Genealogical Excavations

I've started to poke around looking for more records to figure out gaps and holes in my family history. Ancestry.com had a freebie where I could look at immigration records and I ended up with a treasure trove. 

Before this, I really had no clue where my family was from. My father's birth certificate is from Rugby, but I'd always been told the family was from Yorkshire and certainly the names are more typical of Yorkshire than the midlands. Well, I was able to solve that. The immigration record for my grandfather was an application from Rugby, but for my grandmother, father, aunts and uncles it was Yorkshire. So apparently the family moved to Rugby for work and when my grandfather emigrated, they moved back and stayed with my grandmother's family until they could come over as well.

So the mystery is solved. My family is from Yorkshire. More specifically, from the Kirklees, a bit south west of Leeds in West Yorkshire. My grandmother's family the Lamberts are from Gomersal, home of one of the major Luddite rebellions, and my father's family seems to be from Heckmondwike. I just want to keep saying that name. It's just great. It all sounds like stuff from The Shire.

I also came across an interesting tidbit that one of my aunts isn't my aunt, she's my first cousin once removed, the illegitimate child of my great aunt. Or at least that's the conclusion I come to. They emigrated when she was 1 and my great aunt never changed her birth name. I suppose it's possible she could have married another Lambert. And her husband died within a year of the child being born. But somehow that seems a bit of a stretch.

Genealogical Excavations

I've started to poke around looking for more records to figure out gaps and holes in my family history. Ancestry.com had a freebie where I could look at immigration records and I ended up with a treasure trove. 

Before this, I really had no clue where my family was from. My father's birth certificate is from Rugby, but I'd always been told the family was from Yorkshire and certainly the names are more typical of Yorkshire than the midlands. Well, I was able to solve that. The immigration record for my grandfather was an application from Rugby, but for my grandmother, father, aunts and uncles it was Yorkshire. So apparently the family moved to Rugby for work and when my grandfather emigrated, they moved back and stayed with my grandmother's family until they could come over as well.

So the mystery is solved. My family is from Yorkshire. More specifically, from the Kirklees, a bit south west of Leeds in West Yorkshire. My grandmother's family the Lamberts are from Gomersal, home of one of the major Luddite rebellions, and my father's family seems to be from Heckmondwike. I just want to keep saying that name. It's just great. It all sounds like stuff from The Shire.

I also came across an interesting tidbit that one of my aunts isn't my aunt, she's my first cousin once removed, the illegitimate child of my great aunt. Or at least that's the conclusion I come to. They emigrated when she was 1 and my great aunt never changed her birth name. I suppose it's possible she could have married another Lambert. And her husband died within a year of the child being born. But somehow that seems a bit of a stretch.