My niece is driving me crazy!

[sheilajim]

Hi All

Well my niece has come and gone. I didn't get much out of her except some tips on how to make nice scrapbook pages. She is really into that. She wishes that I would I finish everything. Do we ever finish everything in genealogy?

All the same it was fun and I enjoyed having her over for lunch.

On another note- I wish that I could find some thief or something among my 'old rellies'. There must be some of them that weren't too honest. Maybe those are the ones that were picked up by aliens.

[Anne H]

Hi Sheila,
Well, at least you had a nice visit with your niece, and no, I don’t think we can ever be finished…genealogy is never ending!

As far as the famous or infamous are concerned… I'm sure most of us wouldn’t mind finding one or two for a little added excitement, but as intriguing as they may be, you really don’t need them. Your family’s story will have lots of interesting details to tell. The ordinary folk were just as interesting, if not more, if you think about it. Those names and dates of births, marriages, deaths and census records that we all have give us a lot of information. They not only tell us who, when and where everyone was born, they also give us a very good idea of the trials and tribulations they had to endure; the range of emotions from happiness and joy, to sadness and grief; who their neighbours were, the type of house they lived in, even down to how many windows were in the house, the type of work they did and so much more, and it all tells a fantastic story.

By the way, if you have anyone who was in the poorhouse, don’t forget to look into the Parish Council records, there might be some good finds there also. I had one in the Inverness Poor House on the 1901 census and emailed the librarian of the University of Stirling, Highland Campus, where I was able to get the bare facts of their poorhouse application. I was advised to contact the Inverness Archivist who searched the Parish Council records and was pleasantly surprised to receive copies of the applications which gave me some fantastic information of what they received from the Council. I’ve just sent the fee for a full search to be done to see if there’s anything else of interest. Apparently the actual Poor House records are kept at Aberdeen so I still have to send a query to them. Just thought I’d mention it since the Parish Council records had never really occurred to me before.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll come up with lots of fantastic background information for your family story.

Regards,
Anne H

[sheilajim]

Hi Anne,

Thanks for the tip. I never thought of Parish Council Records. I am off to take a look now.