Puttenham Street 1914

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Julie Goucher
This is a recent addition to the study and given to me as a present.
This is an original print from “A Pilgrimage in Surrey”, by James S. Ogilvy; Published by George Routledge & Sons, London in 1914

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My Furry Friend….

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Julie Goucher

I awoke this morning to some sad news. My daily plans that required a degree of concentration put on hold whilst I digest and think about things.

A week or so ago, someone commented via, I think, the Book of Me facebook group as to the identity of Alfie.

Well, here he is. This photograph taken earlier this week  when he was in one of his numerous cheeky phases.

Today, sensing my sadness he has not strayed far from my side. His friendship is unconditional and somehow is just what I needed. If only everything could be fixed with a dose of Alfie!

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Wedding Wednesday – Frederick William Wait & Bertha Agnes Turner 1917

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Julie Goucher

So, Who was Fred?…..

This was a question that I strove to answer back in December 2011 when I showed this picture on Guildford & District Blog

A search of the Marriages for a B Turner in Guildford 1916+ to a Fred revealed one such entry. The marriage of Bertha A Turner to Frederick W Wait in the September Quarter of 1917 at Guildford. (Ref 2a, 201).

Working backwards to the 1911 Census. Did that reveal more of Bertha? The index revealed one entry for a Bertha E Turner. I took a chance and looked at the data. It didn’t pay off, and revealed a Bertha Elizabeth Turner residing at 144 Walnut Tree Close Guildford, a stones throw of my Grandmother at 114. Isn’t research curious?

Anyway, A quick look through the First World War records didn’t prove obviously helpful, neither did the Commonwealth War Graves website. So I still didn’t know who Fred was. A quick search of the 1911 Census for him and I was surprised. It revealed one entry; just one.

Frederick William Wait, Single and Aged 20 years born 1891 Guildford. On overseas military duty and recorded as in the 7th Dragoon Guards and stationed at Hislop Barracks, Trimulgherry, Duccan, India.

That I had not expected. This is still not conclusive that the Fred in India is the Fred in France. Were regiments pulled from various bits of the Empire in order to fight in Europe. Quite possibly.

Into June of 2013 and Ancestry have just released the Surrey records – a fabulous day! I took opportunity to see if I could locate the marriage record that had appeared in the indexes.

And here we are. The marriage  a little over 96 years ago!

Courtesy of Ancestry.
Marriage September 13th 1917 St Mary’s Guildford
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Tuesday’s Tips – Controlling those blog tags and labels

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Julie Goucher

For several months I have been highly irritated with the tags that I have used on this blog. It’s my own fault, I have over 1600 posts and about 30 posts scheduled and another 60 in draft.

Tags or labels as blogger calls them are provided so that you can streamline your search for particular posts, so if I look at genealogy I can see that there are over 190 posts and I tend to cross reference mine to Geneabloggers as I often link in to various day prompts.

Over the course of 10 years, things have got a little out of control and I need to really make some changes. I have a search box which does a grand job of locating stuff.

When I have written things and I have to use the search facility to find them, then things need to be changed.

I have lots of labels and am too lazy to go through them all and the blog facility is fiddly and I don’t particularly like it. The alternative is to edit the tags facility and instead of viewing all, allow those that are the most used to be visible. The search box will plug any gaps. It is not perfect, but I really do not want to be wasting hours when I want to use the time for other things.

So in addition to that I am going to go back through some of the earlier posts, as the mood takes me and tweak the tags and share to Google+ thus giving some of those older posts an airing.

If you have any suggestions please share them, and in the meantime, I will leave you with my Tuesday’s Tip – choose your tag or label wisely!

Happy Blogging!

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Tracing Your House History by Gill Blanchard

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Julie Goucher
I was recently given a copy of this book to review and what a delight it was.
cover for Tracing your House HistoryThis book is more than a guide to researching the history of your house, or a house of interest. It is a font of interest if you are seeking to research and understand the social and domestic lives of people and their communities from early times.
The book is comprehensively laid out over 7 chapters and gently walks readers and researchers through where to find information. Starting with indexes, catalogue’s and transcriptions before moving along to finding archives in Records offices, local history libraries, heritage, local and family history organisations and numerous on line resources.
The section on dating your home and house style is very comprehensive, starting with looking at architects and their role and then moving along to dating a building.
This nicely links into the third chapter which features architecture styles across the ages, commencing with Prehistoric through Norman, Medieval, Tudor, Stuart, Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian times. This chapter also looks at Modern homes, before moving onto discuss and provide resources for model villages, Garden Cities and Philanthropic Schemes, new towns and council housing. Also touched upon is the Public Health and slum clearances, why they were necessary and what gave rise to them in the first place along with locating the redevelopment and clearance records.
The book progresses to the process of building local knowledge, by looking at local histories, the importance of oral histories, local tales & legends and the foundations they can provide in research. This is followed by two important areas; finding out about local history and then about the resources of Societies, groups and information. Moving on from that is a section that looks at the visuals of such a study; photographs and postcards, along with paintings and drawings which add illustrative social context to your study.
Chapter 5 is a very full and comprehensive chapter on resources. Many will be already known to family historians, such as Birth, Marriage and Death records, Parish records, and Census returns. Also included is business and occupation records, directories and gazetteers, Electoral registers and poll books, Fire Insurance records, Glebe and estate records. Various taxes are looked at, such as Hearth, Window and Land taxes. Land registry, deeds, Manorial records, Maps and plans. The National Farm Survey 1941-1943 which is a an often neglected source in family history research, Quarter session records, Land Owner returns 1873 – 1876 and Valuation Office Survey 1910 – 1920 and finally Wills. A real bonus for this chapter is the inclusion of the useful and comprehensive time frame for each resource.
The final two chapters deal with how you can present and write your own house history, but similarly this can apply should you be researching a One-Place study, before moving along to the directory of resources looking at Organisations, Websites and a selected Bibliography. There is an index at the end of the book.
All the way through there are illustrations in black and white with links to numerous and various web pages.

This book has been thoroughly researched and presented; and I believe it should be considered the book for those researching houses or a One-Place Study. It was a true delight to read and review.
Disclaimer – I was provided with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
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Book of Me, Prompt 3 – Physical Self

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Julie Goucher

Prompt 3 went live yesterday. You can read the details HERE .

Even though I set the prompt, I was less than impressed. I have always followed the mantra if you want someone else to do something, then you should be prepared to do it too! So here goes –

I am fairly short, at 5 foot 1″, little and good, although I think there are a few that would disagree! My shoe size is size 5 (UK). My hair is typically short, although longer than my profile picture. Currently in a bob style; and my husband has taken to irritatingly calling me Bob and to my horror, I even answer him!

The new hairstyle was suggested to me by a former work colleague and coincided with a change in my professional and work schedule. The psychologist in me wonders if that is my sub-conscious freeing myself of those horrid previous work chains? At birth my hair was jet black, which then fell out and was replaced with a dark brown. Now there are real hints of grey and I noticed this year, that seems to be increasing. I have never, ever died my hair and don’t think I will. A former colleague who was boss and someone I greatly admired often use to remark on my natural highlights, to which I always responded, “you can go off some people you know” –  it was a joked between us, especially has they were completely grey.
I do have my ears pierced, something that I had done for my 12th birthday. My left ear hurt like mad afterwards and despite applying lots of surgical spirit, it became infected and now I rarely wear earrings, although if I do they must be at least 14 carat gold or silver. I never sleep in them.

I wear very little jewelery, typically just my wedding ring, which is a 18 carat gold, 4 mm plain band. My husband’s ring is the same, just bigger and wider.

The day we went to buy our rings was a lovely day, in our saved items box we still have the boxes and receipt. We looked at loads, but I am fairly traditional so I opted for a plain band and I wanted my husband to have the same style as me.  My eternity ring, is 18 carat gold diamond set and was my anniversary gift from my husband on our 15th wedding anniversary. I guess I wear that about 50% of the time and always take it off at night, but my wedding ring never comes off, unless it is absolutely essential.
Here we are in July 2013
This was taken a day or two before our anniversary

We celebrate our 20th anniversary next year.

As I have got older I find that the weight does have a tendency to increase. I have no thyroid gland,
having had two surgical procedures
and the result is that I take medication to replace the natural thyroid, it does not completely do the job, but as close as it can. So this means my metabolism is fairly slow. This hasn’t been helped by my working life of eating irregularly, often on the hoof, supplemented by the odd sandwich, packet of crisps and chocolate bar, so my poor body stores the fat as it is never sure when it will next be fed. Since I have had a change in my professional life, I have lost about a stone in weight, but I am not going to tell you what the numbers are! but I feel better than I have done in years.
I am right handed and therefore wear my watch on my left wrist. I have a very small mark just to the right of the watch dial which was a burn mark, from the sun when I was in Hawaii in 1991. That mark eventually went, but always comes back when we have hot sunny weather. I have a scar on the little finger of my right hand, caused by putting my hand through the glass in our old back door having locked myself out. I also have a scar on my right knee which I did during a hockey match sometime between 1982 -1986. I have a scar on my throat from having two partical thyroidectomies, we call that here an NHS neck-less, because it was done on the NHS! After over 20 years it has faded, but it can still be seen. I have a few random scars caused by scratching when I had chicken pox as an adult. In my first year after qualifying in pharmacy I had 9 colds and chicken pox!

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The In-Depth Genealogist – Digital Magazine – Issue 8 – OUT NOW!

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Julie Goucher
Picture

The next issue of the free digital magazine is available NOW!

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Enjoy this digital edition of the magazine? then why not stop by The In-Depth Genealogist and read the

You can read my Introduction post HERE and you can follow the column by visiting The In-Depth Genealogist website and subscribing via email or via twitter and Facebook.
This is a great addition to the genealogy market and I am very proud to be a part of it. This month’s Across the Pond column is about one place studies and newly launched Society for One-Place Studies which is truly worldwide. The committee span three continents and studies are included from across the globe.
Happy reading & researching!
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The Book of Me, Written by You, Prompt 3

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Julie Goucher

Today is week 3 of what is going to be a 15 month project. Each Saturday, at around 12.30am UK time I will release the prompt for that week’s Book of Me, Written by You.

 If you are new here, welcome! The details, background flyer and Face Book link to the Book of Me can be found HERE. 

The prompt for week 3 is

Describe your physical self.

Your size – clothes size
Scars
Eye colour
Draw your hands
Finger Prints

Now before everyone panics at the last hint of the prompt, have a look at this

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Friday 13th – Superstition!

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Julie Goucher
I was looking for something on YouTube earlier today, when I came across this song. Feel free to sing along, tap those feet, or perhaps do both! ….it is the perfect song for today, if you are so inclined.

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Frederick William Wait & Bertha Agnes Turner – Guildford 1917

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Julie Goucher

So, Who was Fred?…..

This was a question that I strove to answer back in December 2011 when I showed this picture on this blog and on Anglers Rest

A search of the Marriages for a B Turner in Guildford 1916+ to a Fred revealed one such entry. The marriage of Bertha A Turner to Frederick W Wait in the September Quarter of 1917 at Guildford. (Ref 2a, 201).

Working backwards to the 1911 Census. Did that reveal more of Bertha? The index revealed one entry for a Bertha E Turner. I took a chance and looked at the data. It didn’t pay off, and revealed a Bertha Elizabeth Turner residing at 144 Walnut Tree Close Guildford, a stones throw of my Grandmother at 114. Isn’t research curious?

Anyway, A quick look through the First World War records didn’t prove obviously helpful, neither did the Commonwealth War Graves website. So I still didn’t know who Fred was. A quick search of the 1911 Census for him and I was surprised. It revealed one entry; just one.

Frederick William Wait, Single and Aged 20 years born 1891 Guildford. On overseas military duty and recorded as in the 7th Dragoon Guards and stationed at Hislop Barracks, Trimulgherry, Duccan, India.

That I had not expected. This is still not conclusive that the Fred in India is the Fred in France. Were regiments pulled from various bits of the Empire in order to fight in Europe. Quite possibly.

Into June of 2013 and Ancestry have just released the Surrey records – a fabulous day! I took opportunity to see if I could locate the marriage record that had appeared in the indexes.

And here we are. The marriage 96 years ago today!

Courtesy of Ancestry.
Marriage September 13th 1917 St Mary’s Guildford
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