Nearly all of my family history research has been carried out online.  Armed with a computer and an internet connection I can access records from all over the world, cross reference records, and benefit from the work done by others.  It would appear that it has never been easier to build up a picture of your ancestry, but, nevertheless, sometimes you come up against a brick wall.  This happened when I got to James Slater, born in 1835, and Mike’s gt.gt. grandfather.

I had records of his marriage and his married life and birth of his children, but finding details of his parents was proving difficult.

The usual avenues for information were less than helpful.  His marriage certificate (which normally give details of his father) was blank on that score and mothers’ details are not provided on marriage certificates.  This is still the case although legislation is due to be introduced during 2018 to put mothers’ names on marriage certificates.

Slater is a common surname and there were loads of men with this name from the Burnley area with births around 1835 so that was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.

It was difficult to get a sense of exactly where he was born which might have helped me: his birthplace was given variously as Burnley, Gisburn and even Birmingham in the census returns from 1861 to 1891.

It was likely that his surname came from his mother, so I knew that Census returns for 1841 and 1851 would in all likelihood show James with a mother but no father, but that still wasn’t much help.

Fast forward earlier this year and Mike and I had our DNA analysed by Ancestry.

As well as providing you with information on your ethnic origins it also provides you with details of other DNA results that have a match to yours, with an indication of your relationship e.g. fourth cousins.  They also tell you if there are any shared surnames and/or shared countries, of origin.  This can be helpful if the names are unusual, for example, in my tree there are few people who share the surname Morrell so we are fairly sure where those connections are.

If the owner has given permission for the information to be shared, you can access their tree.  The trees can be quite small or can be quite large.  Our tree (which combines information on both the Morrells and the Slater) has just under 1000 people in it and goes back – at it’s furthest – to the late 1600’s: about 10 generations.

You can go through the list of people in the tree and you might hit on what looks like on obvious connection.  In my case, I share DNA with a person living in Canada.  Looking through their family tree, they have a family of people back in the early 1800’s from Wood Dalling in Norfolk.  Wood Dalling is a tiny village – even today – but back in the mid 1800’s my gt.gt grandmother was born in Wood Dalling before marrying and moving to Dewsbury in Yorkshire.  It’s a fairly good bet that that is the connection between me and this person in Canada.

Anyway, back to James Slater…..

The other day I was looking through Mike’s DNA matches and came across a chap whose tree I could access.

In the list of names in his tree was a Julia Slater from Gisburn in Lancashire.

I immediately noticed the possible connection – the surname, and the place of birth.

In the 1881 census, James gives  his place of birth as Gisburn.  Was there a connection?  Surely they had to be.

By the way, if the name Gisburn rings a bell, cast your mind to Robin Hood’s nemesis – Sir Guy of Gisburn…..

So it was back to the Ancestry databases armed with some more (possible) information.

I looked up Julia Slater in other family trees and found hints as to what to look for.  Searching the 1841 and 1851 census data and limiting the records to Gisburn, I came across records of a James Slater born around 1835 living with his mother, Ann Slater and her father William.  They were living in the small village of Paythorne just outside Gisburn.

Interestingly, their name was written as Slaiter (rather than Slater) which is probably how I missed it.

My searching identified a book of Gisburn Paris records up to 1812 which I diligently trawled through and found Ann’s birth listed as well as William’s marriage to Ann’s mother (also called Ann).  There are plenty of Slaters in Gisburn and surrounding villages – often written as Sclater (particularly in the 1700’s), although Slater becomes more common later.

I haven’t been able to find out what happened to Ann after 1851 – I cant find any record of her in the 1861 census or later.  Some of her children turn up in Clitheroe in 1861 and there is a record of an Ann Slaiter dying in 1860 in Clitheroe.  Perhaps that is her.

I have not yet found definitive proof of the connection between Ann Slaiter and Julia Slater, but it looks like Ann was the gt. granddaughter of a Roger Sclater, whilst Julia was the gt. granddaughter of Roger Sclater’s brother John.

So there we have it – 21st century family tree sleuthing.  I cannot be 100% sure that James of Paythorne is Mike’s gt. gt. grandfather, but its looking that way.