This Week Thursday - Events from my Family Tree

Here are some events from my family tree with anniversaries in the next 7 days.

• Thursday 18th April
• John GUTHRIE was born in Pharis, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1903 (110 years ago)
• Friday 19th April
• Saturday 20th April
• Sunday 21st April
• David TILLING died in 1882 (131 years ago)
• Alexander Birch and Agnes Jane CLIFT were married in Dover, Kent, England in 1900 (113 years ago)  
• Monday 22nd April
• Tuesday 23rd April
• Ann TILLIN was baptised in Beenham, Berkshire, England in 1775 (238 years ago)
• Wednesday 24th April
• Harriet Matilda TILLIN was baptised in Teddington, Middlesex in 1825 (188 years ago)

WDYTYA Live 2011

So, after a bit of a break I'm back! Genealogy has taken a bit of a back seat over the last few months with the arrival of my 3rd child. Anyway I managed to get a ticket for Who Do You Think You Are Live at Olympia last weekend and spent a few hours of child free family tree time.

The night before I had taken a good look at the WDYTYA Live website and decided on the stands I wanted to visit. I knew that I had a short time scale as I was due to meet friends for lunch in central London so I wanted to make the most of my time.

I arrived at Olympia on Saturday 26th February at 9.30am and trooped off the underground with everyone else straight into the end of a queue. The queue seemed long but was constantly moving and within 5 minutes I had got through the front door. This was the point where my research came in handy - I immediately headed upstairs to pick up some tickets for a talk at 11am. But, the queue was long and I didn't want to waste any time and I knew from a previous visit that I would be able to stand at the back and listen so I headed off to the military area.

We have a ROBBINS ancestor who was part of the Royal Garrison Artillery in Gibraltar so I chatted to a guy on the Royal Artillery Museum stand. I bought a couple of books to provide a bit of background and a booklet about tracing military ancestors.

As it was still early I spent 5 minutes chatting to a guy on the PRONI stand and we worked out that to continue tracing my GUTHRIE roots there may be some estate management papers in the archives. So maybe one day I'll be able to go to Belfast and investigate that further.

Then it was off to the Guild of One Name Studies. I have been a member for a couple of years but after speaking with Corinne I took the plunge and registered my TILLIN one name study. I will let you know when my profile page is up and running.

Next door was the North of Ireland Family History Society which I joined as an associate member - I'm looking forward to their bi-annual publication and possibly doing a bit of research in Coleraine when I'm over there in August.

After a quick pause for a drink, I stopped at the Berkshire Family History Society where we found some TILLINs on their Marriage and Burial Indices. I didn't buy the CDs but I'm considering it as I know that the bulk of my TILLINs are from this county.

Finally I listened to the talk by D. Josh Taylor on organising. I missed the first 10 minutes but the part that I heard was really useful. I'm hoping to get hold of the handouts from the website at some point as there was quite a lot to take in.

And with that it was time to head off into Central London. I'd had a quick genealogy fix and enjoyed chatting with everyone. I think I'm getting braver and found that actually speaking to people made the WDYTYA experience much more fun. I also have 3 areas to focus my research on for the next few months which will hopefully stop me going off on too many tangents!

Another Certificate - Peter GUTHRIE death

I've ordered a couple of certificates from the GRO in Belfast now and I've been very happy with the service. It costs £12 to buy a certificate from them but always seem to arrive within a week even if I've been a bit sketchy with some of the information I've provided.

Peter GUTHRIE was my gtx2 grandfather. He died on 14 May 1888 at the age of 91in the townland of Pharis in the parish of Loughguile in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. He was a farmer and I think that the farm he had was probably the same one that my mother was brought up on.

He was a widower but so far I've had no joy in finding out who he was married to. His son, Daniel, married Jane LOUGHRIDGE. I have no idea if Daniel had any siblings. Peter appears on Griffith's Valuation in 1851 but that doesn't give me anymore information about the family.

I am slowly piecing together bits of information about Peter but the most interesting bit can be found here. According to this book one of Peter's fields was called "the graveyard field" because they found human remains and coffins!

Griffith's Valuation On Line

This valuation contains details of every landholder and householder in Ireland. Thanks to Margaret Jordan's post at the Cork Genealogist I've found that it is now freely available.

My Greatx2 Grandfather, Peter GUTHRIE, appears on the list in Pharis. His landlord is George Macartney who I believe is from Lissanoure Castle. I've just found their website here. I've actually been to Lissanoure about 4 years ago for my aunt's birthday party. According to the Valuation he rented house, offices and land. There is then a valuation, in this case the total rateable value is £10 15s.

Another interesting thing on this page of the valuation is that some of the other family names in Pharis were still around 100 or so years later when my mother lived in Pharis as a girl. She recognises some of them and it shows how some families just didn't move much.

The 1911 Census at the Irish National Archives

Copies of the Irish 1911 census are held at the Irish National Archive website. Through this site I've been able to find details of my family at the time.

Each image shows the actual census document rather than a transcript so I've actually seen my great grandfather's handwriting!

The other good thing about this website is that it's free (unlike the 1911 census in England) so you can have a really good trawl around it.

The census return took all names, relation to the head of the family, religious preference, education, age, sex, profession, length of marriage, number of children born alive, number of children living, county of birth, whether they speak Irish or not and if they are deaf, dumb, blind or an imbecile.

As well as the individual returns you can also see the enumarator's abstract, details of the houses and buildings at each address and further information on the outbuildings

This photo shows the return for my great grandfather, Daniel GUTHRIE. On Sunday, 2nd April 1911 the family was in the townland of Pharis in the parish of Loughguile in County Antrim. This Census entry has confirmed information that I'd obtained from an old family bible that my mother has. It has also given me middle names that I didn't have.

This is the buildings information for the townland of Pharis. It shows what types of buildings and who rented from whom.

I believe I've also found the return for another great-grandfather, James HICKINSON, when he was 18 and living with this parents (my greatx2 grandparents) in Carncullogh Upper in the parish of Derrykeighan in County Antrim. I haven't yet corroborated this with other evidence but I'm working on it!

I've also found the returns for some of my collateral lines but as I'm trying to focus on my direct line ancestors I won't include them here.

I'll cover the details of the census when I describe what I've learnt about the individual families.