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Interesting thread, I've bookmarked it. I've done a fair bit of genealogy stuff the last couple 18 months are so, and I'm amazed how much inaccurate information is out there that people just take as truth. I'm also amazed at how much information has made it online so quickly I've had to send away for a couple of documents and visit the LDS family research/history center a couple of times. Nice folks at the local LDS church. I've traced my paternal information pretty solidly back to the 1200's in England, anything past that doesn't really matter and is a guess at best anyway. Found some interesting information and people along the way. It's pretty neat. Some of the best stuff I found was in newspapers though, the amount of information published in them back around the turn of the century and before was crazy. Mrs. So and So is visiting family and will return in 3 weeks. The newspapers from 1890 to 1910 filled in so much previously unknown information about my family it was awesome.
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Jul 12, 2016 22:03
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Those turn of the century newspapers are great, if still under-digitized. I found one claim recently about a distant cousin who was shot by some guy in Atlanta during a fight the other guy started by calling him a slur (the newspaper leaves the word unsaid, but since the cousin was Jewish, you can probably guess what it was). The story went on for several days as the shooter hid from the police until the cousin was out of the hospital. I found some funny clips in the paper and some sad ones as well. There's a pattern going back a hundred plus years of males I'm descended from having depression/mental health issues. One gent killed himself with strychnine after his wife passed away. A distant cousin whom I've never met actually reached out to me on Ancestry and sent a few stories and a picture of my Great Uncle, and told me he died of a broken heart and how sweet and caring of a man he was when she was little. Another uncle type relative died suspiciously after losing his job, he was ran over by a railroad car. I know my father, his father, and my brother all have had issues as well. It's something I worry about sometimes but I see a therapist on a regular basis and try to take care of my mental health. Here's a funny one " Mr. <name> who is employed by Capen & Clark at their restaurant on Third and Main was sent on a wild goose chase Saturday Evening. Mr. <name>, who is ever faithful to obey the orders of his employer, was sent to W. H. Work's bakery for a "cake stretcher" from there he was sent to the Occidental hotel and numerous other places. He returned fatigued and innocent as a lamb." The newspaper clips were great to help verify a lot of information regarding marriages, children, divorce, estate settlements, etc. I was pretty fortunate though, someone 100 years ago wrote an entire book about my paternal family genealogy going back to 1632
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Jul 14, 2016 18:55
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Any good resources on deciphering old english writing? I have some record images from 1600's and can't figure out what they say
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Jan 31, 2018 16:50
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Thanks for the info, much appreciated. Anyone have any ideas? Trying to pin down the wife's first name and can't figure it out. Pricilla is a likely option. Some docs have transcribed it as Phillip and Phillipa I have 2 baptism records of her children as well that are not any better. This is what I know John Bridge son of John Bridge of Rayne......... married 30 day of September I'm checking out those other resources as well.  https://imgur.com/oRIYXKX Also, I just paid for a 24 hour sub to the Essex England digital archive, if anyone bychance needs something from there, hit me up
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Jan 31, 2018 18:03
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I think I'm making progress. Here's another image of the same info, I think it came from an index but it might be a little clearer https://i.imgur.com/DSTV9ed.png John Bridge, son of John Bridge, of Rayne <?> finch (f???h) daughter of Thomas of B??? (This could be, and most likely be Braintree), as Rayne, Braintree, Earls Colne are all in the Essex parish and pretty close to each other. edit: breaking tables
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Jan 31, 2018 18:40
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Thanks again, I'm going to see what I can dig up with Martha as the first name. Pricilla doesn't seem to be a common name back then, Martha makes more sense. The way folks switched names at will is frustrating as well when digging through stuff.
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Jan 31, 2018 18:54
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I'm not sure it matters after digging around more. Margaret/Mary/Martha isn't lining up with the baptism records of the John Bridge and sons I'm trying to figure out. Seems like all these guys had children named John or Thomas, one guy even named 2 of his kids Thomas. He calls them Thomas the elder, and Thomas the younger in his will.... basically impossible to straighten out with what little is available back then. The closest I can figure is this is Philis. The dates and location match up somewhat (wedding 30 Sep 1618, christening 2 Apr 1620) , but the names don't.  https://i.imgur.com/YbC4lTo.png edit: I think the 2nd clipping is from an index that was created a while after the original entry.
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Jan 31, 2018 23:09
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Krankenstyle posted:As for the possibly several John Bridges: I don't know how it was in England, but in contemporary Denmark you basically only had your baptismal given name (assuming you weren't a noble or something). All other names were bynames, the most common one being the patronymic. Sometimes they'd need to disambiguate or what not, so there'd also be geographic, occupational, etc bynames. I'm 100% sure there were multiple John Bridges around the area. Just trying to straighten them out is impossible. Frankly I find it amazing that records dating back to the 1500's even exist, so it's really really cool to try to figure this out. Supposedly the Bridge surname can be traced back to the Bridge Sollers region of England. Going back further that area was given to Simon de Brugge and his ancestors, (who supposedly came from the city of Bruges or it's area) which was part of Flanders/Belgium way back in the day. Brugges and it's various spellings is/was Dutch for Bridge, and I've seen different spellings of Brugges, Brydges, Bridge in documents and records. The House of Flanders which controlled the area that is now Bruges, Belgium supposedly helped William The Conqueror, and it's possible that an ancient <unknown> de bruge earned land/title for his helping during the invasion. The theory is over the years de brugge morphed into Bridge/Brydge. Bridge Sollers got it's name after a Bridge male married Mary Sollers in the late 1200's. Apologies for the following ramble, I doubt anyone is interested, but I think it'll be helpful for me to just type this stuff out and try to sort it out in my head. So a bit of background, I'm researching John Bridge the Puritan (Deacon John Bridge), who came to America circa 1633/1634 as part of the great migration, and well there's a ton totally incorrect information about his origins. His life and family after coming to America is well documented, but his life in England is pretty much a mystery. Some Ancestry trees (I have a love/hate relationship with ancestry trees), have his lineage going back to the 1200's and a Sir Simon De Brugge, and some other Brydges (possibly giles brydge a baron of chandos at one point)in the area. It's all conjecture and not even closely based on fact from what I've found. It's possible some relationship exists, but would be impossible to prove. For instance, his birthday is totally incorrect on his statue located at Harvard, but that was placed there like 200 years afterwards by a decedent of his. I'm 99% sure the birthday of his is wrong, the dates just don't make sense. Supporting this argument are a few we know about him - 2 sons, Matthew born circa 1620 to unknown mother, Thomas born circa 1622 to unknown mother. (I have the christening records, but as ya'll have seen, hard to figure out) Both sons came to America with him - Widowed prior to 1633/1634 trip to America - I found a burial record for a Margaret Bridge Jan 1630/1631 that list John as a spouse. This matches a 1618 marriage record of John Bridge and Mary/Margaret, but the christening records mention a Philis as the wife. Dates line up, names don't. It would be very odd for someone back then to wait until they were 44 years old (assuming the 1576 birth date is correct) to have children. He also would have been in his late 50's at the time he came to America which doesn't pass the smell test either. I'm sure some folks that age might have made the trip, but in a time where people didn't have the life expectancy they do now I cast doubt. While I don't have an exact date of his birth or christening, I did find a will of John Bridge Sr (d. 1614), that gives a farm/land to his son John Bridge Jr (Who I think is John Bridge the Puritan). I don't know how old you had to be back then to own land, but assuming it was 18, one can estimate a birth year of 1595 give or take a couple years. A 1595 birth date makes more sense when thinking about the birth of the 2 sons, and age in the mid/late 30's when going to America. It would have put his age at a more reasonable age around 70 years old at the time of his death as well. Keying in on the land deed records of the property referred to as "Tredgall Fenn" in old documents, a Thomas Bridge (d. 1580) willed it to John Bridge Sr, who willed it to John Bridge Jr. The property was sold around 1634/1635 which could match up with John Bridge the Puritan leaving for America in mid 1633. The dates are rough sometimes, and court was only held a few times a year from what I can tell. Supposedly John Bridge the Puritan, came to America with Rev. Thomas Hooker as a member of the Braintree or Hooker Party. It's known that Hooker and his party left Downs, England aboard the Griffin abt July 1633 and landed at Plymouth Sept 4 1633. No passenger list for the 1633 voyage seems to exist. Some people think he didn't get to America until later in 1634 based on his selectman application (Mar 1634/35), but no proof has been found. It is possible though as local church records show a John Bridge in attendance at some functions after summer 1633, but dry up 1635 and later. Something else that's been bothering me about trying to link all this together is the distance and towns of the area. The land "Tredgall Fenn" is in the Earls Colne region of Essex, which is about 6 miles away from Braintree, and 8 miles from Rayne. I don't know how mobile folks were back then. Regarding the potential marriage link of a John Bridge Jr of the Earls Colne region and a Martha of Rayne (8 miles away), not sure if that was common. The marriage record also lists John Bridge as being from Rayne, not Earls Colne. It's very possible these were 2 different people, but the dates do line up. Anyway, I'm at the point where I can disprove the information for John Bridge that's plastered all over the place, but I can't prove my current theory. The common names of John and Thomas just make things difficult to keep straight. I found records for what I'm assuming are 3 Bridge brothers in the Earls Colne area. Alby/Albon (b before 1540 d 1581), William (d1580), and Thomas (d1575), and all 3 of them had kids named Thomas and John. Thomas (d1575) named 2 of his kids Thomas to make things even more confusing. It is fun trying to figure it all out though. Anyone done a Y-DNA test? I did the ancestry one, but I was thinking the Y-DNA might help tracing paternal lineage more.
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Feb 1, 2018 19:51
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Krankenstyle posted:The baptismal records don’t list sponsors/witnesses to use for separating the two Johns? Unfortunately not, the baptismal records are just single line entries that read "Thomas son of John Bridge and <wifename> his wife was baptized 9 of November" No actual birth dates, maiden wife names, witnesses, nada. ComradeCosmobot posted:I wasn’t sure if this is what you were doing, but if so, you should definitely go mucking about in the Massachusetts court, land and probate records for him and allied families. He's pretty well researched, or so I thought anyway. Robert Charles Anderson's comments on him is what got me started digging. For instance the Elizabeth Bridge that also came to America that was supposedly his sister. No record of that. If he's actually John Bridge Jr, John Bridge Sr's will only mentions 2 sisters of his, Susan and Thomasine. There was an Elizabeth Bridge born circa 1596, daughter of one of the many Thomas Bridge in the area, who very likely was a close cousin. Not uncommon even today for close cousins to refer to each other as brother or sister.
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Feb 1, 2018 21:09
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Thanks for the post Oracle, I signed up last night and uploaded my ancestry data. We'll see what happens.
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Apr 26, 2018 17:32
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Just got an email from FTDNA about a sale. Big Y down to 499, Y-37 down to 129. mtDNA down to 149 as well.
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Aug 15, 2018 19:26
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The new ancestry thing is pretty cool and helped confirm a couple educated guesses. Closest relatives I have though are 3rd cousins 1x removed though. My father was an only child as was his father
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Mar 2, 2019 23:46
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I'm not an expert on this stuff, but R-M269 is a really generic haplogroup that covers over 110 million people and is the most common ydna for european males. . Looking at the yfull ytree, R-Y4010 is 11 branches down from R-M269, so it's a much more specific haplogroup. https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y4010/ I'm R-M269 as well, but also drill down to a much smaller subclade under R-Y3553
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Mar 8, 2019 17:45
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There's a lot of crappy genealogist. There's one lady who keeps screwing with my 3rd great grandfather on familysearch and removing factually correct information regarding his wife. I go back and fix it. So much BS out there from folks it makes it hard to trust other sources.
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Jun 26, 2019 22:09
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HJB posted:Any serious research you do has to be kept private unfortunately, most public family trees etc. on most sites are inaccurate. It's usually a case of adding bad information rather than removing good though. I guess it's to do with sourcing? Familysearch doesn't feel like the most robust in terms of compiling info like that. It's not the best place.. but I do watch the first 4 generations of direct ancestors on the site just to keep an eye on them. Wikitree is probably the best place for publicly keeping info online.
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Jun 27, 2019 17:02
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Thru Lines helps solidify some iffy connections in my tree. I was like 90% certain, but the DNA match helps solidify it in my head anyway.
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Jul 2, 2019 20:55
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I'm probably going to nuke my data from there as well. It's in Ancestry and FTDNA as well though, so it's sorta already out there.
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Dec 10, 2019 17:22
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I got an email today for a 30 day free trial from newspaperarchive.com, promo code "news" I doubt it's unique to me, so if you have nothing better to do in the next month might be worth checking out.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:18
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Oracle posted:Just tested this and it works. Just don't forget to cancel before the 30 days are up! Sweet! Another thing I just got in my email. My local library has somehow setup ancestry library edition to be used from home. Just had to put my library card number in and I can use it. I only subscribe to ancestry for 6 months every 2 years or so, so this is cool as well.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:05
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