I am located in south Oxfordshire, a short distance from the famous academic city of Oxford. I grew up in this area previously residing in Goring on Thames and the market town of Wallingford, also situated on the River Thames. Growing up in such an environment, history was always surrounding me and this is why I initially had the desire to research my own family.
When working on my own family history I found that some previous researchers had not always got the “facts” correct. I found some had made pieces of the family jigsaw fit or just used people and places often with coincidental names as part of their trees. Once you have a wrong person in the tree, then you are taken off on a tangent and subsequent generations are incorrect. Another problem I faced, was that many of the websites that provide historical information mis-transcribe records, which again leads to the family tree being totally misleading.
I carefully check the facts and information that I discover. I apply clinical and methodical checks and work more like a detective to be assured that the information I am recording is as accurate as to the best of my knowledge and ensure that it is logical. Research can be painstaking as people in the past would often embellish the truth in regards to job titles, status and to cover up who was actually the parents of a child, especially when not married. Censuses are a useful source of information, but again some entries can be inconsistent and often hindered by the fact that the person may have had limited skills in literacy.
Apart from my own direct family I have also carried out research for other people who required information about their past. This has included:
Finding relatives who served and were killed in the First World War.
Discovering that relatives had been awarded prestigious military honours and even listed in the New years Honours list of those years.
Researching the fate of a father and grandfather killed in the D-Day landings whose then wife would not speak about him to their children.
Finding relatives that had never been mentioned or known about.
Looking at criminal records and tracing person who had been transported, leading to new lives and families in countries such as Australia.
Over the years I have honed my skills and methodology to obtain and record information as accurately as I feel I can achieve. What started out as a personal hobby has helped many people answer some unanswered questions.
Sharon