I'm back!

A bit of a delayed return to the blog, so massive apologies, though I’m not vain enough to think you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for my next post!

I’ve totally had the post-holiday blues for the last week or so, but I was jolted out of my lethargy when I read Elyse’s post on The Genealogy Generational Disconnect, and the message thread to which it refers, though not all of it – there are ALOT of responses! That was what struck me the most actually, the fact that the subject of ‘young genealogists’ provoked so much reaction.

Once again, I’m happy to have reaffirmed that I’m not the only young person doing genealogy, nor am I the only one who feels a little bit alone in being a young  genealogist. I have to say that while I’ve never felt as patronised as Eva suggests, I have on occasion been subject to the assumption that I’m  inexperienced and need even the basics explaining to me. I’ve never attended a conference like Eva describes, though, and I have no idea what the reaction would be if I did. I did once attend my a meeting of my Local History Group, but I found it incredibly strange being the only person under fifty (literally) in the room – I just couldn’t relax in the same way as I would have been able to in a group of my peers.

In this respect, the not-very-serious suggestion on Elyse’s comments that they should form a club sounds like a genius idea. And I would completely support the tiara-wearing. Joking aside though, maybe such a group would be the ideal breeding ground for new methodologies and tools in genealogy? On the other hand, such unnecessary ‘divisions’ within the genealogy community would perhaps not be helpful to this kind of mutual non-understanding between the generations? I would love to hear your thoughts on this people!

Beyond that, a couple of quick updates.

1. In my post L is for Lumb, I mentioned that I hadn’t progressed much past Mary Ann Lumb. However, breaking my own rules I did a bit of sneaky research, and have now identified Mary’s parents as John Lumb and Mary Beaumont. Sadly, I suspect I may not be able to get very much further back from John for now, as there is some confusion over his birthplace. Is he from Kirkheaton or Thornhill? And if he is from Thornhill, how do I distinguish between the two John Lumbs born within months of each other in the parish? (Though one of their father’s is Robert, the same name as John’s eldest son, which might be a hint.)  Obviously there are possibilities – finding his gravestone or a bit of detailed census work to disentangle two lines, relying on sibling information for example, but I think it’s going to be a tricky one.

2. The father of Walter Newby (for the back-story see here, here and here!) I have come up with another possibility... I set out to check all the Walters of the right age on the 1911 census, and came across four-year old Walter Kingswood living with, as far as I can tell, his mother Ellen and her new husband Thomas Henry ‘Newbown’ (it might possibly read Newbourn) and their one-year-old daughter Alice May, in Barton on Humber, Lincolnshire. I have no particular reason to think that my Newbys have Humberside/Lincolnshire connections. And Thomas Henry is a cycle repairer, not the market gardener I’m looking for.  However, this was the only strong(ish) possibility I found in this particular line of enquiry. My plan is to order all of the very few possible Walter Newby birth certificates, to see if I can eliminate for certain that he was born ‘Newby’.  Given that this is my direct paternal line, I’m weirdly unsettled by the possibility that I might not actually be a Newby after all! We shall see...

L x