So, hello Nathan.

How are you doing?

I'm alright, thank you.

Helen, how are you?

I'm good, thank you.

No one else can see my face because this is just an audio, but Nathan can see my face and it looks a bit pudgy, like you're a bit tired.

You've been doing a bit too many things, doesn't it?

No, not at all.

Well, I think it does.

I have been trying to use my brain a lot on my project.

Yeah, go on.

What have you been doing?

So I have been revisiting Mary and Pickering, just saying the name quickly so we don't have to hear it too much.

Where's Helen?

Where?

What?

Oh, we haven't said who we are.

Who are we?

Yes, never mind who our ancestors are.

Who are we?

So my name's Helen Tuffy.

I'm editor of Family Tree and we do all sorts of cool things like webinars, monthly magazine, online courses, this lovely podcast, other guidebooks to do with family history.

So we live and breathe doing family history.

Pretty much most of the time, apart from when we have to do other things, but we love doing family history.

And who are you?

I'm Nathan Ward.

I'm a lost soul wandering around the world trying to find my family via family history.

Yes, and Nathan does amazing things with Family Tree as well.

He makes everything we do look gorgeous for a start.

So let's do the podcast.

Anyway, here we are.

We're reconvening to find out how we've got on over the last little while, few days, week, with our family history.

Yes, sir.

Sorry, you were saying about Marianne Pickering.

Well, I can talk specifics and general things.

So basically, when I started looking through, I'd be doing this project.

I've known about this research brick wall for years.

It was one of the earliest entry points for me for family history.

And my mum told me that one of our ancestors had to unpick this name on a...

cross -stitch sampler because her surname wasn't legitimately hers, presumably.

And that always kind of broke my heart a little bit, the idea of this poor little girl having to unpick her sewing.

Anyone who does sewing knows how long it takes to sew something.

So having to unpick it for any reason always makes you want to cry.

But if you've been told you have to unpick it by some mean relation who says you're not legitimately allowed that surname in a world, in the Victorian world where...

Obviously, there's lots of nuances, but the overriding impression we get from it, it's pretty harsh on people who don't follow the path of moral high ground.

And my heart goes out to her.

She's my great granny's granny.

Yeah, so it's a pretty long time ago.

Yeah, it sounds sad.

Doesn't it?

So I've known about it for a long time and I set myself back in 2024.

I was like, right, I am going to get to the bottom of this.

So I set out and I did a splurge last summer.

And then in the autumn, when I was interested to read through my research.

research notes and it said in october i was like right just reviewing my research log so far to find out what on earth i found out because basically i'm really busy not finding her like i've got 3 000 words of little tiny notes of what i've not found done lots of not finding okay eliminate in the negative space yes yes so and i knew we were going to talk about this in the podcast i was like how do i even articulate this and i thought i'm gonna have to ask nathan ask me questions or I can just try and rabbit on.

What do you want to, should I rabbit a bit and you can start asking questions?

Yeah, you rabbit and I'll get inquisitive.

Okay.

So you, everybody or anybody who listens to more than one episode of our podcast will know that we are a big fan of research logs because they're so, so helpful for recording things.

So I have been fairly diligent at recording what I've tried, what worked and what didn't work.

And I've set myself.

loads of little notes of like what I'd need to do next time stuff like that so I've got to the point I've looked for her I'm trying to find out more about her childhood and I'm now building up I'm gathering all the people by the surname Pickering in her parish and the surrounding parishes and I'm gathering together all of her siblings and they're just on the cusp of they're born in the 1830s through to the 1840s so some of them have only got baptisms because they're born before 1837 in England and Wales, and some of them have got births and baptisms because they're born after 1837.

So just going back to that for my own personal stuff, 1837 is when we started recording births?

Yeah, so in England and Wales, from the 1st of July 1837 was when we started recording births, so it's called civil registration, so it's the state registration of all of the births.

Why it's cool is because they have a really bossy...

more detailed form.

And so it includes the father's and the mother's name.

And you feel like you've got a bit more concrete evidence.

When you go further back with the parish registers, like even, so I've got my Marianne's born in 1839.

I've got her birth and her baptism.

But if I go back to her older sister, Carolina or Caroline, who's born or baptised in 1835, it has the dad's name, James Pickering.

But for the mother, it just says Mary.

What are we, medieval or something?

Yeah?

That's just rubbish, isn't it?

Yes.

Well, I should be thankful it's got a first name for the woman, but crikey.

Well, I mean, it was always going to be Mary, wasn't it, as well?

It was always going to be Mary.

It doesn't really narrow things down, does it?

Yeah.

So I am just busy gathering stuff.

And on the whole, my research log is being helpful to me.

Yeah.

Good.

So whereabouts are you now?

Is this an impossible question for me to ask you?

Where are you in your search for Mary Ann Pickering and her life?

So where I am, I actually am taking some leafs out of your notebook and I have set up an Excel.

I've got an Excel -like workbook.

One was with the Pickering reconstitution page where I'm going to be gathering all my Pickerings that I can find in the parish, in the neighbouring parishes.

But then I'm also, I set up another.

worksheet in this workbook, which is just to build up the nuclear family.

So Mary Ann and her siblings, just the key details of their birth and baptism.

And then the same for their parents, because what I want to try and establish is how many Marys am I dealing with?

Am I definitely dealing with the same Mary?

Why is my Mary picked on not to be allowed to call Pickering when she's in the midst of a whole run of children and the others all seem to be allowed to call Pickering?

So what went on there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm doing a timeline and I'm gathering together all these birth and baptism details.

And what's proving so far is that sometimes I'm on the baptisms, the mum, Mary Ann's mum, sometimes it's called Mary, sometimes she's called Mary Ann, sometimes she's called Mary Ann.

And so this is kind of one of those things, the more you know about the...

people and the record keeping in the era and the area you go okay so they're just a little bit fluid they're like get Mary Mary Ann you choose and they so that's nice to know don't keep ruling people in or out just because they're called because when I first saw it called Mary I was like yeah so you just know you have to be a bit flexible then other useful learning points I found because I do love a map and because my geography is pretty bad then I've gone to the family search maps website that I told you about before They're not beautiful maps, but they're really useful, like data maps.

And so you can choose maps of parishes or maps of poor law unions or whatever.

So you can find out about the names of the administrative areas for your area, which again sounds so dire, but it's really helpful to know that my parishes I'm after are my little hamlets and my poor law unions.

districts what you it's helpful to know all the different words i might be looking for which all are describing the same place yeah yeah various levels of detail so really cool um the parish is called hodnet and the other parish i'm interested in is woolerton and they both only have one place called that um in england right same area then yeah they're right next door to each other and they're it's really useful that there's only one of them because you know you've come across it haven't you sometimes you think There's only one place, and then there's loads of places called that, and it's like, oh, God, I have to be careful to get the right one.

It can be, like, such a random...

Like, for me, it was Ecclesill, which, to me, is such a random name.

Nowhere's going to be called that twice.

I've found two.

It is.

So, with your Mary Ann Pickering, have you found any documentation of her with a different surname, or...?

No, not yet.

Right.

But that is a very good question.

You always come up with really good questions, Nathan.

So when I was looking and looking for her, not finding her in the 1851 census with her surname Pickering, and then halfway through my big long 3 ,000 words of notes, I did find a note to myself, which I was like, yes.

So I'm looking for Mary Ann Pickering around the time she's sewing the sampler.

I think she's 10, 11, 12.

I think she's 12 when she's sewing the sampler.

So this is the precise age when she's been told she's not allowed this surname.

So why am I looking for her in the 1851 at precisely this point where she'd been told she's not allowed the surname?

She's unpicked the surname and I'm persisting on searching on the surname in the records.

It's like, don't be a dummy.

She's probably not going by that surname because she's been told she's not allowed it.

Right.

So now I have to be searching for Mary Ann's with just her age.

But she's not with the rest of the family on that sense.

No, no.

So she's, do you think she's been cast out then?

No, because in the earlier senses, her, she had an older sister who was living with, I can't remember who, with other family members anyway.

So I think her dad was a farmer.

It's probably quite a small, fairly close -knit community.

There's other relations nearby.

And for any number of reasons, by the time she's like a 12 -year -old girl, she could be pretty helpful.

Let's say her auntie's had a baby.

She could be going around to look after her little cousins or something, couldn't she?

There's any number of reasons why she could be not at home.

which are perfectly calm.

Okay.

I'm hoping it's the most reason.

I find it really weird with the census, like literally a snapshot of the day.

It's not like in your house, these people usually live in my house.

I'll write their names down.

It's who's living in your house today.

I find that so weird.

It is really weird.

As long as in modern day now, I think if someone said who lives in your household, you wouldn't be like, oh, well.

so -and -so, so -and -so, so -and -so, oh, but he's on holiday today, so I'm not going to write his name down.

I find it really odd that it is literally that much of an extreme snapshot of a day.

Do you know, when they first started the census, I'm pretty sure, so they did a few censuses just for statistical reasons, and David Annell, who's a blooming brilliant family historian and expert at the records, he writes articles in Family Tree every month, and in an issue very, very soon, in the October issue, he's got...

an article all about these early censuses.

And so censuses were kept or were first taken from about 1801 across England, Scotland and Wales, and then Ireland chips in a little bit later.

So by 1821, you have a census for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but they're only recorded for statistical purposes.

So it's very rare you get any people's names at all.

And if you do, it would only be the...

fathers like the head of the household the man's name and lots of them because they weren't needed to be kept would have been destroyed or lost and dave writes about how even one for his area in scotland was kept in the kitchen drawer for like a century mad isn't it yeah but then apparently um dave i didn't know about this but dave writes about it in the magazine that there's this project by the church of latter -day saints and they're trying to gather together all these little fragments which have been in kitchen drawers and other places like that and hopefully some have got into archives, and that they're thinking there's going to be about half a million households over these first four censuses.

So 1801, 1811, I think it's 1813 in Ireland, 1821, 1831.

That's four decades of information.

And if you can get half a million households and they've all got, let's say, four people in them, that's two million clues, isn't it?

It is.

With those, I've not got that far back yet, but is there a point where the censuses become really hard work?

Well, those early ones are really hard work.

They're basically like gold dust.

If you happen to have one for your area, you're really, really lucky.

And they write, Nathan, that Yorkshire is good for them.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

I mean, that's fantastic, because I'm just trying to get out of Yorkshire now, and now I should be in Yorkshire.

Yeah.

Do you have any documentation that suggests your handed down story is true?

Yes, the sampler with the surname unpicked.

You've got it?

Yeah, my mum's got it.

All right.

Phenomenal, isn't it?

It's phenomenal.

So my mum's family is brilliant.

It doesn't have the world and his wife of silver antiques or anything like that.

But my mum has a run of embroideries, like cross -stitches and things like that, which...

go back I think this Merriam might be the earliest one might be one just before then anyway it's generations of women and so by the time it got to me as in the 1980s early 1980s I was of the age to sew a sampler I was when I sewed mine I was 12 so mine's part of the collection yeah all right cool my daughters have done one as well I've now got a little granddaughter so she doesn't realize it she's only a baby decade time we're all going to be like forcing her to do her sewing That's really cute.

I hadn't realised that you actually had it.

Sorry, I missed that point.

No, it's all right.

It's just amazing, isn't it?

That's a really great piece of family history to have as well and hand down to people.

Amazing, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's very small.

It's probably like half the size of a piece of A4 paper.

Like, it's portrait, yeah?

And it's just like on beigey old dirty fabric, just because it's very old, with beigey old threads on it.

That's cute.

I like it.

It's cool.

It's hands up in my mum's bedroom.

What's your plan of attack then?

Plan of attack is to, I just literally didn't know how I could exist without a spreadsheet to keep all this information in one go because it's all very well having a big long Word document.

I think that's really how I normally do it is I'll have a Word document and an Excel because a Word document is really useful for writing down, I think this, I thought that, I tried this.

You can read it like a, not a fun story.

Well, it's fun for me because it's my facts, but you wouldn't want anyone else to read it probably.

And then the Excel sheet, like you use it, is really helpful because you can see it.

You put in, make out your columns, whatever you want, and you can see at a glance what you do have and what you don't have.

And then you can start to fill in those gaps, can't you?

Yep.

So that's my plan, just to keep working on them.

Just to keep digging them.

Hmm.

It's interesting you say all that, though.

Like, I am still doing my research log and I am still using Excel, but I've really gone to paper.

Like my research this week, I've even drawn a table, which I could have done in Excel, but I've done it on paper.

And I'm like, what's wrong with me?

And then not only I've not written up any of my notes, but they're on paper and I enjoy, I quite enjoy leafing through the paper.

Even like, even though it's my handwriting, I'm still like, oh, look at me writing notes.

I don't know.

I think that's great.

I think that's lovely that you've got a paper record.

So have you got a nice notebook?

Are you going to buy yourself a really luxy, delightful?

No.

No, I've got a tatty, like, I don't know what it was, cheap as you like notebook.

Maybe I should invest in a...

You like stationery.

I do love stationery.

Oh, you should definitely invest.

That should be your Saturday morning shopping, going off and getting yourself a gorgeous notebook.

I'm taking my kids to do some back -to -school stationery shopping.

Oh, brilliant.

And I've already planned to nip into one of the art shops because I love a good pen or a drawing pen.

Yeah, I should do that.

I think for me, the thing was, I didn't even know I was going to be writing things on paper.

I'd never expected me to migrate from computer and actually go backwards to paper.

But I find it easier and clearer to do it that way.

Interesting.

You're right.

I should dress it up and put it in a nice looking book.

You should because...

So how long have you been doing your family history?

Less than a year, isn't it?

Yeah.

So you could even just...

Oh, I love it because what happens in family history, before you know it, the years and the decades add up.

And then suddenly you've got a really meaningful collection of material there.

So you're going to get your gorgeous notebook.

You can write today's date or whatever day you buy it.

And then you can go from whatever date you started.

It doesn't have to be precise, like the autumn of 24.

I started doing my family history, took my DNA test, thought I was going to do X, Y and Z.

Ended up doing this, Y, whatever, P, Q and R.

And then in not very long.

Even this autumn, it'll probably feel a bit nostalgic and it'll just be so nice.

Yeah.

It makes me feel more connected.

I know it's stupid, but the difference of looking at somebody's name on the computer screen compared to me writing James Maxwell McKay on top of a piece of paper and then finding out information, I'm drawn in.

I'm emotionally involved with these people when I've written their names down, whereas I feel less so when I just see them as documents and digits on screen.

We're going to throw this out to the listeners.

So we would love to hear what you prefer.

Like, do you prefer Pencil, Pen, Excel, some of the other fancy apps that I definitely don't use, like Evernote.

Some people are massive fans of, or Goldie May, or do you just use the desktop software like Family Tree Maker or Roots Magic?

We'd love to know what people use.

And do you use, probably you use a combination of things, but...

Yeah, we just love to have a nose.

I know what people like.

And there really isn't a right or wrong way.

So you said it's stupid.

It's not stupid, Nathan.

And part of me is a little bit jealous of how lovely you find paper.

And I do like writing things.

I do have the only thing I have for writing.

Well, I do record memories like on my phone or whatever.

So audio memories with people or what else do I do?

Yeah, and then I will type up memories.

And I have got a little notebook.

where I and it's a really nice one it's got a silk cover and then when people tell me memories I'll write them down in there and if you're doing that for about I don't know 10 years or whatever so just random memories yeah they normally they are normally like the cool stories or just really poignant little moments and it's not like a journal it's very haphazard what goes in the thing but when I think this has got too many too cool or too many facts or something i'm just not going to remember it and it's too quirky and i just love it have it i've got the little notebook and some some of the stories have been told to me more than once and i'm so forgetful i forget they have so i write it down i write it down slightly differently which i love that as well there's no one's lying it's just it's just a memory it's like that isn't it's not a static thing it evolves a little bit i read an interesting thing the other day it was actually probably more about mental health than it was anything else but it was talking about how memories it's like saying this memories don't exist they've happened they only exist in your head once they've occurred and in your head they're going to be different to actually other people's experiences of them and actually what really happened and it was just an interesting concept it's all about like living for today and forgetting about the past and your worries but you can see that translates so quickly and easily particularly with family history it's like One person's memory, like I've had it obviously with the Mary Ann Briggs, Wood Briggs, whatever, Taylor.

Stories get passed down and it becomes wrong because it's been remembered in one way.

I think memory is a weird thing, isn't it?

Because there's some memories we get definitely directly from our...

you from the source so somebody says this happened to me in my life i was like my dad for instance was his he was in a submarine coming back from oh i can't remember i think it's bermuda in the book anyway um and the submarine something went wrong and it started going too deep and something was called hms tabard and so that's a my dad had this experience he's told it to me but then at other times i might research something that say my great -grandfather did in the first world war He never told me about it.

The only way I've got that information is from documents at the National Archives or online or whatever.

But I've researched this.

I've made it into a fact -based, not story, but it's a fact -based account that I will tell my relations.

So we all have this memory of what he did, but it's not a direct memory, but it's a story.

It's part of our family's story now.

You've got far too many cool stories.

Your dad was in a submarine.

Yes, I think I have banged on about it before.

So he was in the late 60s.

I could get my little book down.

Try to quickly get my book down and get it right.

Go for it.

Okay.

I can actually find the little book because I tidied up my bookshelf at the weekend.

Not colour -coded, I hope.

Not colour -coded because my husband got a bit cross when I colour -coded all the books in the house a few years ago.

That was a lockdown going mad project.

Is it height order now, then?

Well, it's in categories, but then they're roughly in height order.

Here we go.

So it's in Bermuda.

It came back in a submarine from Bermuda in 1968.

What happened was my dad wasn't in the Navy or anything, but they needed another officer to make up a four in bridge.

That just sounds so vintage to play bridge, yeah?

So this Royal Navy submarine called Tabard, which is the 1944 build, this way you suddenly feel old, that your dad's old enough to be in a submarine that was in the Second World War.

It was like, oh my goodness.

It was leaving for the UK.

Captain called the local army regiment.

Could they spare an officer?

And because my dad was the junior officer, he went because obviously he's not very important because he's just a little pipsqueak at the bottom of the pile kind of thing.

He was spared to play cards?

Yeah, he was spared to play cards.

Can he play bridge, said the Royal Navy person.

The army person said, no, but you'll have plenty of time to teach him.

Okay, so my dad's just, it's literally just such a random old school.

I mean, can you imagine if this story happened today?

The press would go bonkers about waste of government resources, wouldn't they?

Yeah, that's hilarious.

Yeah.

Anyway, at some point on the journey, one of the pressure gauges was read wrong and the submarine went too deep and there were groaning noises and popping noises and all the Royal Navy folk were really stressed.

My dad's the only army non...

submariner on board asked, so what will happen?

Will we keep sinking and then sit on the bottom of the ocean till we run out of oxygen?

And then one of our Royal Navy officers said, no you, insert rude word, idiot, it'll implode in seconds and we'll all be squashed like sardines in the tin.

My dad, I wrote, my dad, this is my notes, my dad, understandably found this a traumatic experience.

Wow.

Has he been back into a submarine since?

No, no, no.

Obviously, it was all fine and he survived because obviously you're here.

Do you know what?

Maybe I've got inherited memory thing of him because I wasn't born then.

But I am so claustrophobic.

I'm literally getting like a can't breathe, like get me out of this place thing.

Whilst wanting to play cards at the same time.

No, that bit didn't rub off on me.

Yeah, who knows?

Goodness, we are waffling anyway.

How are you getting on with your research then, Nathan?

I want to say well, and I am doing well, but I'm not necessarily getting where I want to.

Welcome to family history, everybody.

So I made my task to ignore everything that I was doing and try and trace my Mackay line back through to get me to Scotland so we could spend some time on Scotland's people.

So I've been doing that, but like everything family history related, it's never straightforward.

You never get...

You never get to where you're going.

So I was trying to get back and I'm looking at James Maxwell McKay because he's got an awesome name.

He's my great, great granddad.

So I was looking into him and then obviously trying to progress backwards with him to my great, great, great granddad, Alexander.

And in starting looking at James, I found a few gaps and discrepancies that.

in my new census list form style of research, involved me then tracing all his brothers and sisters.

So to trace them, I actually had to trace his parents more.

So it's naturally helping me get back.

I am going backwards, which is great, but nothing straightforward, is it?

So I was researching Alexander McKay on the census to try and find out about the children.

There's lots of little bits here.

So I just need to try and piece it all together.

Forgive me if I stumble.

Basically, I found James on a couple of censuses and he's quite straightforward.

But there's one census where he's on there with his mum, but not his dad.

So his dad's not on the census.

And this is like, so he's on the 1871.

James is on the 1871 with his mum and dad.

He's on the 1881 with his mum.

He's on the 1891 with his mum and dad.

and in between all this there's a mixture of children that appear and disappear and reappear and go off and don't come back so there's lots of children there's 10 children on this in this marriage and they disappear and come back depending on or don't in some cases so every single one of them obviously I've become fascinated by because I want to know everything so I'm stopped that's where it stopped I haven't gone further back than this great great great grandfather because I'm trying to find and place all the children.

And it's bonkers because the wife, I think I mentioned this a couple of podcasts ago, she's called Jane.

It's often referred to as Jeannie.

So she pops in and out on the census, depending on what mood I'm in, if I can find her correctly.

But the amount of children helps.

So I've found so many references of being called Jane or Jeannie.

So I'm quite comfortable with that.

But then Alexander has also been called Alfred on one of the...

which is completely different, but the age matches, the children match, the wife matches.

So I'm taking that as just a little bit of an error.

So that's been fun.

And then it was, yeah, so I couldn't find him on the 1881 census.

And then I found him through two children.

So there were two children, Jesse and Emily, who were on, oh God, it goes on this, doesn't it?

They're on various censuses with the family.

In the 1871 census, they're all on there, apart from Emily, who hasn't been born yet.

But she reappears on the 1891.

I'm sorry if none of this makes sense.

There's a lot of facts, figures and names.

Anyway, she appears on the 1891, does Emily, but she's not on the 1881.

So I'm missing Jesse and Emily in 1881 also.

So I did a search for those two with the father and I found them all together.

So it's just those three.

It's Alexander McKay, Jessie and Emily, but they're living in Lancashire.

They're not necessarily living there.

They're in Lancashire when the census was done.

Jessie has a new surname, so she's married.

She's called Hayworth now, but she's still living with her dad.

At this point, these are questions I've got, like, is it a holiday snapshot?

Is it that ridiculous that they've gone on holiday to Lancashire for the day and stayed over?

Because she's not with her husband.

I've not researched that.

I've found evidence of the husband.

But I need to research that further.

And then on the flip side of that, in the 1881 for Jeannie Jane, when she's head of the household for the census on that one, she's got a nephew living with her called Finley McKellar.

And then there's somebody else who's a lodger who's roughly the same age as Finley.

And I think that must be his girlfriend, perhaps.

But I'm, again, guessing because I've not gone down that rabbit hole yet.

And now I want to find out about him, even though he's not on direct line.

And in 1861, the entire family has a servant.

And I think they might have a servant in the 1891 as well.

So there's lots and lots of bits of metanosia.

So that's as far as I've got.

It's confusing when they go off and don't be all together.

Because it raises so many questions, doesn't it?

It really does, because part of me is like, oh, maybe they've split up, but then they're back together on the 1891.

Yes.

But then it's like, why is the daughter with the father and she's married, but she's not with her husband on this particular day?

Is it that ridiculous, the census?

Yes, it will be that specific.

So it could even be something like, this is me making up stories off my head, I did watch something recently where there was an old person in a...

It wasn't exactly this, but it was like a dramatization of something like Charlotte Bronte's life.

I can't remember, something like that anyway.

And there was an old person in the movie anyway, who was poorly, they were losing their eyesight or something.

And then the daughters took the dad into the nearby big town to go and get his eyesight checked.

So for instance, that could be what's happening.

It could be something really specific and random that...

The older children, the two older daughters, are accompanying a poorly...

Who knows?

I mean, it's a surmise, isn't it?

But for some reason, those three, this dad and his two older...

Sounds like they're older children.

Is that me making that up?

One of them's the eldest and one of them's the youngest.

Ooh.

Which is very strange.

So I just literally don't know.

I just don't know.

But there's...

The fact that, I mean, you're probably never going to know the answer why they were there.

You could search newspapers just in case, because they got a servant in case they were doing something to do with business or if there's anything noteworthy happening.

You can find out what's happening around that time in the place in Lancashire where they went.

Let's say there was a...

Great big exhibition or something?

I don't know.

You're probably going to never know the answer to this, why they're apart.

What you do know is that they didn't separate because they're back together again.

Or if they did, it's any temporary.

That's infuriating.

Yes.

Oh, it's exhausting to be infuriating, isn't it?

I'm really chuffed that I found them because I applied all the logic for finding Mary and Taylor Briggs would Taylor would would Briggs.

So I applied all the things that I, well, I didn't do any, is it wildcarding?

I didn't do any of that, but I applied the logic of looking for the children and stuff.

So I'm chuffed that I actually managed to apply that and find them.

But it just seems a bit random that they've gone to Lancashire compared to, say, everybody else is in Yorkshire all the time.

Yes, it does seem.

And there's no other Lancashire connections after that.

I haven't had any in particular.

I'm going to go look at Jessie because she's married.

So I want to find out about her husband.

Maybe he was over that way.

Maybe it's something to do with that.

What was Jesse's husband's job?

Do you know that yet?

No, because I don't know any particulars.

I don't even know how I know his name.

It could be that he worked at sea or something and he's come back from sea and so the dad is accompanying his daughter to go and meet him off the boat.

The little kid, because the little kid doesn't have to be in school.

I'm fantastic at making up spontaneous stories.

But it could be something like that, couldn't it?

Anything could be, yeah.

But I feel like that's probably my only real inroad to this story.

Well, obviously, like I say, Emily's so young.

I don't know how old she is.

I'll have to double -check all that.

But just the fact that Jess is there and she's got this different surname, that's my only link to something being...

I miss all different.

So I've got a marriage to search for that.

But it's that thing again where my urge was to, or my goal was to get further back and I've literally just got to the people I've got to and just gone sideways completely.

And now I'm going down.

So it's, I love it.

I don't care.

I love it.

I don't think it matters one bit.

You're just doing such wonderful, solid research that it's just not a waste of time.

It's just definitely time well spent.

It'll stand you in good stead for feeling you have really strong foundations for building on the next bit that you build on.

I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm intrigued for when you do get back to Scotland, but we're just going to have to be patient and you're going to get back to Scotland when you get back to Scotland, aren't you?

I will, yeah.

I could have just tried to blitz on, but it feels more solid doing it this way.

Definitely.

And I think if I didn't do it this way as I'm doing it, I might not go back and do it properly.

Whereas my urge is now to always just flesh everybody out as much as I can.

I actually quite enjoy that.

I've just looked at my notes, actually.

I have got a reference for the marriage of Edward and Jessie, but they get married in Bradford in 1876.

So I need to order that and a few details that might help me.

But clearly they get married in Bradford.

But then he could have been from Lancashire and came over to Bradford for the wedding.

So I need to research Jesse.

But it's cool.

I've really loved these guys.

They've got such cool names.

Obviously, James Maxwell McKay had the middle name Maxwell.

He's got a brother called Alexander and his middle name's Lockhart.

I'm instantly in that Scottish vibe of, oh, what a strong name.

It's great.

Alexander Lockhart McKay.

It's just like, you don't want to mess with him.

He's probably a really nice guy.

It's a very strong name.

They are fantastic names, yeah.

I love a good name.

It's just been weird, like what I was just discussing with you and your research, just doing a table on paper was just such a weird thing and I didn't think this would be easy to do in Excel.

I was just like, right, I'll put the kids' names in, I'll put the censuses along the top and then I'll split the 1881 because I know there's two different locations and I'll put tick boxes in to match where the children are to make sure.

I've got a full list.

And if I don't have a tick, then I know I need to go research them in that year to find out where they are.

So, like, I don't know where Jessie is in 1891.

There's a child called Amelia who only appeared in 1871 I'm a little bit upset about.

I'm already emotionally involved with these people.

And then there's a Mary Jane, of course there's a Mary Jane, and a Maria.

And they seem to...

Ancestry wants to cross those two over so many times.

But I know they are different people.

I want to flesh that out more just to make sure I am right.

In fact, no, I know I'm right, because they're on one census together, but in other censuses, when they're not together, it's trying to smoosh them all together to be one person.

It's like, no, that's not one person, so where are they now?

But then it's a lot of research, isn't it?

Because Mary clearly must have got married and changed her name, so she's somebody else in the 1891 census, so I need to find out when she gets married.

It's a lot.

You just get lost, don't you?

It is a lot.

So I don't...

There's not...

I'm not trying to pick holes in your paper because I am envious of your paper.

But on my Excel sheet, I'll include links.

So I'll just copy and paste the link so I can easily hop back to whether it's a map or a baptism entry or whatever.

So even if I copy it down, sometimes I might get reads from my note station and think, oh, if I copy that down right.

And so I can quickly hop back to that link.

So obviously you can't really write a link.

Maybe you can do, but I can't write a link accurately.

So how do you keep a record of...

You, when you find something online, do you save the link anywhere?

I don't save the link anywhere.

But what I do is anything that I do on paper is then emulated on Ancestry.

Yeah.

So the two match.

And that's just, I'm using my paper, like I say, with this tick box thing.

I'm using my blanks to then give me my research question, I guess.

Like, so where is Finlay in 1891?

It's like, okay, and then I'll go on and find Finlay on my ancestry and flesh him out doing, again, my list of censuses and just seeing where I can find and place him.

But I realise that that does become a big research task because, like I said, these guys have got 10 children and in my head I'm placing them all and I don't necessarily need to place them all but I'm enjoying it so I'm going with it.

Yeah.

I really don't think you should worry about it.

I think it's helpful for so many reasons because definitely it's not hard fact.

And I'm not really a big, sometimes I'm a naughty kind of hunch family historian and I'll go and splurge some credits on Scotland's people having a hunch that it's the right person and then it isn't.

But the more you know about the family and the more you know about the siblings' names, then you do feel like when you fight, let's say when you go to those new records on...

scotland's people or a new record collection anywhere or a new time period you do have a hunch you go these aren't the southern names that my family have or oh yes i've got lots of frederick and williams and maria's i went where it is and so you do feel it's like warmer and colder clues it's not concrete but it gives you a little bit more confidence this is an avenue worth exploring and verifying and stuff like that so all those siblings they all help to build up that picture of what's possible don't they definitely and they sort of put in the whole family in a sort of context for me at the moment.

It's very easy to start romanticising because of the Scottish name and I obviously got this urge to get out into the Scotland side.

But the children are very much Yorkshire based.

Their lives are Yorkshire and as they grow up, they're still living in Yorkshire.

So it's not like they've thought, oh, I need to go back and live in Scotland because that's where I'm from.

They are Yorkshire people.

Oh, I forgot to ask that.

So the parents, are they showing as born in Yorkshire or Scotland then?

The parents of the ten children are not.

They were born in Paisley, Scotland.

Excellent.

Yes.

You've got your little leapfrog back to Scotland then, haven't you?

It's brilliant.

Yeah.

I think the eldest, I think Jesse and maybe Finlay and a few others were born in Scotland.

But then the rest are Yorkshire.

In the 1881, this is what's focused my mind on it, was the 1881 because it was the dad and two children.

Jessie says born in Scotland and then Emily, she's born in Bradford.

And so what period, so what year is their kind of latest child born in Scotland?

Like when did they come to England?

Oh, now I don't know that fact.

How do I find that out easily?

On a census with lots of people, I will have a look at the 1881 census very quickly.

Just because it would be interesting to kind of work out what was happening in that place in Scotland, in that line of work, in that time period, and go, oh, is this a driver for them to move?

Did their industry crash or whatever?

Yeah, and I don't know what's been, what this family, I've not looked at what the family does for a living.

But in 1861...

They had a servant, and I think in 1891 they had a servant as well.

So I don't know, again, hierarchy, but it sounds like they're doing all right for themselves.

Yeah, I've got loads of ancestors who don't have a servant.

It's like most of them don't have a servant, and then occasionally somebody does have a servant.

Yeah.

All right, okay.

So I'm just having a quick look here.

Finlay was born in Scotland, and William, he was born in Addingham.

And then Mary Jane was born in Addingham and then everybody else was born in Bradford.

So only the first two children were born in Scotland.

I don't know if I've got a birth date for Finlay.

Do you work it out roughly?

So on the 1881, how old is he then?

On the 1881, he is 24.

Okay.

What's happening around 1857?

Yes.

Oh, no, no, no.

What are we doing?

So the earliest time, what's the...

You need to know the earliest time they...

We need to know the oldest child that was born in England.

That's what we need to know because that will give us...

That's William and William was born in 1859.

So, yes, it's what's happening around that time in that place which means they leave Scotland and come to England.

And they must have...

In the period between 1851 census and 1859.

I think it's when they got married, Alexander and Jeannie slash Jane.

So, yeah, there's a few questions.

Interesting.

I really enjoyed it.

I can feel myself growing as a researcher.

I'm not saying I'm necessarily doing a good job of it, but I can feel myself looking for new clues that I haven't done in the past.

I found a probate.

I found Alexander McKay's death by looking at a probate.

And I was 90 % sure it was him.

It mentioned Jeannie again, as opposed to Jane.

But it mentioned an address and then it obviously went and found where Jeannie was living after his death and it was the same address.

And it's just nice to think, oh, I'm actually being a little bit logical about this.

You definitely are, yeah.

And was it the National Probate Calendar entry?

Because they're really good.

They're on Ancestry, aren't they?

And they have the amount of money that he left.

It was, yes.

And a date of death.

It's in there.

So that's just a handy, nice thing to have without having to buy a death certificate.

Obviously, it's cool to buy a death certificate as well, so you get the cause of death, but it's still another interesting little nugget.

Yeah, definitely.

I'm more inclined to buy a death certificate if they die young.

And this was, the probate one, like I say, gave me the exact date of death, which was great to see, and it was 61.

I think you'll have £50.

Just enjoying it, but not really getting further back.

Well, I think that getting back thing, I mean, if you get back, that's great, but there's so many...

So it's not to say it's not fun getting far back.

It is really fun getting far back.

It's quite a mystical, weird feeling if you can get far back.

It blows your head that you think, right, if you could get back to the time of King Henry VIII or medieval times or whatever.

But it's still, there's so much cool stuff to find out just going sideways, just dabbling around in the 1920s or the 1850s or whatever.

There's masses of cool stuff to find out.

It's great.

And I am like falling on lots of interesting professions now as well.

Maybe they were there before and I wasn't looking, but now.

I am and I'm finding them.

I'm like, I'll be going back to that.

That's great.

Like I mentioned the other week about the job who was a miner and then became a pub landlord.

And then I've got somebody else who was in that yeast company.

I can't remember.

Loads of interesting things.

It's cool.

Oh boy.

It's just too easy to get sucked in.

Like I mentioned about this Finley McKellar, who's a nephew living with his auntie.

which is, that's Genie McKay in the 1881.

He's a watchmaker.

I'm obsessed with watches.

I like cogs.

I think I quite like to be a watchmaker myself.

You know, it's old school.

It's intricate.

He's a watchmaker.

I just like that.

Yeah, very, very cool.

Well, I know what we should do next time.

Should we have, well, explore what, have a quick rummage around our trees and find out what occupations we've come across.

That'd be really fun, wouldn't it?

Yeah, it will.

Have a focus on occupations.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm probably going to be really shocked because I've ignored occupations for such a long time.

I'm like, oh.

Okay, let's do that.

Let's do that.

That'd be really fun.

I think that would be really good.

And we'll just see what happens.

Yes.

I mean, that's a lot of people to go through to find, but yes.

Let's have a rummage and just see.

You don't have to talk about all the occupations.

There's ones which you find intriguing.

Do you want to do that?

Yes, I do.

I do.

But without it being a proper rabbit hole, just a little bit of...

Oh no, it doesn't sound like a rabbit hole at all.

Yes, it doesn't, does it?

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Because I don't think I'm going to get out of the McKays into Scotland just yet.

I think I've got a lot of stuff I actually want to explore still.

So that's going to have to wait a few weeks.

Okay, we're going to do that.

Okay, I think we are all done for this week.

I think we've got a lot to do.

Both of us have got a lot to do, haven't we?

We do indeed.

And probably everybody else listening to this, they have a lot to do as well.

Do you think we should all go now and get on with our big long to -do lists?

We should indeed.

My head's exploded.

I can't concentrate anymore.

Oh my God, all these people.

I want their information.

Yeah.

Okay, well, thank you for listening, everybody.

And if you'd like to sign up to our e -newsletter, it's www .family -tree.

dot co dot uk forward slash newsletter hyphen sign hyphen up and it's really cool we're doing different topics every week like in depth um every week just choosing one topic so it's quite a kind of calm read you can just have a read and gen up on a particular topic and it's always useful and we shall reconvene next week having had a sneaky peek at our occupations on our family trees It's going to be an occupation special.

Occupation special.

It's going to be quirky, I think.

Quirky is going to be the order of the day, isn't it?

Yes, must do my homework.

Yes.

Okay, thanks for listening then.