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In some ways the post today builds on the post for A – Advanced One-Name Studies. Today we look at delving deep, not just in depth but also breadth of a topic, adding a new dimension to our research.

In one of the chat sessions that accompanied the Advanced One-Name Studies course, we looked at the usefulness of timelines, which enable us to see what information we have and what information is missing. As part of that discussion we looked at marriages and the legalities of it. Marriage Law for Genealogists written by Rebecca Probert proved on page 110 that marriage could take place with girls at the age of 12 and boys aged 14. In part this was a marriage contract with family lands and assets front and centre of any marriage, not love and happiness – it was business and the ability to be connected with others of the same social standing. 

Generally speaking we research backwards and from a marriage we expect to find a birth around 20-25 years earlier, the same applies to a marriage, we look around about 20-25 years later from a birth, but if the family were of some social standing, or had land or other financial means, then the dates could be out by as much as a decade. I talked about this in more detail HERE.

Later in this series we explore reconstructing families, and whilst some do this for their study, others do not. There is no right or wrong way to develop a study. If you choose not to build families then you likely get a sense of the numbers and you may well focus on other elements for your study.

Whilst I do reconstruct families I do tend to do this for particular counties, some of which stem from my own family – currently I am focusing on the following:

BUTCHER Study – 

• Surrey and Sussex – Counties in England
• Suffolk – County in England
• Perth – Australia
• Tasmania – Australia
• British Columbia – Canada

ORLANDO Study – 

• Sicily – Italy
• Birmingham – Alabama
• New Orleans – Louisiana
• New York – New York State
• Surrey – County in England

I am also heavily focusing on migration from Italy to other Countries, in particular post Second World War. 

Between 1861 and 1985, 29,036,000 Italians migrated from Italy and Sicily – Source “As fit as a Fish, the English and Italians revealed” by Laura Tosi and Peter Hunt.

I recommend this book, those of us with mixed heritage will likely raise a smile.