At 09:31 AM 29/01/02 -0500, Steve St. Clair wrote:
>I began researching my family's history
[...]
>When I got back, I prepared a chart that shows family members against a
>history timeline. If you haven't done this, I highly recommend it. Mine
>is posted online for you to see if you like,
http://www.planetcentral.com/timeline.gif
G'day Steve,
My name is Ian Newman... and I'm a genealogical junkie too. (-:
I also agree with your sentiments. Similarly, I produced a "timeline", but
only in Word format, not the nicely-presented style you have on your web
page. (How did you do that?)
I find that certain events are extremely relevant, like when the first
railway line was opened in the particular area that my ancestors lived in,
or even when the motor car was introduced - that would give me some idea of
their capability to travel great distances.... or not, as the case may be.
My gggrandfather was Chaplain of Aberdeen Prison for 14 years. After
finding him on the 1881 British Census, I then proceeded to look up the
names of those imprisoned there (one Sinclair was in "residence" - an
Alexander Sinclair born Aberdeen, aged 23, unmarried, occupation: "flesher"
- any listmembers missing him?) and those living nearby. This gave me an
idea of how many prisoners were held there as at that date.
Further enquiries to the Scottish Prison Service led to my education being
furthered on the exact role that a Chaplain played in those days (being a
more important position than I had originally thought). From the same Census
I also found the governor of the prison in situ, and now know the names of
the matrons and warders there. In the same road as the prison lived the
County Police Constable, his wife, daughter and another Constable who was
lodging there.
As my gggrandfather was (obviously?) Church of Scotland, I included the
date (1843) of the "Disruption" in my timeline along with the dates of the
closures of the old and construction/opening of the new prison in Aberdeen.
I intend to add more relevant dates as time marches on and I (hopefully)
learn more details of my family. For me, it all serves to illustrate their
life more vividly, as I have no photographs of any of that line save that
of my own father and his Uncle (from recent discovery of his family in New
Zealand).
Above everything else - photos are the item I would value the most.
The search continues!
Cheers,
Ian Newman
Perth, Western Australia
PS: When in Aberdeen in April, I got funny looks from passers-by whilst
videoing the mudscraper outside of a door of a house. What they didn't
know was that my gggrandfather would have scraped the mud off of his shoes
on that very scraper way back in 1886! (information gleaned from that
year's postal directory)
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