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Born on St Patrick's Day: Happy 115th Mary

They say that its good luck to be Irish, and that the luckiest of all are those who are born on St Patrick's Day. No doubt this is what was said the day that my great grandmother was born. However, her life was not necessarily filled with the good luck that the superstition had predicted. As much as she had a hard life, her life was also an "ordinary" one of a young British immigrant to Canada. Despite that, the simple life she led in youth was filled with fun. She embrace the changing times, new found freedoms, and innovations. Its the heirlooms from that chapter of her life that fascinate me the most because they show a side to her that none of my relatives knew - a woman who was happy. So today, I am going to share the side of her - that one that the heirlooms tells. I have a small black autograph book that was hers.  At almost 100 years old, the book binding has all but disintegrated yet the leather cover is in near pristine condition and the partially bound pages are...
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Brick Wall Busters: 7 Strategies for Breaking Down Brick Walls

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Brick walls occur in every branch of our genealogical trees. They can stop our research all together and become a major time waster. I have had a handful of brick walls in my tree that I have been trying to breakdown for years now and only recently have began to get anywhere. While trying to break down these brick walls I uncovered several strategies that are helpful.  1. FAN Club research Sometimes referred to as 'cluster genealogy', this techniques requires you to build a social network surrounding your person of interest. The FAN club acronym was first introduced by Lisa Louise Cook as a way of dividing the social network into friends/family, associates, and neighbours. The conventional way of applying this technique is to use a table, however I have also found it helpful to create a diagram .  2. Create an evidence table An evidence table is a great way to analyze a large volume of information in a single table. The added bonus of this approach is that it can be performed ...
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How to Build a FAN Club Chart

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I am always talking about collecting information that tells you personal information about a person's life. In particular, I am always talking about identifying relationships. This is formally referred to as FAN. (Friends, Associates, and Neighbours) Club research. It is a great technique to use when trying to break through brick walls or just expand your knowledge of an ancestor. Collecting the research is one thing, but finding ways to apply it is another.   FAN club members can be found on any document. The best places to start looking are at major types of records such as BMD and census records. See who the witnesses were to the baptism or marriage, who was the informant for the death? Who was living with the family during a given year? Then once you have checked out those sources consider expanding your search to include newspapers, immigration records, old pictures, etc. Collect the information in a table being sure to check for names which appear multiple times.  I...
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Ford's Folly and the Slum of Little Hell

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Battersea: The Sinkhole of Surrey During the Victorian Era, Battersea had gained the reputation as being “the sinkhole of Surrey” due to its widespread poverty and slum-like conditions. Many of the poor in Battersea were subject to irregular income from the building trades. For a family to scrape by in the winter they would have to apply thrift spending during the summer. This was often complicated by the reliance on alcohol which was used as a means of escape from the depression of living in such widespread poverty. The irregular income caused many of Battersea’s poor to frequently be on the move. On average a family lived in one place for less than two years before moving no more than a few streets away. After hopping from neighbourhood to neighbourhood the family would eventually return to where they were once exiled from, moving in only a few doors away from their former address. Ford’s Folly and the slum of Little Hell In Keith Bailey’s report Orville Road, Battersea: a Victor...
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Born on St Patrick's Day: Happy 115th Mary

They say that its good luck to be Irish, and that the luckiest of all are those who are born on St Patrick's Day. No doubt this is what was said the day that my great grandmother was born. However, her life was not necessarily filled with the good luck that the superstition had predicted. As much as she had a hard life, her life was also an "ordinary" one of a young British immigrant to Canada. Despite that, the simple life she led in youth was filled with fun. She embrace the changing times, new found freedoms, and innovations. Its the heirlooms from that chapter of her life that fascinate me the most because they show a side to her that none of my relatives knew - a woman who was happy. So today, I am going to share the side of her - that one that the heirlooms tells. I have a small black autograph book that was hers.  At almost 100 years old, the book binding has all but disintegrated yet the leather cover is in near pristine condition and the partially bound pages are...
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F.A.N. Club: How to perform a Hub Analysis

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FAN club analysis is one of the most valuable tools at a genealogists disposal. Conventionally it is used to build a network of people around a single ancestor or family, however the process can be reversed to determine the nature of unknown relationships. The Hub analysis is a method that I came up with that helps break a large group of people into small social circles that are centered around something that they all have in common. For example, this could be a place of employment, worship, or even a club/hobby. By grouping the people in this way we can identify what subgroups exists within the FAN club (I wrote a post here on how these subgroups can be visually represented used a net diagram).  The easiest way to explain the process is by using an example. Lets take a look at a list of names that I found of people who called the family following my great grandfather's death.  **Please note that for privacy reasons I have redacted the full surname and addresses of any person...
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