Hi All, Just thought I would share with you a breakthrough that I've recently made, after 12 years of searching ! My great x3 grandfather, William GOULD, was a stonemason living in Chewton Mendip in the 1830's/40's. He appears in the 1841 census with his family, but in 1851 his wife Hannah is living in the adjacent parish of Litton and describing herself as a widow. My problem was that I had never been able to find William's death. It is a sufficiently common name to make ordering up all the death certificates across the UK to be impractical. There did not appear to be a local death recorded. Recently, I checked FreeREG (www.freereg.org.uk) again, as I had in the past, but this time, I struck gold ! The burials listed included ages, so I was able to discount many infants of the same name. In fact, I checked every county in the UK and the only record that matched was a burial near Pontypool, South Wales. So it was worth getting the death registration certificate to cross check, which I duly ordered. When it arrived, it confirmed that the deceased William Gould had indeed been a stone mason. Furthermore, the informant was not a family member, but one Henry Gane, a tailor. When I found him in the 1851 census, he confessed that his place of birth was Compton Martin, some 5 miles from Chewton Mendip ! So I am satisfied that I've found the right guy. Although I realise that FreeREG is still incomplete, I think it very unlikely that I will ever find a better match. I did check that there was no William Gould of the right age in the 1841 census who was local to Pontypool. William's cause of death was given as the single word: "chill". Probably pneumonia or influenza, I guess. He would have travelled to Pontypool for work-related reasons. South Wales had an expanding economy in the middle of the nineteenth century, due primarily to the development of the coalfields. So I was not surprised to see him there, despite having recently lived in Chewton Mendip, some 50 miles away. I hope that by publishing these details, others will be encouraged to keep searching for their stubborn ancestors who seem determined not to be found. As databases like FreeREG continue to expand, one day your guy will be picked up - you just need to spot him or her ! Best wishes, Mike Gould Leicestershire

On Sat, 22 Sep 2012 12:51:19 +0100, Mike Gould <[email protected]> wrote: > Just thought I would share with you a breakthrough that I've recently > made, after 12 years of searching ! Hi Mike, Thanks for sharing your breakthrough concerning the burial of your 3x great-grandfather, William GOULD, with us. I remember your search for him over the years. > My problem was that I had never been able to find William's death. > Recently, I checked FreeREG (www.freereg.org.uk) again, as I had in the > past, but this time, I struck gold ! The burials listed included ages, > so I was able to discount many infants of the same name. In fact, I > checked > every county in the UK and the only record that matched was a burial near > Pontypool, South Wales. So it was worth getting the death registration > certificate to cross check, which I duly ordered. When it arrived, it > confirmed that the deceased William Gould had indeed been a stone mason. > Furthermore, the informant was not a family member, but one Henry Gane, a > tailor. When I found him in the 1851 census, he confessed that his > place of birth was Compton Martin, some 5 miles from Chewton Mendip ! I thought that the burial of your ancestor was bound to be in Trevethin Church so I looked on FreeReg and saw that it was. Some of Ian's ancestors have associations with that church, too. Last year when travelling through Pontypool, we made a detour to have a look at Trevethin Church which is on high, if I remember correctly.. Ian's 2x great-grandfather, John ROGERS, was a mason from Hanham, Gloucestershire who moved to Trevethin, Monmouthshire. Other family members moved from Clutton, Somerset to the parish of Trevethin and one of them, Bertha PURNELL married William ROYNON whose father, another William, was baptized in 1828 in Compton Martin, Somerset. So the elder William may have known the GANE family of Compton Martin. It's interesting to make links even as tenuous as this. What I often wonder is, how did our Somerset and Gloucestershire ancestors get on when they moved to Pontypool/Trevethin. Did they like their new way of life? Did they long for home and their own hills? Josephine

Hi Josephine, Thanks for your reply. How interesting to see the various connections between Chewton Mendip/Compton Martin/Clutton/Trevethin. We're going to take a look around the Trevethin area next week. I'm not expecting to find my ancestor's gravestone, as someone on the Monmouthshire list kindly checked the MI index and he's not there, but it will be interesting to get a feel for the area. I'm not sure how long my William Gould lived in Pontypool. He was in Chewton when his family were being born (I assume !), so that would be up to 1843, and he had died by 1845 in Pontypool, so he could have been there for 2 weeks or 2 years. Interesting to see that another mason, Ian's 2x great-grandfather, also moved to Trevethin. I contacted a local historian, who told me that the 1840s and 50s was a time of considerable commercial expansion in Pontypool. Also coal mines were opened and a lot of extra housing was needed. A lot of the houses and above-ground mining workshops were built of stone so a lot of stonemasons would have been needed for the work. Best wishes, Mike