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I've made a Match!!

Discussion in 'Meeting my 'lost cousin'' started by Tim, May 18, 2013.

  1. Liberty

    Liberty LostCousins Megastar

    That IS encouraging, Val. My 'match potential' is steadily going up as I add more names but no more actual matches. However, getting encouragement where I can, I added a 3rd cousin twice removed this weekend, from the 1911 on Ancestry and their little hint/tips at the side alerted me to the fact that he was awarded the Victoria Cross in WWI. (AND lived to 1959 which was probably even better, as far as he was concerned)
     
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  2. Val

    Val LostCousins Star

    Keep going Liberty - you never know who the next census might pick up. And how lovely to find him being awarded the Victoria Cross. Have you looked at the London Gazette - he might be mentioned in it, as the VC is one that they published.
    Good luck.
    Val
     
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  3. emjay

    emjay LostCousins Member

    I made a match soon after I joined LC and it was very fruitful. Not only the second, third, removed type cousins, but a 1st cousin I was not aware of having. She and her siblings are the children of my mother's elder brother. I knew of his existence because I had been told that he 'fell out' with his siblings and widowed mother,(my Nan).
    I'm pretty sure these family break ups are mostly the product of misunderstandings. Anyhow, we were able to exchange information, and we keep in touch via occasional e-mails. Why would anyone join Lost Cousins and not make contact ? Well, they may think the 'lost cousin' is on a branch that they all about...:rolleyes:..well even if that were the case, a reply/contact is just common courtesy :p
     
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  4. Britjan

    Britjan LostCousins Star

    I am batting 50/50 with two LC matches I've made in the past couple of weeks and it's a bit like the days when you used to clean your house because the mother-in-law was coming to visit. :p The match who has replied spurred me on to tidy up my tree a bit as we are going to share trees and I really needed to add a few notes to the appropriate branches. :) The other one which is actually likely a closer match hasn't replied yet :( but the link encouraged me to root around in the 1841 censuses and add a few more names to LC in the hope I'd get a better clue as to how we are related. Not sure what the analogy is but I've now got a much shinier tree.:D I have made my way back to the number 50 plateau on my direct ancestor numbers from confirming the probable identity of a couple of long lived "rellies" from the 1841 census. I'd been sitting on the fence about them for a couple of years but decided it was time to dust them off and put them on display;)
     
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  5. Carla

    Carla LostCousins Star

    Funny enough that happened to me recently and it made me recheck all my information. In fact that is why my post about the Ward/Joyce marriage came up. I didn't want to pass on information unproven. It made me realise how sloppy I had become with my tree and so now I am going back over everything. It's a long haul but I do know that most of the information I have now is correct. Unfortunately...or should I say fortunately... it has also made me question two parts of my tree. As a result I emailed my lostcousin contact today, in reply to his email yesterday saying he would add my details of my line to his tree, and have asked him to hold off until I am absolutely sure the information I have given him is correct. It's made me look unproffessional and slack, but I would rather that than him have a problem down the line himself. :( (I seem to be adding a lot of :( to my posts recently).
     
  6. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    Carla, we all make mistakes or assumptions. But that's how we get better because we learn from our mistakes.

    Letting him know that you want to double check something in your tree is not unprofessional, it shows how meticulous you want to be, which is very commendable.

    Remember, you asked the initial question about the marriage, a lot of people wouldn't have. So that makes you a lot better than a lot of people. :)
     
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  7. Carla

    Carla LostCousins Star


    Thanks for that, Tim. I was feeling pretty down about the mistakes I have found recently, but reading that made me feel better. I suppose if I wasn't so passionate about researching my ancestors I wouldn't have got so worked up?
     
  8. Britjan

    Britjan LostCousins Star

    I am answering this during a break at work and hope nobody wonders why I am chuckling to myself . I don't want any of you to make an "Ash" of yourself but regarding being "sloppy" I don't think that's necessarily the case. I know I was hesitant to post speculative 1841 census links at LC since it is such a limited census in terms of detail. I could certainly kick myself for forgetting a direct ancestor on the 1881 census until last week but it's one of the reasons I sometimes try and take a complete break and come back with a fresh mind set. I've only been working on my tree for five years but the other day I was looking through some paper records and came across my parent's wedding group photo and remembered I'd gone over it with my Mum a good 20 years ago and she had told me about her recollection of some of the people in the photo. I'd written some notes and put them in an envelope with the photo and when I checked again I realised she had given me a married name for a relative I had never followed up on. At least I didn't bark up the wrong tree. :p
     
  9. Heather

    Heather LostCousins Member

    Carla everyone makes mistakes, I bet that there isn't anyone on this forum who has gone down a path and been so sure they were correct, only to find out that they had gone astray. This wonderful hobby we have would be so boring if everything was easy to find and we could set out our family tree in a matter of months, then what would we do? take up knitting, no it's the thrill of finding another branch, that leads us on. So onwards and upwards !!! like a tree.
     
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  10. Liberty

    Liberty LostCousins Megastar

    Just came across this again, and it rings so true!
    I found a marriage of my relative Mary Ann Campbell to Richard Silvester, complete with a Silvester 'young lady' (I quote!) with her grandfather George Campbell in 1881. I found Richard and Mary Ann in the same census with several children, and busily followed them down the censuses, put them on my tree, my Lost Cousins page, etc. I wilfully overlooked the woman called Fountain who was down as mother-in-law because she didn't fit. I expect you know how this is working out.
    Yup, A DIFFERENT Richard Silvester married a Mary Ann Fountain, a couple of years after the other couple. I've seen the marriage certs and the fathers are entirely different in name and occupation. (The 2 wives are approximately the same age, and both born in London, different areas but I am very shaky on London geography and what area might be decribed as what.)
    'My' couple seem to have disappeared by 1881- my current theory is that they both died and the daughter was not visiting her grandpa but living with him.
    SO, all that effort for no gain, except to re-teach me a useful lesson: same name doesn't mean same person.
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  11. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    I've got Silvesters in my tree - only a collateral line, but they're amazingly difficult to trace, partly because it's a more common surname than I would have guessed, but also because they can't make up their mind whether to spell it with an 'i' or a 'y'.
     
  12. Liberty

    Liberty LostCousins Megastar

    You make me feel a bit better, Peter - I was sort of assuming that Richard Silvesters were a bit thin on the ground, which was one of my errors. Then again, I just found no fewer than three separate chaps alive at the same time called Samuel Kitton Gayford - but this time I was savvy enough to work out that they were from 3 generations of the same family.
     
  13. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    I've made a new match! Last night I started adding some, did about 10 names, and 6 got a match!
    I wonder if she's on the Forum? :)
     
  14. Alexander Bisset

    Alexander Bisset Administrator Staff Member

    I that you down below 200 left to enter now Tim?
     
  15. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    :) Yes.

    Added another 15 today, and guess what? Yes, ANOTHER match!!! :)

    The match from yesterday is proving to be quite exciting as we seem to have a DNA match as well.
     
  16. Liberty

    Liberty LostCousins Megastar

    Coo, this DNA matching works faster than I realised!
     
  17. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    DNA? Its been around for ages ;)
     
  18. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    Keep it up, Tim - it would be great if the Ancestry subscription went to a member of the forum!
     
  19. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    It wasn't to be :(
     
  20. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    Perhaps if every member of this forum had taken part (less than half did) the result would have been different?

    Why not have a go at the competition in the latest newsletter? It may only be a £20 book, but it is signed by the author - and taking part is a way to thank him for the impressive efforts he's making on our behalf with the Home Office and the General Register Office..
     

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