Genealogy, and deciphering a will
 

Has anyone here had experience doing genealogy of their families?

My family is traced back to the mid-1700's, but I am trying to trace back further now. We know a lot of details of everyone from their arrival in Canada, but I am now trying to trace back in England. The furthest back we had so far was the father of my ancestor who came to Canada. But we just knew the father and mother's names.

I contacted a woman in the records office in the town they came from, and she pointed me in the direction of a university that held records. Well, what do you know, I found his (the father's) will! I ordered a copy and had them email me a scanned copy as well, which I got today.

First of all, it's the neatest thing ever to see my ancestor's perfect old style writing from 1759! But it is really hard to read :( It is in great condition and really neat handwriting, but there are phrases, words, and whole sections that I just don't understand.

I've forwarded it to the lady in the records office, hoping she can make sense of it, but honestly I'm not sure how soon I will hear from her. A month ago she wasn't sure how I could pay (they don't accept credit cards there), and she wasn't going to start work on anything until I could pay her. I have tried getting in touch with her, just to find she was on holidays, and I am leaving for there in 3 weeks now. I was hoping she would have had my information done before we left!

Anyways, I'm just wondering if anyone can help me out, if anyone has any experience with this kind of thing! I just really want to be able to decipher and understand this will! The old English is beautiful, but frustrating!

I have heard that the Mormon Tabernacle Church has the best geneologies and old history on families going. Can't recall what the show was but it was something like Dateline that was doing a geneology or something on a person and they went there to their records department and they were so unbelievably in depth on all family names, lineages, etc. - and I don't think it was just this country. Later, I read a novel that involved visiting Salt Lake and digging into the church's stacks for info on a family and all things old at the time so they might be a resource.

Just Google LDS or Mormon church and geneology, etc., and see what you get. Good luck!

Thanks! I did find the family search website and I can find dates of births and christening locations, but my ancestor had a very very very common name so it's tough to know which one is the correct one!

My biggest issue is just reading this will. There are things like, he gives his nephew "all my moiety or half-part and all and every other my part of parts and share or shares of audiu (??) the good ship or (word I can't understand... thofsell??? looks like???) called the Martha and Mary" ... and that is one of the clearer parts! It seems he had a ship, or part ownership of a ship called Martha and Mary? Or I'm totally getting it wrong.

And "Fifthly, and whereas my Dear Wife is now (supposed??) to be onsiont (???) or with child now in case she is now onsiont of one child thou I give and decide all my said freehold estate and lauds at (Beadnoll??) aforesaid/charged and chargeable and aforesaid and also all other my freehold estates whatsoever and wheresoever to furh (?? first?) child whome it shall be born and to it heirs forever."

:eek: This is a long will! This is going to take me awhile :(

Why don't you email that Mormon church and see if they don't have an expert who could translate those antique terms for you? The impression I got from that old show and the book I read is that they have many, many experts who help out with these matters. At least maybe they could refer you on to someone who could - someone who makes this type of thing a hobby. What an interesting problem you have!!! Can't blame you for wanting to know all about it. Fascinating subject and looking back into those days and terms and ways of life is really interesting.

Thanks for the idea, I'll try that!

It is really neat! He left his wife an annual sum of "forty pounds of lawfull money of Great Britain" :) He was a wealthy man, a non-working "gentleman" (one step below knight) who was probably a land owner who made money off renting the land. His son must have been a little more adventurous because he became sloopmaster and eventually captain of some ships for the Hudson Bay Company which is huge in Canadian history :) From there we had many surveyors who laid out Canada's first settlements, and even the 49th parallel!

It is such an interesting history, but really, I wouldn't mind living the high life in England instead of working my butt off here :rolleyes: Did they really have to give that up? I was pretty amazed when I discovered that!

That is all so fascinating to somebody like me. I don't blame you for wanting to know all about it and I hope you can find one of those scholors working there who is dying to share all his/her knowledge of the zeitgeist of the times with you. And who knows - maybe you have kin in England and you all can start emailing, etc. I agree that living the good life sure beats 9 to 5!!! My husband was sooo into his family geneology, even though he was adopted.

RootsWeb: PACHESTE-L [PACHESTE] Reading old English wills -1500s to 1700s

How to Read 18th Century British-American Writing

GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com Blog Archive The Challenge of Handwriting

Cyndi's List - Handwriting & Script

Lindsey,

I hope these links will help you.

You can find anything!!!

I wish!:D

Ha!!!!! Don't we all. Still, you do pretty darn good!

I love stuff like this, love it! I'm obsessed w/ British History and read about it in some form or other, every day. The nuances in the writing back then (and the structure) can be very tough to decipher, compared to our writing. But how COOL that you have actual documents!!!

I've looked at different ancestry search things....but never know which one I should go with to help me find my ancestry info.

Thank you tons!!!!

THIS Examples of how the "leading s" looks in old documents had been screwing me up so badly! Most of the s's look like f's :rolleyes:

What started as a school project for my daughter....had me tracing our family back to England. Isn't it all fascinating?

You can find lots of info on line, unfortunately quite a bit is "incorrect" because...as you learned...someone can't read the name correctly so it gets mis-spelled. The more original documents you have at your disposal...the easier and better it is for you....

Here's the mormon site and I also used genealogy.com.

Not certain how much Canadian information the mormon site has.

Mormon Church (LDS) Genealogy / Geneology Records

Genealogy.com - Family Tree Maker Family History Software and Historical Records

Another site....

RootsWeb.com Home Page

Thanks guys so much for the help!!!

I have made some headway so far :) Yesterday I printed out the sheets and tried to read, and today I'm looking at them on the computer, full size, and it's much easier to see how some letters are written. Now understanding the S's and some other letters, I see what I thought was "thosfell" is actually "Vessell" ... "the good ship or vessel called the Martha and Mary". He did own a ship!

Since my last try with fake words, I realized:

Onsiont = Ensient, which means pregnant. His wife was pregnant while he was writing this will. I know they had just one son.

Fuhr = Such... Lol it took long enough to figure that one out! But the S looks like an F!

I also sent these copies to a woman I met last year online while doing research, with whom I share common ancestors. I totally forgot about her until last night! This ancestor is also common to us :) She e-mailed me back, pretty amazed that I found this! She said she has done some work with old English documents before, and she'd do her best to come up with a translation in the next few days. Jackpot!

I am just so excited about this!

;) This thead has my intrest now....i want to know more, keep it update as you find out, LOL

I have an aunt in MA that has traced back to the late 1800's early 1900 in Poland..She passed all her findings on to each living family member so we can pass it to families and keep it going, so interesting..

You'll get the hang of it. "S" does look like an "f". If you ever look through old census records, you'll see that a lot. The old documents are fun to read. I have many years of genealogical experience, so I've seen a lot of fun and different things over the years.

The best site is ancestry.com. It's costly, but worth it. You can purchase an international membership and have lots of fun. You can meet other people researching the same families. That's always interesting, too.:)

That is really cool! My family has had a lot of research done, there is even a published book that references them :) My parents have binders full of information at home, but we just haven't been able to find out anything more from overseas!

One of these days I'd like to go backwards from my mom's side too. My grandma came from Hungary when she was just a little girl, and she has some information like her parents' passports, and I found records of the ship they came in on, but I'm sure she still has many relatives in Hungary and I'd love to go there someday and find them!

Love it! So fascinating to dig into all that old history and get a feel for what it was actually like for your relatives.

I did my family tree... it was my passion before having a Yorkie!! just kidding.. but there was a time I was really into the research.

Anyway... I traced back to 1066 england on one side. Also many family "stories" proved to be untrue.. I was always told I was Polish, Royalty (of course ) and I have a piece of pottery that has been handed down for generations that is from our "royal family"... well...well not quite true lol

Wow! That is really far back! It's amazing you were able to find records that far!

Lol that's funny how stories get passed on! The stories I've heard from my family are all true so far, but I haven't heard any stories from further back! Everything else (from the arrival in Canada) has records, journal entries, etc, for proof!

The LDS church website is familysearch.org. You can also go to the locations page to find a family serch center near you. You can get access to records and free, personal help there. I know my grandma used to volunteer to read microfilms and got used to reading that difficult writing they had back in the day. So, I'm sure someone there can help with reading the documents.

My dad has a huge family and nearly all the work has been done on their genealogy up to the 1400's...at least, I believe...my mom's side: Her side is what I am working not. Not so much yet
My mom's family also came over from Hungary and settled in Saskatchewan. I feel like I might need to actually go to SK find some of these records

Wow that is neat! Do you know which part of Saskatchewan? I think most of the people given land were sort of ordered by where they were from, which is why there are some towns and areas that are predominantly Hungarian, Ukranian, etc. My family settled near Mistatim, and there was (and is) a large Hungarian population around there.