Part two of the Top 3 family history discoveries for 2010.
My favourite moment for last year’s research was when I realised I’d cracked who the mysterious “elderly uncle who used to visit London by getting a lift in the early hours on the vegetable lorries going to Covent Garden”, as mentioned in dad’s notes, was. I had taken a large pinch of salt with the accompanying note of such relations living in Burnt House, Newick – surely far too grand a house for our lot. Google that address (in the UK) and at about number 13 you are likely to find the London Gazette notice of the (great) uncle’s death. And further up you’ll find web pages with photos of this Grade II listed property.
This was William John Cullum, half-brother to great grandmother Ann Harriet Cutlock. He had been hiding behind a transcription error in the parents’ marriage – Harriet Cutloch to William Bishop Cullum in 1865. I can’t remember how this match popped up when I re-checked Ancestry website records in early November, trying to find where Harriet had disappeared to after 1861. (The correction now given against the marriage name is the one I entered). But somehow it did. A top moment from a combination of checking back again later and a bit of luck?
Result: a whole bunch of Cullums to add to the tree (and a few now spotted in old family photo albums too). They are listed on the Cutlock and Cullum page, along with the complications around William Bishop Cullum’s name – which could have caused further research problems if someone else hadn’t already sorted this out (thanks, Nathan).
Note: I have not even attempted to rank the discoveries of several living second cousins as well as third and fourths, and the widow of a ‘lost’ cousin. That would seem ‘poor form’!
Number 2 and 3 of top family research for 2010 in yesterday’s post.
Have something to add?