Organising Genealogical and Research Papers

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Julie Goucher

Yesterday I took the time to join in a hangout on air with Jill who blogs at Geniaus.

The discussion was about organising genealogical research, which was triggered by a blog post written by Sharon who blogs at Gathering Dust and I shared, probably somewhat badly what I do with my research. You can read Sharon’s post HERE

Pauleen Cass shared her thoughts via her blog and I thought I would explain further what I do.

Firstly, let me explain that I began researching before the internet existed as we know it. I gathered research by visiting archives and using the postal service.

I also have a family history where my maternal line has lived within the parimeters of three Counties in England – Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire for around 300 years. It is therefore not too surprising that I have some surnames that occur more than once and several lines that cross over through intermarriage.

I also have the added complication that my husband’s surname does on occasions become Goacher instead of Goucher and I have Goacher’s in my maternal line. There does not appear to be any connection between my Goachers to my husband’s family but…….

  • My genealogical software program, I use Roots Magic contains a file called “Main File” 
    • I have a physical folders called Main File (JDG) for my maternal ancestry and
    • I have a digital folder called Main File (JDG)
    • I have a physical folder called Main File (SPG) for my husband’s ancestry and
    • I have a digital folder called Main File (SPG)

  • I also have two filing cabinets which hold suspension files such as shown in the picture here. I have a file for each surname where the material does not (or does not currently) provide a link to my own ancestry.
  • I also have two drawers for my two One-Name or surname researcher relating to my two Guild of One-Name registered studies of

I also have numerous papers and digital files that relate to other places where my ancestors lived such as

There is also my trusty set of Index Cards which I talked about here. I have scanned them, and I have the original cards, or at least I have at the moment. In addition I have every notebook and journal I have kept, all the way back to 1982. I always keep the first two pages free as my index and index as I go along. 
One-Name Study or Surname Research

The Orlando study currently sits at approximately 50,000 entries on a mixture of digital and paper. My plan is to put all the material online with the appropriate source material. I have a website and a blog and as I gradually add the material I add the details to the master index which is located in Google Drive and is available for everyone to see.
The same will be carried out for the Worship One-Name Study, although that has around 10,000 references.
When I work on family reconstructions for my these two surnames and for my Puttenham One Place Study I use Legacy, inspired by the +Legacy Virtual Users’ Group Community. 
Excel

I keep a track of all the material I have and where it is located. For this I use Excel. I also use Excel for my One Place Studies – index of parish records and in the case of my road study * I track the houses by number order. Each item recorded as a separate event. I can then filter by name or by property.
At the beginning of EVERY spread sheet I have a methodology sheet. Here I advise what the material is and how it is kept. 
Final Words

I am sure that my organising way seems complex to some. That is probably due to the mix of written and digital files. I am gradually scanning and archiving my paper mountain but to process research that nearly spans three decades it could take another three quite easily!
In essence my work is broken down into segments
  • My own family
  • My specific studies – Surnames / Places / items
  • Other material that does not fit and perhaps never will!
For each of those there is digital and paper and gradually it will all be digital with the exception of my own family. I rather like having that in the files and every now and again I glance through it.
I use Evernote as a premium user and have an electronic inbox notebook where I collate material until it is processed or sorted. The Orlando Evernote folder currently sits at 212 entries and at some point they will be processed into the digital structure, added to the master index and master index. The original Evernote item will move from the Orlando folder to the Archive folder where I won’t see it again unless I search for that specific item or it appears in search results.
I also use One-Note and whilst I originally love it, I have found in the last year or so that I prefer Evernote. I still have access to my One-Note files and over time will transfer them to Evernote. I have written blog posts about One-Note and Evernote and have shared the various links below.
The bottom line is there is NO right or wrong way to created and organise genealogical and historical material – there is only YOUR way! Do what feels right to you and make sure you write instructions for how the material is laid out.
Further Posts of Interest
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The Jolly Farmer, Puttenham circa 1909

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Julie Goucher
A postally used card sent to a family member, complete with ink stains!
Produced by Alfred Challen, Compton

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In Deep with the Book of Me – March Prompt 2015

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Julie Goucher

Today is month 3 of what is going to be a 12 month project. On the 1st of the month, at around 12.30 am UK time I will release the prompt for that month’s In Deep with the 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 and the prompt list for In Deep with the Book of Me can be found HERE

Genealogical Tapestry

Our lives can be defined as a tapestry. Clear threads, isolated from each other, yet coming together to represent a life. A full potential of being. What threads define you?

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52 Ancestors:# 6 ~ John Hunt Butcher – (1781 – 1839)

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Julie Goucher
No Story Too Small

This post is for week 6 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge (2015) by Amy Crow from No Story Too Small.

You can read the list of my posts HERE

How I wished I had a photograph of John, but I don’t. He sounds a fascinating individual and lead an incredible life; he has been one of those individuals that has absolutely needed a time line so that I could understand the key parts of his life, the decisions he made and the why he made the choices he did. Unless a diary exists in an archive or with a direct descendant I can only make an educated guess on some of those decisions.

John Hunt Butcher was baptised on 10th February 1781 in Cranley Surrey (Cranleigh is the correct spelling). His parents were Richard Butcher and Sarah nee Witherall. This branch of the Butcher family lived in Hascombe Surrey and my direct branch descends from Richard’s brother, Daniel.

On 7th November 1808, at St George Hanover Square, John married Sarah Burchell and it is from this point that John’s life becomes ever more interesting.

Parish Register – St George Hanover Square

John and Sarah raised their family at Parkhatch, an estate in Hascombe Surrey. This branch of the family had inherited a great deal of wealth through connections with subsidiary branches of the family relating to both the Hunt and Chandler families.

Surrey Records Centre 85/2/1/96

In 1814 we see the estate being put up for sale and for a long time following what happened to John remained neglected on my to do list.

A few years ago the archives in Tasmania in Australia put on-line a wonderful collection of material. I had no links to Tasmania in my own ancestry, but did have a few Orlando‘s that connected to my One-Name Study and it was while I was looking for the Orlando material that I came across the will of John Hunt Butcher.

It was very clear from the details provided in the will that the John Hunt Butcher was mine as it mentioned Parkhatch. So I began delving a little deeper into the life he had in Australia. I wondered what had made him sell up and migrate and the link to that is potentially back to the siblings of his wife, but more on that another day!

John Hunt Butcher, his wife Sarah and their 5 children sailed to Tasmania, in 1822. You can read the details via Trove, a wonderful Australian newspaper site (and much more!).

Over the last few years I have established that John became a magistrate in Tasmania and whilst he died in Australia, with a proved will there there was much travelling, back and forth to Surrey and mentions of various complications with wills being proved here in England. He died in 1839 and is buried in Hobart, but is named in a 1901 edition of The Launceston Examiner as the original importer of Merino Sheep to the colony.

On the face of it, it seems rather curious to be importing sheep, but that does give us a clue as to his standing within the community both in England and Australia. He could afford to import the sheep and probably did not travel in steerage with his family in 1822. After his death in 1839 the entire estate was sold in Tasmania, and I suspected that perhaps Sarah, his widow returned to England. This she did, but only it would seem to deal with various legal matters and she returned to Australia.

John and Sarah’s descendants live on, and moved from Tasmania to Western Australia, with links to Parliament, land owning and much more.

Site of interest

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Guildford from St Catherine’s

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Julie Goucher
I have very happy memories of St Catherine’s. In the summer holidays my Grandmother and I would walk to St Catherine’s. The reward a drink from the spring there, Gran would pack in her bag a small plastic beaker. It had red and white spots and would gently bend down and capture the water being careful to not capture any of the sand. We would have a drink and enjoy a rest on a seat before walking back to home.
I don’t know if this is a view I remember, but I am sure that it is one that my Grandmother would have seen many times.

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Guildford Railway Station – 30th August 1953

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Julie Goucher

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Stoughton Barracks Hospital Wing circa 1905

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Julie Goucher

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Desk Ramblings…..(21)

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Julie Goucher

It has been several months since I last shared a desk ramblings. The reason for this one appearing today is because someone wrote and asked me was I continuing the post themes as they missed them.

I am! Thanks so much to the person who wrote to me.

I have been busy focusing on numerous material that has needed to be attended to. I have been under the weather again and today the sun is out, or it is in my bit of Devon and I am looking forward to Spring.

We commemorated my late Mum’s birthday on Monday and on Valentine’s Day it was a year since Mum passed away. There has been so much that Mum has missed, even now I find myself reminding myself to tell her something then I remember. I don’t know if that will ever get easier or not, but all we can do is keep getting up, getting on and then repeating the process.

For those of you who are friends via Facebook will have seen a few photographs that I shared of Mum. There were some real beauties, of her as a baby, perhaps just a few weeks old, then through various stages of toddler hood and then into her childhood, up to about aged 9 or so. There are many more to scan and share, but I am sharing here my absolute favourite and apologies if you have seen it before, but I am sure you will agree Mum was a real cutie!

From the personal collection 
of Julie Goucher

I have had a rather large backlog of emails and things that needed attended to. I have three presentations to write for talks/lectures I am giving and whilst I had an idea of what I was talking about, I had not made a definitive decision on the actual material. Typically, ideas of inspiration always present themselves when I am not in a position to write them down, and in the case of one of those bursts I was not in a position to make a note using my smart phone either. Consequently I resorted to saying it out loud until I could write it down and received some very strange looks.

I had an email disaster last week, on Friday to be precise and whilst I am not superstitious, who really knows? I use Google for my emails. Then I can access anywhere. I routinely star emails that I need to come back to later. On Friday I noticed that there was 223 starred emails. So I selected all and moved them into another folder. Then I selected all again and deleted the lot. It was one of those moments when everything is in slow motion and try as you might you can not undo what has just happened. So if you have written to me and not received a reply your email was possibly one of those affected. Sorry about, and there are about ten people who I know I owed emails to and those names are safely on a rather long to do list, stored in Evernote.

“Normal” service to be resumed shortly…..

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Tuesday’s Tip – England Immigrants

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Julie Goucher

Last week I became aware of this fascinating site – England Immigrants 1330 – 1550.

I had a quick look at the site and did a quick search for my two One Name Studies surnames of Orlando and Worship. As I suspected no revelations were forthcoming, but if you select the option of advanced search the bottom box on the left marked “place of residence” might reveal some early inhabitants of the location you are researching.

I did a search for Puttenham,which is one of my One-Place studies. there were no hits, but a search for Wanborough a village about two miles away revealed a hit. (Actually the search revealed two, one for Wanborough in Wiltshire too).
There is an option to reveal a summary or the full details. In this case it showed the results for a Nicholas Frensshman (Frenchman), an immigrant from France paying taxes on 28th May 1440. The original document is located at The National Archives at Kew under catalogue number E179/184/212.
What is so fascinating about this site is the social, economic and historical context. This is a time before standard surnames were used. This particular document shows that there was taxation for those who chose to come and live in England. Remember that this would include those from Scotland. Henry VI was the reigning monarch.
A search of the site for my home town of Guildford Surrey revealed 23 entries for the period of 1394 – 1440 from a variety of places, Ireland, France, Belguim (described as Flemish) & Holland (described as “Hollander”). 
Copyright – Julie Goucher July 2014

For anyone who has stumbled across my blog Guildford and District will have seen a selection of postcards of the Castle ruins, the castle which pre-dates this period. As someone who grew up regularly visiting the castle grounds and seeing the ruins it is hard to imagine that the castle was once an inhabited venue. It would have had a remarkable view, indeed it still does!

The biggest tip is that every source, index or website that we encounter can assist us to put our ancestors into the social context of the time.

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Lords Hill, Shamley Green circa 1909

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Julie Goucher
This was such an unusual postcard that despite being in a slightly worse for ware state, I had to purchase it and ad to the collection.

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