Friday, March 22, 2013

Not finding something can be important too

Originally, when I booked for Rootstech, my plan for the Wednesday before the conference was to spend the day in the Family History Library doing my research.  Then it was announced that there would be talks by Else Churchill, Alec Tritton and Audrey Collins on various topics relating to UK genealogy.  So I decided to attend those, even though it would mean only a little time for research that day.  Sadly, Else Churchill and Alec Tritton’s flight from the UK was delayed and they missed their connecting flight to Salt Lake City and thus were not going to be there to give the talks.  Audrey Collins kindly stepped in to give an extra talk during the 2nd slot, as well as the talk she was already giving during the 3rd slot.  All this meant that there was some extra time for research during the 1st slot as well as after the talks.
As it was, I managed to have a very productive day.  Sometimes not finding something is as important as finding something.  I knew that my ancestor Joseph (or Joshua) Huddleston married Agnes Gibson in Aldingham in Lancashire in 1747.  I wanted to check the registers of that parish earlier to see if Joseph or Agnes had been baptised in that parish and thus find the names of their parents.  Well, they weren’t baptised in Aldingham. There were very few Gibson events there at all, and the small number of Huddleston event started relatively late.  I now know that those families came from somewhere else in Lancashire.  I just need to figure out where!

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