Morning all, I've been reading this thread with curiosity.....I can't help wondering, like other, why Audrey hasn't taken into account spelling variations....and then not to accept the basic variation of BOWNs and BOWNEs seems ridiculous. Then the statement today from Audrey that :- "It is hard to document any info before the 1st England census 1841 ?" My jaw dropped when I read that. What piffle.....of course it is from any side of the ponds...I'm in Australia and quite easily manage to order LDS films in to track my various ancestors....the earliest I've got back to is around the 1700 when the trail goes luke warm as I need registers after that and can't access those till my next trip to the UK. I have one underlying question about this thread also....why does Audrey want to get back to the earliest common ancestor? What is to be gained from that exercise anyway?? Seems to me it's potentially a huge waste of time/effort/money. I have a fairly uncommon name from my maternal great grandmother - BEARPARK...and you wouldn't believe the spellings and variations of that which I duly take into account. Okay well that's my two bobs worth.... ttfn Trish Ex Hull on central coast of NSW --- On Thu, 24/5/12, Audrey Bowne <acbowne1@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Audrey Bowne <acbowne1@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] FH To: "roy.stockdill@btinternet.com" <roy.stockdill@btinternet.com> Cc: "yorksgen@rootsweb.com" <yorksgen@rootsweb.com> Received: Thursday, 24 May, 2012, 12:36 AM Thanks for the help It is hard to document any info before the 1st England census 1841 ? On this side of the pond their is very little printed info on the 1600s and 1700s I was told that the original spelling was DeBohun. The only alternative spelling I have been using is BOWN. Someone in England is collecting all the BOWN info and has a website. I think his name is David Bown. I will send his website address later. I have the BOWNE spelling started in 1330. Where would you find more info on Williuam the conqueror I read that alot of people are related to CHARLAMAIN/E spelling ? Thanks Audrey Bowne ________________________________ From: "roy.stockdill@btinternet.com" <roy.stockdill@btinternet.com> To: CHRISTINE WILLOTT <christine.willott@btopenworld.com>; yorksgen <yorksgen@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 7:04 AM Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] FH Hi Christine Of course, I completely agree with you as a fellow serious researcher. You have probably noted that I took Audrey to task slightly over one or two things in her messages and on her website. It will be interesting to see if she responds. As I mentioned in one of my messages to the list, she claims on her website that her Bownes can trace their ancestry back to the time of William the Conqueror. I fear this is a common phenomenon with our American cousins, who seem considerably more concerned about it than we are and there is a good deal of wishful thinking going on. What I suspect she has done is fall into the old trap of looking up surname definitions, noting that Bowne is a variant of Bohun or De Bohun (which can indeed be dated to the Conqueror's time since the name appears in the Domesday Book), put two and two together and made five! As I said, I very much doubt that the historical, documentary evidence is there to fill in all the gaps and links in between the Norman Conquest and the period her ancestor arrived in America. If she had the proof, why would she be asking for help on the Yorksgen list? As you and I both know, speculation is all very well but it doesn't begin to stand up without the evidence. Best wishes Roy ..... Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ..... Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
From: Trish Michael <gosford17@yahoo.com.au> > Morning all, I've been reading this thread with curiosity.....I > can't help wondering, like other, why Audrey hasn't taken into > account spelling variations....and then not to accept the basic > variation of BOWNs and BOWNEs seems ridiculous.> Completely agree, Trish, speaking as the one who first pointed out to Audrey that it was vital to take into account spelling variations in previous centuries! In fact, I can give a couple of good examples from my own researches..... 1) When I first started out in this game some 40 years ago and was far less experienced than I am now, I found the marriage of my grandparents Albert Edward STOCKDILL and Harriett Young at Bradford in 1885. But I couldn't initially find my grandfather's birth until I followed the advice of the books on family history I'd read and tried the variants. Of course - there he was, born at Bradford in 1861 as Albert Edward STOCKDALE. A lady cousin of mine, sadly now no longer with us, told me a piece of family folklore to the effect that my grandfather and one of his brothers had fallen out, so he decided to change his name to Stockdill. When I investigated this story it proved to be nonsense! The farther back in time I went, the records revealed that in censuses and parish registers our surname had constantly swapped between Stockdale and Stockdill and back again. It has only been consistent in the Stockdill version since my grandfather's marriage in 1885. This is why in my one-name study I cover a number of variants - you simply cannot do otherwise! 2) Albert Edward's father, my great-grandfather Robert, married four times between 1828 and 1851. For the first marriage he appears in the parish registers of Birstall as STOGDELL (an uncommon variant of the name), then for the next two marriages, one at Shipley and one at Calverley, he became STOCKDILL and for the last one to my great-grandmother Charlotte Worsnop he was STOCKDALE. How do I know these were all the same man? Because I managed to "kill off" his first three wives, i.e. find their deaths, and I had marriage certificates for the last two, naming his father as also Robert, plus he was consistently a joiner and carpenter throughout his life. He had 14 children by three of the wives, most of whom survived, so I was able to follow the naming and birth patterns in the censuses. The moral of this story is twofold: a) investigate family folklore tales by all means but don't necessarily believe them; b) ALWAYS consider the variants. In the example I have given of my great-grandfather, the difficult bit was finding his first marriage at Birstall in 1828, as STOGDELL was a variant I hadn't come across before. I eventually established it was him because he had children by his first wife, Mary LOBLEY, whose death I then found. He married his 3rd wife, Hannah WATERHOUSE, in 1837 and Robert's children by his first wife were with them in the 1841 census. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE
In my own research I found two brothers - one went through life as DUKE and the other as DUKES. I've also learned not to believe everything on a certificate either!!! When my mother married her father was 'deceased'. Grandmother remarried as a 'widow'. I spent fruitless (pre online records) years looking for his death prior to these events. I finally found out that he'd died some 30 years after grandmother 'remarried'. And that leads onto another story!! Lin A true friend walks in when the world walks out > From: roy.stockdill@btinternet.com > To: yorksgen@rootsweb.com > Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 06:26:27 +0100 > Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] FH > > From: Trish Michael <gosford17@yahoo.com.au> > > > Morning all, I've been reading this thread with curiosity.....I > > can't help wondering, like other, why Audrey hasn't taken into > > account spelling variations....and then not to accept the basic > > variation of BOWNs and BOWNEs seems ridiculous.> > > Completely agree, Trish, speaking as the one who first pointed out to Audrey that it was vital > to take into account spelling variations in previous centuries! > > In fact, I can give a couple of good examples from my own researches..... > > 1) When I first started out in this game some 40 years ago and was far less experienced than > I am now, I found the marriage of my grandparents Albert Edward STOCKDILL and Harriett > Young at Bradford in 1885. But I couldn't initially find my grandfather's birth until I followed the > advice of the books on family history I'd read and tried the variants. Of course - there he was, > born at Bradford in 1861 as Albert Edward STOCKDALE. A lady cousin of mine, sadly now > no longer with us, told me a piece of family folklore to the effect that my grandfather and one > of his brothers had fallen out, so he decided to change his name to Stockdill. When I > investigated this story it proved to be nonsense! The farther back in time I went, the records > revealed that in censuses and parish registers our surname had constantly swapped > between Stockdale and Stockdill and back again. It has only been consistent in the Stockdill > version since my grandfather's marriage in 1885. This is why in my one-name study I cover a > number of variants - you simply cannot do otherwise! > > 2) Albert Edward's father, my great-grandfather Robert, married four times between 1828 > and 1851. For the first marriage he appears in the parish registers of Birstall as STOGDELL > (an uncommon variant of the name), then for the next two marriages, one at Shipley and one > at Calverley, he became STOCKDILL and for the last one to my great-grandmother Charlotte > Worsnop he was STOCKDALE. How do I know these were all the same man? Because I > managed to "kill off" his first three wives, i.e. find their deaths, and I had marriage certificates > for the last two, naming his father as also Robert, plus he was consistently a joiner and > carpenter throughout his life. He had 14 children by three of the wives, most of whom > survived, so I was able to follow the naming and birth patterns in the censuses. > > The moral of this story is twofold: a) investigate family folklore tales by all means but don't > necessarily believe them; b) ALWAYS consider the variants. In the example I have given of > my great-grandfather, the difficult bit was finding his first marriage at Birstall in 1828, as > STOGDELL was a variant I hadn't come across before. I eventually established it was him > because he had children by his first wife, Mary LOBLEY, whose death I then found. He > married his 3rd wife, Hannah WATERHOUSE, in 1837 and Robert's children by his first wife > were with them in the 1841 census. > > -- > Roy Stockdill > Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer > Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html > > "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, > and that is not being talked about." > OSCAR WILDE > > > > > > ..... > Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; > www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; > www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message