I have found a photograph on the eGGSA site of the grave of Eveline Mary Micklethwaite who died when aged but 14 months. Sadly there is no further information about her, in particular when she died. I have contacted researchers in both the South African branches and both have no knowledge of her – and indeed have no knowledge of any connection with Ladysmith. The grave is decorated in Art Deco style, so may date to the 1920s or 1930s, but this is conjecture. I would be grateful if anyone can help with more information on this infant.

If you’ve looked at my web site, you’ll know that the Canadian photographer Frank W Micklethwaite is in one of the branches I’m researching.

A book featuring his photographs, called Micklethwaite’s Muskoka, by John Denison, was published some years ago. I enquired at my local library, and they said they could find a copy for me to borrow – and they have – and it’s a wonderful book.

But the most impressive thing is that the copy of the book came to me in Derbyshire from the library of Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, on the Inter-Library Loan system. Our English public libraries are under threat from the government’s austerity measures. It would be a terrible shame to loose such a wonderful service.

I know I’ve been quiet – it’s difficult getting my brain to work well, especially with the 3rd bout of tooth problems in 2 months!

I’ve been updating some of my information on the LostCousins site. For anyone who doesn’t know it – get to know it! It’s a way of getting high quality contacts. You enter details of your ancestors (and their relatives and descendants) from a number of different censuses, and the site checks to see if anyone else is interested in them. You don’t have to subscribe to get most benefits, but you can only initiate contact if you do. You do need to add more than just your direct line – the more ancestors (and their relatives) you add, the better the chance of finding someone. The newsletter they send out is excellent value for money (ie. free) being very informative and up-to-date. A forum is promised – that should be good too!

According to that well known authority, Google (!), there are Micklethwaites in New York. Rev Clark Micklethwaite is or was in Brooklyn, as are Linda and Franklin.Given the limited information that I’ve found, I haven’t been able to work out exactly who these folks are, but I strongly suspect they relate to Lloyd Micklethwaite born about 1907 in Maryland. Lloyd is a descendant of Walter Joseph Micklethwaite who emigrated to America from Thornhill by Dewsbury in Yorkshire in the 1860s. Walter is descended from Joseph who married Nancy Nutter in 1805 – the one I mentioned in the last post.

If you are, or you know Rev Clark, Franklin or Linda, please contact me

After the grafting comes the pruning!

Comments from several people have persuaded me to take a look at Joseph of Thornhill who was born about 1783. He married Nancy Nutter in 1805. When I expanded the One Name Study out from Huddersfield into the rest of West Yorkshire, it seemed obvious that this Joseph was the natural son of Fanny, daughter of Jonas of Mirfield (1725) as there was no other viable alternative. Other people have Internet trees which suggest that Joseph was from Darfield, but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the Darfield Joseph is not in any way connected to the Thornhill Joseph as there is clear evidence for both the ancestors and descendants of the Darfield branch. Looking again now I have expanded the Study to other areas, I see that yet another Joseph comes into the picture. This Joseph baptised a daughter Nancy in 1805 in Ashton under Lyme, along wife his wife Mally. There is no indication of where this Joseph comes from either. So reluctantly I have decided to prune Joseph from the “Jonas of Mirfield” branch until such time as further evidence is available. Y-DNA testing will not help in this instance as no Y-DNA is passed from mother to son, i.e. from Fanny to Joseph.

As I mentioned in part 2 of Finding Living Relatives, the modern social trend of not marrying in England, if at all, makes life difficult for the genealogist. In my database I have a number of Micklethwaite families where I have found 2 or more children born with the same mother’s maiden name, but so far I have been unable to locate a marriage. This means I don’t know who the father is, so I don’t know how they fit into the jigsaw. There are more such names where there is only one child, but I’ll leave that for another time. Here’s a list of mother’s name and location of the children’s birth registration.

• Bolderson, Dewsbury
• Broad, Barnsley
• Brown, Liverpool
• Fareed, Los Angles, California
• Gill, Repton
• Goldman, Sheffield
• Hallsworth, Barnsley
• Hanson, Barnsley
• Jackson, Leicester or Bakewell
• Jones, Barnsley
• Leonard, Doncaster
• Makinson, Huddersfield
• Prest, Halifax or Huddersfield
• Speck, Doncaster
• Taylor, Barnsley
• Whitehouse, Barnsley
• Wilcock, Halifax

If you can help me sort out any of these families, I’d me most grateful.

Grafting has 2 common meanings: hard work, and attaching twigs to a root stock. What I’ve been doing lately is both of those! That and trawling!

As regular readers will know, I have a database which contains all the information on Micklethwaites (and variants) that I can get my hands on. Over the last months I have added voter lists from Canada and England (very productive), prisoner lists (only a few), as well as a couple of other sources which have been less worthwhile. I’ve also trawled sites like Genes Reunited, Facebook (luckily, people do list their relatives there), and LookupAnyone and have increased my knowledge not only of people bearing our name, but also of the relationships between them. This is very consuming both of time and energy.

Once in the database, I can then try and sort out who belongs to which family. (Sometimes my guesses are wrong, but thankfully not often). As more people are linked together, sometimes other links stand out. I periodically trawl through the database looking for such potential links.

Last week I had a major success. I noticed that the branch head, William of Kirk Smeaton (born about 1729), fitted remarkably well with a number of other entries. Looking at his family, things seemed to hang together. I mentioned this to a co-researcher, who came back with even more information to complete the picture. So now William is no longer a branch head, but has been grafted on to the branch headed by Richard of Cawthorne (born about 1604) and which includes the major American branch. And my number of separate branches has dropped by one.

A contact has asked for help dating a photograph. We suspect it’s of Joseph and Martha. Joseph died in1882, so the photo might be around 1880. We don’t have the original any more (pity). Does anyone have a better idea?

Believed to be Joseph Micklethwaite and Martha nee Hirst – possibly about 1880

How should I refer to a branch?

The question arises because many of the Micklethwaites and Mickelwaits in the UK and USA descend from Jonathan of Hemsworth born about 1660 – ID JM600.

Checking my data against John Micklethwait’s I noticed that he has this branch going 2 generations further back than Jonathan. Having added data from the will in question I can take the branch that bit further back too.

Now I have to refer to this branch as descending from Richard of Cawthorne born about 1604 – ID JM1025. All change!

A note on the terminology that I try to use – others may use the same terms in different ways.

Sometimes you find a record of an event that refers to one person, such as a burial or a person alone on the census with no relatives co-resident. That’s an unconnected event, until I find the right person to attach it to.

The family group is the basis of family history – sounds obvious! You can find a family on the census – head, wife, sons and daughters. You find families in baptism records – “Elizabeth was baptised to John and Mary”. So I use the term family group for just that – father, mother and children – in other words, 2 generations. When you look at the families, you can start to attach other events to the people in the families.

If 2 family groups can be linked, then that creates a small branch – we now have 3 or more generations. This linking is the basis of the reconstruction that I do, trying to link all families into branches. I now have about 40 branches, 15 going back from the present day into history; 14 have died out before reaching the present; another dozen or so go back from the present day for 50 to 100 years but I have not been able to link them into the other branches.

A tree could be considered to be a big branch. However I tend to reserve trees for related branches – we know from DNA tests that 2 large branches are related – so that’s a tree to me! We have 3 DNA haplogroups, so 3 trees.

Well, that’s how I try to use the terms – I don’t always achieve consistency!