Does that mean you're a bit of a genealogist then?

[OBonio]

I've been trying to get my dad's side back a bit further without much luck. Quite a few Jones' in Wales! My mum's side are also Jones!

Any tips much appreciated!

[daisy48]

OBonio try Ancestory.co.uk Im researching my ancestors. You can look up Cencus's for England and Wales but you'll need to put in some info such as ancestors name,where born,year of birth. Have a look!

[dot.hawkes]

what you need to do O Bonio is reconstruct the family into groups and try to eliminate certain potentials by cross checking with birth death and marriage registartions and census information. Occupations and christian names will help to make sure you are on the right lines. if possible try to locate the parish or chapelry's original (or facsimile) registers and look for any pertinent comments added to the records by the local incumbant, oftenm the case. this is a lengthy but worthwhile exercise, it will help you work out which villages the family lived in and what they did. use naming patterns and see if it helps.

[shineybomb]

I've got Welsh Jones, Davies and Williams's in my tree. Taking a break from that side of the tree though as its quite taxing. Mine are from Pembroke, South Wales and Caernarfon, North Wales

[FISHFACE]

shineybomb good luck where do you start! Jones the bread? ;-)

[dot.hawkes]

The same practical idea can apply to any small village where a certain surname was common. You will probably also find out that there was a proliferation of the same surnames as well, most families. especially in the 18th century, had boys called William, James, Thomas John and Henry. In a family i was researching once however, one particular line repeatedly used lancelot, laurence and Richard. makes it so much easier.
I have alot of ancestry from the Lincolnshire villages around Boston and they all used the same names over and over. It is in these situations where the negative results help you to eliminate possibilities. If you are looking for James Smith marrying a mary Brown you may find a few in the same few years on the GRO marriage index, but by looking at the actual record you can discover occupations, whitnesses names and fathers names, and also sometimes there is a surviving marriage bond record which names other family members.

[shineybomb]

I haven't investigated the Welsh side much as its so difficult so have mainly stuck to the other brances - I currently have 313 individuals and 39 surnames in my tree

[derekblue]

I can highly recommend the site Genes reunited.My brother does our family tree and its been a great help.Even found Alison Moyet is our cousin! Weird.