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https://www.familysearch.org/
I don't know if you're aware of it, but you can access census records for free. You can't see the 'originals', but they are fully trancripted.
What’s the rough cost to dig deep in your family tree?
Did you know that everyone who joins Ancestry.com is automatically baptised into the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) "in absentia".
I kid you not.
Dear Ancestry. Com
I’m searching for my missing forebears.
Please help
Yours sincerely
Joseph Smith
Why are you looking for four bears? Most people can make do with one.
Impossible to answer.
Are you talking doing it yourself or paying someone?
If you do it yourself, you need access to Ancestry and FindMyPast - which are available at Cardiff libraries or a free trial. You may need to buy certs to be sure you are tracing the right line (£9.25 each). But there is a limit to what you can research from home and almost certainly you'll need to visit county record offices (and maybe the National Archives) - or pay them or a local researcher to do your research. I spent £25 recently buying microfiche from Suffolk to trace a line back three more generations after getting through a brick wall.
A lot depends on how far you want to take it and how much you want to dig. It is amazing how much information lurks in dusty corners of archives. It's just a matter of knowing where and how to look - which is why using an experienced researcher might be considered.
If I ever wanted to do it i would have to get a pro as I would just give up after awhile, I’m sure my grandfather (fathers) has a family tree of sorts but not sure how far it goes back I think he put me off when mentioning our family was from the carrot crunching side of the world
Cyclops - yes, definitely adopted. It is a very long story which started with a request to the record office for a full copy of her birth certificate - previously she only had one of those short form type certificates. She was notified by letter that she was adopted and if she wanted to know more she was required to contact the adoption services department. This was so she could receive counseling to ensure she knew what she was getting into. She decided to go ahead and this opened up a totally unexpected scenario. I don't want to go into too much detail but she discovered she had numerous half brothers/sisters all of whom she has now met. Some were adopted and others were fostered and all have had widely different life experiences. Some knew of the existence of others, some no knowledge at all. It transpired for the first 3 years of her life my wife was kept in a children's home as her single mother did not want her (she gave her up for adoption immediately) and then was eventually adopted by the couple who she came to know as Mum and Dad.
No-one in the family ever mentioned that she was adopted, the same went for her "brother". Quite a remarkable story all in all (there is a lot more!) which would make quite a good weepy film/book!
Thanks for that detailed comment.
One of the satisfying aspects of detailed family history research is that it gives a sense of being 'grounded', so I'm not sure how I'd react to being in your wife's situation. Could be most unsettling to say the least.
I've got an odd situation in my own family re adoption. One of my ancestors was a powder monkey at Trafalgar and despite deserting from the Navy, he received a medal with a Trafalgar bar which according to newspaper reports he wore proudly until his death. I wondered what had happened to his medal as there's a direct line from him down to my mother. Recently, there's been a lot of publicity about an HBOS fraud case (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...aces-jail.html). One of the guilty (who had a yacht called Powder Monkey) has my mother's maiden name. He had a blog in which he boasted of his family connections with my ancestor - even having his Trafalgar medal. He claims to be the grandson of my great uncle. But my mother told me years ago that he and his brother were adopted. I've searched the Births Registration Index exhaustively and can't find either of them there, so I'm pretty sure she was right.
I'm aware of that. But as I've said earlier, I don't want to pay for a private company to own and use my most personal data as they wish. I mean, not even the police can retain your DNA if you're not a convicted criminal. Why would I give it away to a private company owned by a zealous religious movement.
Uhm, I’m not sure what you can do in these circumstances as you only have quite a tenuous connection with this person. If I’ve got it right it’s the grandson of your mother’s uncle (your great uncle) you are talking about? In my wife’s case she was seeking information about herself of course, so relatively straightforward.
A long shot: do you know the place of birth and date of birth of the man? You could then check the birth indexes and see who was born in the place on that day. There would only be a relatively small number of males born that day/place and maybe eliminate them one by one? The man you are tracking will disappear from the records as he takes on his adopted name, whereas the others will go on to adulthood, get married, maybe have children….. a long laborious process. Even then that will only give you his birth-name which may not lead anywhere. I can’t see any other way around it short of writing to the bloke in person (I assume he’s in jail) or are there any other relatives that you know of that you could contact?
When we started working on my family tree back in the late 1970’s we just happened to look up my wife’s details. We lived near London at that time so it was easy to go to St. Katherine’s house and look her up in the indexes there. In those days the entries were hand written but her name was not listed? We just assumed that the omission was a clerical error and did not follow it up. Knowing what we know now, of course her name was there all the time but it was her birth-name!! The great irony is that we could have discovered she was adopted back then but the repercussions would have been significant as her parents were still alive at that time. Maybe it was meant to be the way things turned out
I know the full names and ages of the two brothers and where they would have been born (if not adopted). Neither appear in the Birth Index. But I still have the note I made when Mum was talking about her family (long before the HBOS case) and with no prompt from me, she said the two brothers were adopted. She was 100% right on most things. He was using his adopted name when he married - I have the cert.
If anyone is following this saga - there is a Cardiff connection: https://www.ianfraser.org/ten-compan...f-david-mills/
Here is the article, you might be able to zoom in and read it I think it's very good