Introduction
Mike Young and Sheena nee Keith have been researching their family histories since the mid-1970s and have now so much material that they have decided to divide it into four groups, one for each of their parents’ surnames:
Choice of Structure
We have chosen a predominantly narrative form of presenting our family history in order to include not only what we have established so far to but also to note possible leads and as yet unexplored ideas. Lists of marriages, births and deaths appear as appendices. Each chapter concerns the family of a lineal ancestor, the particular story starting with a lady’s marriage into one of the male lines.
The time period covered by each chapter varies according to how far back we happen to have got in that line and when it was that the name was subsumed into that of a male line. For the most part it is rare for us to be reaching back much before the early 18C.
Burden of Proof
When we first started we declared that we would not accept anything for which we could not show documentary proof and this has remained our approach back as far as the second quarter of the 19C, bearing in mind the advent of civil registration in England in 1837.
However, as we reached back further, we realised that the sort of people we are descended from in the words of the Bible, “left no memorial” or very little. For several years we let things lapse, tired of fruitlessly scrolling through microfilms for illegible entries. More recently we have availed ourselves of the internet and the numerous finding aids that have now become available. This has led us to adopt a stance whereby we extend the story on a “reasonable conjecture” basis, relying on the general pattern being credible, with such things as a grandchild being named after its grandparent. One source we have used consists of published family trees (on Ancestry Com, for example) but any data suggested by these “cousins” that we have accepted have first been scrutinised at source. Of course, we have to be prepared to change our minds but word-processing makes that pretty easy!
Map of Places of Birth
For a map showing all known places of birth for all the direct ancestors in all four branches of the family, see:
Sitemap
For an alphabetical listing of all family pages see the sitemap.
Sheena Young’s Funeral
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Mike Young
January 2018
Young Family History 