Our "Other" Family

Post by **emanday** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:29 am

I've just recently found my Great Grandfather's DC. Now we had always been led to believe that my grandmother was an only child, which she was in a way, but only in the sense that her mother only had one!

On that DC I discovered that my Great Grandfather remarried and had another daughter by his second marriage. We never knew about that.

So now I know that the wee 3 year old boy buried with my Grandparents is that second wife's grandson and not some cousins child. I looked up his DC and, sure enough, his mother was the grandaughter of that second marriage.

Somewhere out there are folk I am quite closely related to but never knew about

Post by **SarahND** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:12 am

Mary,
Find them!! We discovered my mother's SIX half-siblings just a few years ago. It was her father's first marriage, so they were all dead by then, unfortunately, but her 87 year old niece flew out to help her celebrate her 90th birthday last March, absolutely thrilled that she had a "new" aunt (and the family resemblance between the two is striking!)
Good luck!
Sarah

Post by **emanday** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:54 am

Way ahead of you Sarah

Like most folk who set out on the ancestry quest, I intended only to follow my direct ancestors, but many new discoveries have raised questions I am too inquisitive to ignore. Most are just curiosities, but this one is real FAMILY

I have to find out what happened to them; maybe even find them

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:05 pm

Wish you luck with this one Mary!

When you posted I thought 'This is a real find'

Please keep us posted with how you get on?

Russell

Post by **emanday** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:15 pm

It is a real find, isn't it Russell.

Have to say I was a little bit shocked when I found out. Neither my father nor my grandfather ever mentioned this, and none of my living rellies were aware of it.

Now, where's that credit card

I'll let you know if I'm successful

mallog · Post by **mallog** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 1:02 pm

SarahND wrote:Mary,
Find them!! We discovered my mother's SIX half-siblings just a few years ago. It was her father's first marriage, so they were all dead by then, unfortunately, but her 87 year old niece flew out to help her celebrate her 90th birthday last March, absolutely thrilled that she had a "new" aunt (and the family resemblance between the two is striking!)
Good luck!
Sarah

Great story

Post by **emanday** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:59 pm

Well folks! After beating my credit card into submission and searching SP for that second marriage with absolutely no success - I eventually tried using only the 2nd wife's details.

Eureka

My male rellie had been mis-indexed. Instead of Sloan, they had it as Slonn. I have filled in a contact form for SP and pointed out that his surname was as clear as can be, so it must have been a typo.

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:27 pm

emanday wrote:Well folks! After beating my credit card into submission and searching SP for that second marriage with absolutely no success - I eventually tried using only the 2nd wife's details. Eureka

My male rellie had been mis-indexed. Instead of Sloan, they had it as Slonn. I have filled in a contact form for SP and pointed out that his surname was as clear as can be, so it must have been a typo.

Wildcards rule yet again

This is a simple but very effective example of the situation where you can't really see whether there could be a spelling variant that could be covered by a wildcard search, perhaps not thinking at the same time of the effect of a wrong transcription, - in this case SLO*N or SLO?N, or, depending on the degree to which the given name involved, place, and year could be defined, maybe even SL*N could produce the desired result.

David

Post by **emanday** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:46 pm

DavidWW wrote:
emanday wrote:Well folks! After beating my credit card into submission and searching SP for that second marriage with absolutely no success - I eventually tried using only the 2nd wife's details. Eureka

My male rellie had been mis-indexed. Instead of Sloan, they had it as Slonn. I have filled in a contact form for SP and pointed out that his surname was as clear as can be, so it must have been a typo.
Wildcards rule yet again

This is a simple but very effective example of the situation where you can't really see whether there could be a spelling variant that could be covered by a wildcard search, perhaps not thinking at the same time of the effect of a wrong transcription, - in this case SLO*N or SLO?N, or, depending on the degree to which the given name involved, place, and year could be defined, maybe even SL*N could produce the desired result.

David

You are so right, David. I've got to admit, though I have used wildcards to great effect in the past, I dare say I was a bit over-confident on this occasion as I DID have the date and place of the marriage from their daughter's BC.

Yet another very expensive lesson learnt

and one I'll not forget in a hurry.

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:53 pm

Mary

Based on long hard experience, however unlikely one assesses that a surname is unlikely to be subject to variant spelling problems, there is just no way of taking account of mis-transcriptions .............. hence the need in cases such as this to start thinking laterally in terms of wildcard strategies that could pick up most possibilities.

Unfortunately, especially the shorter the surname, setting up the required wildcard search strategy ain't always that easy ................

David