Wordless Wednesday: Multigenerational use of cot - Father and Son

Surname: Brown

This surname post will be different to my post on the surname HAVENITH due to BROWN having a much shorter history within my family. The information within the post will be fairly general (due to lack of professional research into the surname) and will focus more on the personal history of the surname in my family.

Origin
The origin of the surname BROWN and its variants is not known. This is due to this being a nickname surname.

Within my family, my grandfather Ernest BROWN is said to have chosen the name. He was part of a traveller family and the story goes that he changed his surname to avoid conscription into the army. Unfortunately, he died when my father and his siblings were children, therefore very little is known. We don't know why is chose BROWN as his replacement surname, but we do know that he settled down for a number of years with my grandmother and had 6 children. His occupation changed over the years, but he was best known as a rag and bone man. His original name was Ernest HARWOOD.

Distribution
This is a wildly common surname and is found throughout Britain and is noted as being the sixth most common surname at the time Graeme Davis published Research your Surname in 2010.

Meaning
This surname is considered to be a nickname surname referring to things such as hair colour or hair colour, or sometimes even the colour of someone's clothes. These ideas - especially relating to hair colour - seem unrealistic, however without further investigation by experts, we are likely to remain with this answer.

Another idea is that it could possibly be a patronymic of the first name 'Brun' or relating to a place name that has brown in the name.

There may well be possible origins for this surname. The further back you can trace this surname in your own family history; the closer you'll be to an answer (hopefully).

Variation
There is no variation of this surname within my family as I was part of the third generation to have the surname.

Conclusion
My interest in the surname BROWN, it's fair to say, is quite superficial. This is due to the surname having such a short history within my family. At the moment, I know as much as I can know about why this surname is in my family. I think that there may still be some people that knew my grandfather, but they are travellers and unfortunately I'm unlikely to ever meet then and find out more about my grandfather's history. 

Sources
Graeme Davis, 2010. Research Your Surname and Your Family Tree: Find Out What Your Surname Means and Trace Your Ancestors Who Share It Too. Edition. How to Books. 

Book Review: Wiltshire Folk Tales by Kirsty Hartsiotis

This book is a collection of retold folk tales from my adopted county of Wiltshire. While I only moved here in 2007, my wife grew up in this county and her father's side of the family have lived in Wiltshire for generations. I'd heard of the folk tale entitled 'Moonrakers' before, but thought that now my child(ren - ever hopeful!) will grow up in Wiltshire; it was time I learned a few more of these stories and the history behind them.

This book contains 30 stories and where the stories mention specific places, these can be found on the map before the introduction. I like the fact that the author has visited the various sources for the stories and has retold them. This means that all of the folk tales in the book have the same feel and narrative to them - which I feel makes for an easier read.

Not only are relevant line drawings present for each of the tales, but after each tale a box explains the documented history of the tale. The author also explains when she has merged two tales or where she's made choices to follow a certain narrative after being confronted with sources detailing different versions. Understanding the history of the tales, such as for the Amesbury Archer, ensures that the reader can build a deeper connection to this ancient county.

I can't wait to retell these tales to my son when he arrives in the (very) near future. I think it's a book that anyone that lives in Wiltshire or has any connection to it should read. My favorites are Moonrakers and Stone Soup as they show the spirit and intelligence of the Wiltshire people.

This series seems to have a book for most (if not all) counties - what can yours tell you? Perhaps your relatives have folk tales that have been passed down to them? If so, now is a good time to ask and get them recorded, either via microphone or on paper.

Book Review: Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques by George G Morgan and Drew Smith

I was planning on reading this book a while ago, but then decided I should read How to do Everything Genealogy Second Edition by George G. Morgan to ensure I had the prerequisite knowledge and understanding for advanced techniques.

However, I needn't have worried because the contents of this book are fairly basic, although it's still worth a read for beginners, such as myself.

The book follows the 'brick wall' analogy that anyone who's spent time researching ancestors will come across. Using this analogy we're given a method for examining each brick wall in detail, including creating timelines. The rest of the book looks at different ways of advancing past the brick wall using the following terms: Brute force, go around the wall, talk to a friend, use crowdsourcing, technological solutions, hire a demolition expert, and rest up and attack the brick wall another time. The book closes with a chapter on putting these techniques to work and ensuring your keep a research log to avoid re-researching the same things and sources multiple times.

While this book is good for beginners, it's unlikely to introduce new ideas to people who have been researching for a while. Where the book excels, is the use of 3 or 4 examples of using each technique from the personal experiences of the authors. It's great to read these examples and see situations where the techniques have worked and where they might work in the readers brick walls.

The book is very readable and terms are defined well. This is a short book, which would have been much shorter if not for the many screenshots of website homepages - while this may be handy for the next year or two, websites change, so this book is likely to age quickly. There are, however, a good range of resources discussed, with sources at the end of each chapter.

As the authors recognise, there is no dividing line between research techniques that are basic ad advanced. I feel that any technique can be utilised to gather the bare minimum or a wealth of information. All in all, a good read and may introduce newbies to new avenues of research.

Book Review: How to do Everything Genealogy Second Edition by George G. Morgan

This comprehensive book; covering resources for UK, US, and Canadian genealogists, is organised into two parts.

The first is: Begin Your Family History Odyssey, which includes information on topics such as, balancing traditional and electronic research, organising and creating your family tree, placing your ancestors into context and how to locate vital records, as well as extending your research with advanced record types

The second part, Research Methods and Strategies, includes information on  resources such as indexes, as well as locating repositories on the internet, using a research log, online map resources, and how to plan a successful genealogical research trip.

Book Review: Your Family Tree Online by Graeme Davis

This is the second book I've read by Graeme Davis and have to admit that the other book was of much better quality. I would say that this particular book is purely for novice genealogists as most of the chapters are very brief introductions to a topic, for instance the chapters on newspaper and directories. However, there are more detailed chapters on topics such as DNA and working with names. In some ways, I wished I'd have known about this book when I first started with family history research - as I know I'd have appreciated this book at that point.

There are very few internet resources listed in this book, but those that are included are of good quality. They are often associated with the activities that are included throughout the book for the reader to find out more about their family. One such activity is to understand your ancestor's job and two links are provided that should help the reader find out more.

As with the previous book of Davis' that I reviewed, this book is very readable and accessible. If you've read other genealogy books, then this book isn't likely to help you progress your research. However, if you're new to this field of study or if you've ever read a genealogy book - then this is a great place to start.

Wordless Wednesday - Newest Leaf on the Family Tree

Surname: Havenith

The most recent generations of my family are from Limburg in the Netherlands, so that is where I started with attempting to find the origin of the surname. During the same time, I scoured the Internet for the possible meaning of HAVENITH and came across a few variants along the way (discussed here). 

This post documents what I've found so far.

Web Resources: Google Translate

If there's one tool that's a total necessity for people with an ancestry that spans multiple countries, then it's Google Translate.

Google Translate is a free online and app-based translator that can translate words, sentences, and whole blocks of text instantaneously. I will be discussing the web version as this is the one I use as a genealogy research tool.

Surname: Havenith - variants in my family tree

On my quest to find my earliest recorded HAVENITH ancestor, I have come across a few different variants. Most connected to my family, but a couple that I've seen in the same scanned collections as the records I was looking for.

Here are the variants I've found so far, in chronological order:

The earliest record I've been able to find so far is a marriage record from sometime in 1696 for Joannes and Odilia. I say sometime, as it appears to be the only record not given a day and month! It is located between marraiges records on 4 July and record is 4 9bris (November), so is likely to have taken place between those dates. In this record the spelling is HAVENIT.

HAVENIT

Moving on to 1701 and we have a baptism record for their son, Joannes Hubertus, who later used the name Hubert. This time the surname is spelt: HABENIT.

HABENIT

In 1732, Hubert got married to Cathar(ina) Emonts. At this time, the surname was written as HAVENIET.

HAVENIET

In 1754 we find the first usage of HAVENITH. This is Joannes, Hubert's son, marrying Anna Elisabetha EMONS. You will notice that JANSSEN is appended to HAVENITH. This is likely to be the priests way of remembering which HAVENITH he is - although more commonly we see place names appended in this way. It may be the surname of the person who owns his accommodation or perhaps his employer and may therefore be a 'house' or 'farm' name [1].
As family historians we work from the child (the known) backwards to parent and extended family (the unknown): It was from Joannes' baptism record that I found the name of his parents. From searching the scanned collections, there are only 1 Joannes HAVENITH and Anna Elisabetha EMONS that got married, so I feel confident that I have the correct people.

HAVENIET

Joannes, had a son Joannes Josephus baptised in 1760. We see that the JANSSEN hasn't followed him and that the current spelling of HAVENITH has remained stable.

HAVENITH

But that stability doesn't remain! 

We then have HAVENIETH which starts with Johannes Josephus and continues until 1902 when my GGgrandfather is born with HAVENITH.
While HAVENIETH remains stable during these generations in the official records, the people themselves tend to sign their name as HAVENITH. I'm not sure if this is because HAVENIETH was seen as an official or formal spelling, but eventually the modern spelling won out.

HAVENIETH

My Ggrandfather's birth record. We're finally back to HAVENITH in 1902 and this spelling continues in my family up to the present day - including my son, who was born in 2015.

HAVENITH

The following two images show what appear to be variants and in the same area (Liège, Belgium), but do not seem to be related to my ancestors:

HAAFFNIT

HAFFNIT

References1) Kimberly Powell. (nd). German Surnames - Meanings & Origins. Available: http://genealogy.about.com/cs/surname/a/german_surnames.htm. Last accessed 25/06/2015.

Book Review: Seven Ages of Britain by David Dimbleby

I like to take the long view with genealogy and think about the lives my ancestors would have lived. While I'll probably never be able to find ancestors even 500 years back, the fact that I'm here, writing this, means that I do have ancestors not just 500 years but all the way back to the origins of Homo sapiens.

While this book doesn't go that far back, starting proper at the invasion of the Romans who gave us the name Britain, it goes far enough back to set the mind wandering.

The focus of this book, and the television series it accompanies, is the past 2000 years of history of Britain through its artefacts and art.

I'm not a big fan of art; I'm the sort of person who likes what he likes and rarely ventures further. We have artwork on our walls, but I couldn't tell you the style - apart from the Monet of course, which is impressionism and is a topic I covered for my GCSE Art. This probably gives you a good impression of the art I like! However, the book and television series were insightful and helped me understand the impact of art on the people of Britain through the ages.

The television series relies on the sense of humour and the impact of the art upon David Dimbleby, but the book wasn't written by his, so how did it fare? I was very impressed with the book, each chapter covers an age and is written by an expert.

About a third of the art in the book is different to that shown in the television series and the book delves deeper. This provides a better understanding not only of the artists, or subjects of the art, but of the people of the age. Some of the artwork is unlikely to have been seen by our ancestors, but a lot of the art is about them - just ordinary people living through history, being impacted by it whether they liked it or not; whether they understood it or not.

Of course, being a fairly short book and being restricted to art, large chunks of history are missing. But there are plenty of books that deal with continuous history of Britain.

While you're unlikely to find your ancestors referenced in the book, the last four chapters are from the 1600s onwards and therefore in the realm of many people's family tree. It's nice to get this view of their world, especially seeing the art of satirists such as James Gillray in the 18 century. To him, everyone was fair game - so it's nice to wonder if our ancestors were becoming less restricted in their thoughts, after centuries of restrictions via religion and feudalism - possibly having a giggle at Gillray's creations and eagerly awaiting the next one. 

I enjoyed reading this book and advise anyone interested in family history, or just history in general, to have a read - I expect there will be few libraries that don't have a copy as the television series was quite a success.

Web Resources: Google Street View

When conducting genealogical research, I find that it's far too easy to fall into the trap of spending a lot of time chasing birth, marriage, and death records to further the line you're working on. Often (depending on the country you're researching), these BMD records, along with other sources, such as obituaries will provide addresses of where our ancestors lived at the time.

So, when I want a break from BMD records, I head straight over to Google and have a look at Street View. Of course, houses may well have changed since your ancestors resided there - or that street you're looking for may not even exist these days, but it's enjoyable to have a virtual wander around these locations.

Following a Dutch baby tradition: Beschuit met muisjes

As I may have mentioned, we recently welcomed our first child into the world. In the months prior to the birth I asked around for English traditions to welcome babies. There really only seemed to be two, neither of which seemed as fitting as the Dutch tradition, which has been celebrated in my Dutch family for a long time.

Book Review: The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being by Alice Roberts

This is a book on biology, so it may be surprising that I'm writing a review of it on a blog about family trees. However, it is a book about our biology, the biology of humans, and how we adapted and evolved into what we recognise as a human body.

It's an interesting read that covers every major body part and function. What makes it special is that focuses on the development of the embryo before reaching out into the past to see how each body part became adapted for new uses and evolved.

At the time of reading I was expecting my first child (who recently arrived), and being interested in science, this book was an obvious choice. It just so happens that I'd been waiting for the book to be published - and then for one to be available at the library - before we even had our little meeple developing in my wife's womb. It's amazing to read about the history of evolutionary science and how looking at fossils and DNA provides answers to how different bones, etc moved positions in different species and adapted to either new or more specialised uses. One example being the swim bladder in fish that acts as a way for the fish to exchange gases and diffuse them throughout the body - blowing air out of its mouth when too much gas is inside it, and coming to the surface when the water is de-oxygenated to get more oxygen. I've kept fish on and off for years and had observed both actions many times, but I've never read about their biology. Anyway, it just show happens that we can observe via different species alive today; this swim bladder becoming lungs. So evolution didn't need to magic lungs out of thin air for organisms to live on land - as we're increasingly discovering if just adapted an existing body part and made it a bit more specialised.

It's interesting to see the family trees that the author has drawn in the book, showing how we're related to different species, not just apes, but organisms such as the lancelet.

I'd recommend this book to anyone making new members of their family tree and for anyone who finds the long view of family trees and family history interesting.

Newest member of my family tree

Book Review: Solving Genealogy Problems by Dr Graeme Davis

Within the space of a couple of hundred pages, Dr. Davis provides a book that is not only a brilliant read, but also utterly insightful.

This book deals with specific brickwalls and potential solutions, for instance, how to find BMD marriages and different census solutions. This also includes finding, using, and what to expect from parish records and newspaper archives, along with other resources.

My Genealogy Progress Report - April 2015

Time seems to be speeding along at the moment. My baby is due in the next couple of weeks and we've been putting the finishing touches to his nursery and sorting some other areas of the house.

We've both also been getting on with our family trees. My wife has been loaned lots of items from her mum, which I've been scanning and organising record sheets for and I've been continuing my quest to delve deeper into the Havenith side of the family.

Around 5-6 years ago I was given a few sheets of paper that showed the Havenith side of the family going back into Belgium to around 1610 from a distant relative via my Opa. While some of the records I've found don't exactly match the details I was given, it's close enough to give me some confidence that I'm heading in the right direction.

Looking at records for Belgium, which also consists of German records due to the administration at the time of my ancestors lives, has been an interesting challenge. I enlisted the help of a genealogy group on Facebook, who I'll write about in a future post, and they've been very helpful. I'm starting to get to grips with FamilySearch better and have started to learn the arch.be website when looking for records. While this can be a slow process, it's wonderful to finally see the names you're looking for appear on a BMD record - something that makes the hours spent worthwhile.

As our first anniversary is coming up, we decided to follow tradition and get each other paper gifts. We both chose records of our ancestors! I'm really hoping that these records help us develop a stronger feeling of connectedness to each other and with our ancestors.

I'm looking forward to writing more about my journey into the past and starting to feel much more confident about the whole process.

When our baby is born there may well be a gap in posting, but I'll be back to posting as soon as possible.

How Are We Related?

Ever get confused with how you're related to someone? If you're like me, you rely on your genealogy application to tell you your relationship to some obscure ancestor from 200 years ago.

However, I think it's time that I get a better grip on understanding the basics, so I don't have to rely FTM all the time. So, I was very happy when Mark at Crestleaf emailed me their infographic, below.

I find it well laid out and easy to understand, especially the once/twice/thrice removed business, which this chart shows me is a matter of finding the nearest common relative and then working out the number of generations from myself.

Hopefully you'll find it useful too!

Book Review: The History of England, Volume 1, Foundation by Peter Ackroyd

This is by far the most interesting book I've read about this period of English history. While the main text follows the lives and deaths of the rulers of our fair land, this is only part of the book.

Some of the most interesting chapters, and certainly the most important for me, are those that follow the lives of normal people, those that may not have made history, but certainly had to deal with what seems like near constant war, taxes, and change. These smaller chapters deal with certain topics at certain periods, such as children's toys and education, the house, and birth and death. Other chapters look at the country and how we evolved as a nation, how other nations saw us as a people (not positively for the main), and our climate over time.

Web Resources: zoekakten.nl

24/07/2018, ETA: THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN.

This website is a fantastic in that it has allowed me to go from reading transcripts on wiewaswie to actually being able to view and download the original documents.  This website interfaces with the Family Search database and provides links to the exact document you're looking for - often with an index for easier searching.

While the website is only in Dutch, copying words into Google Translate provides translations that will help you select the right type of document for the information you are seeking. I'll take you through a simple search by way of introducing you to this amazing resource.

An Unfortunate Tradition

Last year I got married. The record of my marriage has my father's name and describes him as deceased. There is a line through the Rank or profession of father cell.

I didn't think much of it until my wife purchased my parents marriage record for Valentine's Day this year. I immediately saw that the same situation. I knew that my grandad had died from lung cancer (as my dad did) when my dad was a young boy. But, it still came as a shock.

Book Review: Seven Ages of Britain by Justin Pollard

This is an important book for me because it's the first history book I read because I chose to. I was never interested in history, I wasn't keen on the way it was presented in school and didn't choose it as a GCSE subject. I think what changed for me was that I became interested in history the year I met my wife, Lucy. I lived in North Lincolnshire where not a lot has happened, but Lucy lived in Wiltshire, where things have been happening that are nationally and internationally important for thousands of years.

So, when I saw the television series featured a fair bit of history around Wiltshire, I started watching it. Since then, I've been interested in history and pre-history and because this book focuses on 'ordinary' people; I think it was a precursor to my initial interest in family history.

The Ancestor Effect: Thinking about your ancestors will make you more intelligent

A few years ago, Peter Fischer et al, conducted research into whether intellectual performance could actually be increased by thinking about one's genetic origin.

They noted that a lot of research had been conducted asking people to look the end of their own lives. So, with that in mind, they decided to go the other way and formulated a series of 4 studies asking participants to think about their ancestors.

They posited that thinking about ones ancestors, whether concrete (ancestors that they had met) or abstract (ancestors they hadn't met, for example in the 15th century), would increase the participants expected performance (how well they thought they'd do) and their actual performance on tasks completed as part of the study.

Web Resources: FreeBMD

FreeBMD is a website populated with Birth, Marriage, and Death records transcribed by volunteers FreeUKGenealogy project, which includes FreeCEN and FreeReg. As FreeBMD is the one that I frequently use, I'm going to concentrate on this part of the project.
and available for free to the public. It's part of the

This website is fantastic in its own right, but especially so if you don't have access to other sites such as Ancestry. BMD records between 1837-1983 are available, however the transcription is ongoing and not every record is available as yet. However, transcriptions are added regularly with November 2014 seeing 806,328 new records added increasing the amount of records to 308,090,800.

Family Tabletop Games

I've always enjoyed tabletop games, mainly playing different board games. For the past few years, the tile-placement game, Carcassonne, has been our game of choice due to the mechanic of picking tiles blind out of a bag, which provides a randomness that keeps the game interesting - and, of course, the many expansions that provides a wide range of extra tiles and features.

Carcasonne has been played by three generations of my family; myself, my mum and my niece. However, there is a game that has been played by at least five generations of my family over many decades. The game is called veertigen, veertigleggen or the name favoured by my family: Jokeren.

Book Review: Tracing Your Family History On The Internet by Chris Paton

Many books about Internet resources don't hold well over time. I've read other books that were published around the same time as this one (2011) and have found that many of the resources they point the reader to have vanished.

However, Chris Paton has compiled a book of resources and the vast majority of them are still online today. This shows me that it wasn't random searches that led to the inclusion of the websites in the book, but a good personal knowledge of the online genealogical landscape.

The book begins with a chapter on Gateways and Institutions - sites that cover national and local archives, as well as vendors such as Ancestry and Findmypast.

We then move on to Genealogical Essentials - the websites that are fundamental to anyone researching their family tree. From buying and sharing BMD certificates to gazetteers and heritage websites. Personally, I found the bulk of most helpful sites in this chapter.

The third chapter is entitled Occupational Records and includes things like Workers' rights, The Church, The Law and Business. I'll probably revisit this chapter when I delve more into the English side of my family.

The we move on to chapters with resources specific to each country the book deals with. Chapters on England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland also drill down to the country level. Before advancing to resources about Crown Dependencies and Empire and Migration.

The book closes with a short chapter on Social Networking - which I think is an important subject to cover. I find a lot of information whether general to genealogy or by specifically asking questions in Facebook groups and Twitter!

The book is written well and therefore easy to read, with web links emboldened and therefore easy to pick out from the descriptive text. There are a few screenshots scattered around to break up the text, but just be aware that over time the designs of the websites are likely to change - which is probably why only a few are provided and they tend to show the types of information that can be gleaned from the site shown.

This is a really interesting and well designed book. I found few new resources to add to my favourites list and where I found resources I already had; it made me feel more confident that I'm on the right track. The book also (inadvertently) prompted me to tidy up my bookmarks - something I've been meaning to do for some time!

Roy Brown's Birth Certificate

As I mentioned in a previous post, my wife ordered my Dad's Birth Certificate for me this Christmas. This was very important to me because not only did he die over 12 years ago, but we had a complex and inconsistent relationship over the years. So, I'm always keen to learn more about him; even if it's just little pieces of data.

So, what new things did it tell me about my Dad and the wider family?

Firstly, it gave me an address that I hadn't known about previously. I find it so exciting to add new homes to the map and see how individuals and families move around.

Secondly, it told me that my Nana had kept her married name. She was married before meeting my Grandfather and I had wondered if she reverted back to her maiden name (which is what my mum has done); but now I know that she remained a Winterton. It also tells me that she's a Housekeeper. I need to do some research, but I think that it means she was a house wife. I'm assuming this because the trend seems to be that only records of "Housekeeper (Non Domestic)" seem to related to working outside of the home - for example in a hotel or boarding school.

Thirdly, it tells me that my Grandfather was a Bricklayers Labourer. This is exciting as I didn't have a clue what sort of work he did!

Fourthly, but probably least importantly, I know that for whatever reason, 12 days passed before they managed to register my Dad's birth. This isn't surprising as I imagine that they were both busy, Grandad with work and Nana looking after my Dad and her other children.


I was hoping for an example of their handwriting. Sadly, it appears that this was filled in by the registrar. There may be a reason for this, but as I'm still new to this, I'm not sure what it is! If you have any suggestions: answers on a postcard - or in the comments below!

Web Resources: General Register Office

This year, for Christmas, I asked my wife to order me my dad's birth certificate. I didn't know much about his birth, so I thought that this would be a nice way of getting to know a bit more about him and to have the certificate for family members to see.

I had looked on certificate swapping websites (links below) and found that there were no certificates for my dad on there, so I headed straight to the GRO website.

Book Review: Essential Maps for Family Historians by Charles Masters

The author skilfully weaves his way through a miscellany of maps, from County Maps and Town Maps to Enclosure Maps and National Farm Surveys, making the undertaking of map reading interesting and accessible.