h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

dancingbuddha U238893. Whose PS says last posted Apr'05, but actually posted Jul'06. Weird - it's not as if he's unsubbed, either. But here is the document of proof -> http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F74130?thread=3174281&post=37316415#p37316415 I was sure I'd seen him this year.

Blimey I actually directed a fan of 'Mehr of the Marketplace' to the AWW thread the other day on the grounds that there was no point waiting for dancingbuddha to turn up Just because I'd read 'Apr '05'.

They aren't working, those. More problems for the census taker (oh woe, ah me).

Thanks though - I really will try and get this a little more accurate at some point.

Don't believe in the accuracy of censii anymore. My Great Great Great Aunt (Orkney straw plaiter )lost seven years between the 1841 and 1861 ones.

Yours is accurate enough to give a good picture.

Want another problem though? Found someone who genuinely hadn't posted (to a thread) in years, but added three new entries in the last three months...

Really?

Oo, yes please - the curios are part of the fun of doing this.

(Or rather, 'were' - to be honest, until a few people started posting in the last few days, I'd not looked at it in months).

Are you using that Scottish Government site, with all the census results and the parish records? I had a phase of complete addiction to that last year, managed to get all the way back to the 1840s or so.

Traveller in Time on his head
"Last posted only takes last 25 threads in account. Subscribing to Peer Review gives a Researcher 'no recent posts' in less then a Danda. "

25?! That's... a bit meaningless. I'd no idea it was such a small number - I thought it might be the 200 our conversation lists were restricted to for a while.

Here you go then, Trin. BoringBear U208309. I had an entry of his in mind to submit to the AWW, but it's been deleted. His UG Future's Pink entry is a good one if you haven't read it.

I love that Records site. I found my great grandmother in Glasgow with 11 brothers and sisters all living in one house (in which three rooms had windows) and working as a Cook Dom.Servant, Machinist Ironplaner, Shopkeeper, and Boilermaker/Plater, then the 1891 Office Boy was a Clerk in 1901, the scholar in 1891 became a Dairy Shopkeeper and a Dressmaker. 1901, a couple had moved out but two grandchildren had moved in.

I'm trying to trace my father's mother's Duncan lot back to the places she used to tell him they came from, but I can't get them out of Aberdeen. He wants the Black Isle, Moneymusk, Inverurie... and a Dane.

Thanks - I'll add him to the list.

I loved those details about the windows too! I traced my father's family back through several dwellings, mostly in Partick, fewer and fewer windows the further back I went.

I ran into a dead end eventually - I did find my great-great-grandfather in 1841, but he wouldn't have been born for the one prior to that and it all gets a bit cloudy anyway: I'm fairly sure he and a brother and a sister were adopted by an already large family and adoption records... well, I don't think there were any in this case.

All a bit frustrating in some ways - the name's an outer hebridean one... but I'm currently stuck in Campbeltown

No family tradition as to which island?

Frustrating yes, but when you find another one and all the details fit it's great.

Did you find any of those Scottish naming patterns - they helped confirm some of mine but the one described on the site is not the same as one that's been described to me elsewhere.

Oh yes - I didn't read the site that carefully, there was an awful lot of rushing about, but both my father and his brother have unusual middle names which turned out to be matronyms from way, way back.

Lewis. That's where the name's from, anyway - but with the suspicion of an adoption some time in the 1830s, I don't even know if that's the right name or not. The other possible name hails from the northeast instead (anywhere between Dundee and Aberdeen).

It is a strange feeling - when I started there was quite a bit of wishful thinking and wild goose chases, but after a while you get to recognise that tingle when you know you've hit the right connexion.

It's all much more fascinating than I thought it would be. I show my parents and it starts off all sorts of memories as they realise they remember this great aunt and that great great uncle and now see where they fit in.

Did you find your great great grandfather on the '51 census? Because that records birthplaces.

The pattern on the website is for first names - 1st son gets father's father's first name etc. The tradition I've heard elsewhere uses surnames as middle names, which sounds like what you've found. I've forgotten the details. I'll see the people that told me this Tuesday evening and I'll ask again. My mother's father's side seem to have used it while her mother's side used the first names one.

Found another 'active' researcher, U113932 one post, 5 weeks ago, in six years!

How do they remember login details?! I had to get h2g2 support to get me back in after Rupert.

'nother Crit Runner !

Excellent And on the wandering researcher too

I keep promising myself I'm going to get down there and do some solid reviewing, but it's finding the time at the moment. Then I tell myself that spreading it out is no bad thing

My grandfather made a family tree of as far back as he could remember and I've not filled in too much more than that - as I say, it ran into a lot of mist. I had a lot more luck with his grandmother and with my grandmother too - both for the same reasons, that once I'd got the family down to a particular town, they never seemed to stray too far from it (my grandmother's entire family for as far back as I could go never went further than a few miles from this one place in Ayrshire - not unusual given the date, I suppose, but it's still quite striking).