parish.
Charles was the next youngest and four years old at the time of the census. 
The next household after John and Elizabeth's is headed by a Benjamin Tidswell,
a widower with two sons both in their early 20's.

I can't find the family yet on the 1871 Census. Since Charles had immigrated by 1880
it's possible the family had left England already by 1871. So I went back to the 1851
Census and found the family was living in Shoreditch Middlesex England. There were
three children at this time, one of whom, the one year old Elizabeth, does not appear
in the 1861 Census so she had probably died before then.  John worked as a plumber,
and Elizabeth as a Seamstress. The family lived at 22 Wellington St. I didn't find any
other Tidswells on this page, the preceding page nor the following page.

Finally I went back to the 1841 Census where I found the 19year old unmarried
plumber John C Tidswell in the St Leonard Shoreditch Civil Parish of Middlesex
County. I couldn't find any other Tidswells on nearby pages, nor did I find any Sharpes.

1

It was an interesting exercise, and if you'd like to learn more about English genealogy
research, join us on Tuesday nights in Second Life, or check out the online classes at:

1. Getting Started
2. Understanding Census Records

HOW I SPENT MY GENEALOGY SUMMER

The subject for tonight on the Genealogists in Second Life group the
topic is "What I did for Summer Vacation". While I wouldn't call it
a "vacation" I did have a lot of time on my hands this summer and
luckily genealogy helped keep me engaged and entertained.This is
what I did:

Visited & took photographs at  eighteen local cemeteries and one cemetery
up in  Maine.  I've posted some of the pictures to my Old  Colony Graveyard
Rabbit blog.

Discovered more distant Dunham & Ellingwood cousins buried in Mt Vernon
Cemetery here in Abington and blogged about it here

Uploaded ninety eight photos to Find-A-Grave with several hundred more yet
to be uploaded. Fifty six  uploads were volunteer photos for requests.

Visited the NEHGS and met fellow geneablogger Barbara Poole.

Attended the Ellingwood Family Reunion and gave a short report on some
of my recent Ellingwood family research.

Continued transcribing the Asa F Ellingwood Civil War Pension File and
posting it to this blog.

Received two cds of family pictures and other material from West family
cousin Lewis Wuori which included pictures of 2xgreat grandmother Louisa A
(Richardson) West, 3xgreat grandmother Arvilla (Ames) West, and 3xgreat
grandfather Philip Richardson. I've been sharing these with other cousins and
blogging about them hereas well.

Joined the Upton (Maine) Historical Society group page on Facebook discovered
several new West and Richardson family distant cousins there who are members
of the Society. We've been exchanging photos and information.


Continued researching and adding to my Ancestry and WikiTree family trees.

So it was an interesting and rewarding Summer.Even better, there's plenty to
keep my busy this Winter when the snow starts flying.

And that's how I spent my Genealogy Summer!

INFERENTIAL GENEALOGY: THE BLOG ATE MY HOMEWORK!

Well, not really. Actually, in this case, this blogpost IS the homework!

I'm taking part in an Inferential Genealogy Study Group over on Second
Life. It's based on an free online course from Dr Thomas W Jones over
at FamilySearch that you can view here. The Second Life group is being
led by none other than DearMyrt who in Second Life is known as
Clarisse Beaumont. 

As I understand it so far, Inferential Genealogy is the process where you
piece together different sources of information to arrive at a conclusion
when you don't have a definitive document to help you. (Although I think
I'd search for those other sources anyway even if I do have one.). The
steps to the process are:

1. Establish a Focused Goal: Who was someone's parents, for example.

2.Conduct a Broad Search: Remember to check a wide area and time
period. Check documents for the subjects parents or children, and include
documents that might involve family and friends.

3.Understand the Records: What are their purpose. These include wills, deeds
and court records.

4. Correlate the Evidence: Take all the information you've gathered and put it
together. If there is conflicting points, try to resolve that conflict.

5. Write Your Results: Make sure they are clear, correct,and don't pass on
   incorrect information.

So far I haven't done any genealogy research using all these steps. I have yet
to search through wills and deeds other than those I've already found on the
internet. Now that I have more time on my hands I'm planning to remedy
that with visits to the various places that are nearby where my ancestors once
lived. Some of the places thatg are further away, like Western Maine, might
have to wait a bit. If I had to pick a case where I used some of the steps it
would be the one  I blogged about in "DIGGING UP ALEXANDER 
AUGUSTUS BARKER"

I am really enjoying this course and plan to put it to good use in my research.
But it's hard trying not to "read ahead"!

VIRTUALLY THERE: MEETING MY FELLOW GENEABLOGGERS

Although I've been pretty active in the geneablogging community I have yet to
attend a meeting og a genealogy society or been to a genealogy conference.
Work and finances haven't permitted me that luxury yet, and even when my
job comes to an end in a few weeks end, the prospect of me being able to
get to, say,  the Southern California Jamboree are exactly the same as for me
going to Mars: slim to none.

But while I haven't physically met any of my geneablogging colleagues, I have
met them "virtually". This began with me sitting in on Miriam Robbins Midkiff's
Scanfest chat room over at her Ancestories blog. While the stated purpose is
for us to get together and scan our troves of family photographs, the chat can
cover just about any aspect of genealogical research. Scanfest is held in the
afternoon of the last Sunday of the month.

Next came Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers Radio over at BlogTalk
Radio.This is an actual radio show broadcast on the internet which began as
weekly Friday broadcasts following the genealogy television show "Who Do
You Think You Are?" which included guests whose own research areas had
something to do with the areas the tv show covered that week. But it has since
evolved in a weekly themed show, with programs on subjects like Irish, Latino,
and African American genealogy, Civil War research, or Mayfl er ancestry.
As Thomas does his excellent job interviewing the guests, the chatroom buzzes
with conversations and comments. It's fast-moving and fun stream of conversation.

My third and most recently added method of meeting other geneabloggers online
is the Genealogy in Second Life group. Second Life is an online virtual reality
world with various communities: there are buildings to enter and meet in and you
have an avatar. The Just Genealogy meetings are held in a Family History Center
and range from  the Monday "Meet and Greet" to a discussion of the upcoming
release of the 1940 Federal Census. This past week there was a "scavenger hunt"
on the American Heritage website hosted by Clarisse Beaumont (aka DearMyrtle)
that was fun and educational. Another presentation earlier this year by Alice Kane
on Boston repositories was extremely useful to me.


Here are some screen shots:

Upstairs at the FHC building. Each one of those laptops link to a specific sites, like the NARA Military Records.

The exterior of the FHC. Meetings are sometimes held on the front terrace..

The fire pit is another chat site. The screen is a whiteboard to display graphics.

There is a Genealogists on Second Life Group page on Facebook which has the list
of discussions for the upcoming week. If you decide to check it out, take a little time
to learn how to maneuver your avatar around so you won't be as much of a klutz at it
as I am!

So while my face to face encounters with other genealogists haven't happened quite
yet, thanks to computer technology I have had the pleasure of "meeting" many and
I've learned about new and useful genealogy tools to boot!