Bill's Genealogy Blog

Bill Buchanan is a long-time genealogy enthusiast, living in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada. This blog will describe my experiences as I research my family history and help others.

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Location: Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada

I am a retired online school teacher. I love family history. Since 2007, I have spent much of my time providing part-time support for the world's largest free family history site https://familysearch.org This is very rewarding. I have helped others with the Family Tree and related FamilySearch products.
In 2010-2018 I served in the Edmonton Riverbend Family History Centre. I have a FHC blog at Bill's Family History Center Blog For information the Latter-day Saints and family history click https://www.comeuntochrist.org/

Friday, May 29, 2009

On Monday I discovered two very distant cousins on genesreunited.com. (This is an inexpensive British genealogy site where you upload a gedcom file and they inform you of potential matches in the gedcom files of other subscribers.) I am researching the ancestors of Henry Waller /Walder and Martha New, of Rogate, Sussex, England. They are the grandparents of Martha Jane Forsbury Ing, my great grandmother. Martha's mother was Ann Waller /Walder. My Australian cousins (including Irene and Adel, mentioned later) are descendants of Martha's half-brother, James Waller.
Jackie Walder Perkins is a descendant of Ann's brother Edward Walder/Waller Rogate baptisms: 12/04/1801 Edward Henry Martha WALLER Rogate marriages: 08/07/1821 Banns Groom WALLER Edward Bride PESCOT Ann With consent of parents
Jackie says that the wife of William Waller or Walder c.1660 of Rogate, Sussex, England was Jane Newlin [also suggested by another very distant relative] born Hawkley, Hampshire, England. I found her christening 11 Jul 1670 Hawkley, Hampshire, England in the IGI/NFS Her father's name was Thomas Newlin. This son of a Thomas Newlin is probably an older brother: Thomas Newlin christened 31 Dec 1655 Hawkley, Hampshire, England
The other very distant cousin was Anthony Albery. Tony gave me the long-sought christening information for Martha New!
Hi Bill I think Martha New was born in Froxfield, Hampshire, baptised 1 May 1768 according to the IGI database, her parents being John and Elizabeth New about whom I know no more. Froxfield isn't too far from Rogate so it seems a reasonable guess. Have opened my tree for you, regards Tony Anthony Albery (Member No.124280)http://www.genesreunited.com/
Anthony Re: Re: Re: Martha New (1765) 25/05/2009 19:09:00 Hi Bill Yes, I am a descendant of Elizabeth Walder who is my 3rd Great grandmother, she married John Wells at Rogate on 11 Oct 1826. According to the Rogate burial register, Martha New was 71 when she died in 1836. This would give a birth year of 1765, not too far out from the Froxfield baptism in 1768. I have just been finding Martha's siblings, 7 including her and all girls, from the IGI. The first was born in 1750 but still no sign of John New's marriage. [I haven't found Martha's sisters in the IGI yet! - Bill] regards Tony So Tony, Jackie, and I had a miniature Waller family reunion on Monday on genesreunited.com. We represented three of the children of Henry Waller and Martha New. I thought that was rather special! (These children, our ancestors, were born about 200 years ago.) Interestingly, they both had the Waller family mapped-out exactly as I have it in the gedcom file I sent to Irene Kerr ands Adel Firth-Mason. So that was reassuring. Neither one pursued the Goldring line, so I had no chance to compare notes there.
I also shared this info with Irene and Adel, as they are very interested in our Waller ancestors.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have finished putting William Buchanan of Auchmar's 1723 book, "A Historical and Genealogical Essay Upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan" into a genealogy database. I plan to upload a gedcom file and a descendancy chart to my web site later this week. On a personal note, our weather has been rather pitiful, with occasional snow, but it is getting much better this last few days. I rented a roto-tiller, as mine refused to start despite all of my efforts. The rental unit worked perfectly, and took less time than my old tiller. I have to admit I found the more powerful tiller a bit stenuous for someone as out-of-shape as I am. On Mothers Day we were not expecting any of the kids home since our church meetings are in the afternoon. (We share a chapel with another congregation, and we get mornings on alternating years.) After we got home, Blaine phoned and asked if they could come over, we said "Yes, but it will only be us." About 10 minutes later I heard a car door slam, and thought "That was fast!" I looked out of the window and saw Laurel's family, followed about 10 minutes later by Andrew's family, then eventually Blaine's family. Rob was working, and Evelyn's family and James' both had car problems. But we had a good-sized group and had a wonderful time. During the week we replaced the alternator and battery in Evelyn & Ed's car, so they have transportation again. I dropped my copy of the Consumer Reports Annual Auto Issue over at James & Karin's house, and the car they bought was a new Hyundai Elantra , one of Consumer Reports' "Best Buys". That should solve their car problems for a few years. Evelyn and Ed are probably a few years from being able to do so. We hope for the best. So far our blue 2001 Pontiac Sunfire is still doing well at 325,000 km. I was not worried about driving it to Lethbridge and back. Saturday May 16th we drove down to Lethbridge for Judy's brother's wedding. We enjoyed meeting Anna, Bob's fiancee and much of her family. Anna and Bob met through their karaoke club, and after the wedding supper, it was dancing and karaoke time. (In case you wonder, I am a good listener.) Then Sunday we stopped off for church at Claresholm, and drove back home in time for my weekly 8 pm online FamilySearch group meeting. I am keeping very busy, and Judy has been busier than ever, planting the garden. But we are enjoying life.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

In 2002 I purchased a reprint of "A Historical and Genealogical Essay Upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan" by William Buchanan of Auchmar, originally published in 1723. My latest project has been creating a lineage-linked file of the main lines in PAF by systematically copying information from the book. I had expected to find this already done, but didn't find it. Then I found the book itself as part of a larger book in Google Books! Auchmar's longer book is the "family Bible" of Scotland's clans and especially (you guessed it) Clan Buchanan. You can read the book online or save a copy! "Miscellanea Scotica - Memoirs of the ancient alliance between France and Scotland"! Cheers for Google Books! http://books.google.com/books?id=WmouAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA198&lpg=RA1-PA198&dq=Scots+wedset&source=bl&ots=TJDC_RvI29&sig=ehCqayJBZOpDFdVCau4svGzRdfA&hl=en&ei=CDf_SY6jJpDksgPg3sneAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PRA1-PR1,M1 Or this shorter address: http://tinyurl.com/ceqopa
This is a treasure you are not going to want to miss. The early stories of Buchanan of Arnpryor are wonderful. (starting at page 200) This is where the story of the "King of Kippen" comes in and other fun stuff as well as the "boring genealogy". I had to chuckle at the story of the Irish wet nurse who scares off a bullying laird after he threatens to burn the castle down if she doesn't leave. I noticed with sadness the reference to John Buchanan, grandson of Andrew Buchanan 2nd laird of Arnpryor being killed in the battle of Glenfruin. This is sometimes called "the last clan battle", with some Buchanans and Grahams supporting Clan Colquoun of Luss against Clan MacGregor and its allies. This battle (and the massacre of students who foolishly went there to watch) was "the straw that broke the camel's back". Luss knew how to rally public (and royal) opinion to their cause. 50 women paraded the bloody shirts of their slain husbands, brothers and sons before the king! Clan MacGregor was outlawed and for several generations the death penalty awaited anyone who dared to take that name upon themselves! Another book I found online this week is the "Buchanan of Montreal" genealogy, which brings Auchmar's genealogy forward in time. THE BUCHANAN BOOK - THE LIFE OF - ALEXANDER BUCHANAN, Q.C., - OF MONTREAL, FOLLOWED BY AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF BUCHANAN, BY ' A. W. PATRICK BUCHANAN, K.C - PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. Patty Hopkinson had recommended this book to me recently. I was delighted to find it!http://www.archive.org/stream/buchananbooklife00buchuoft/buchananbooklife00buchuoft_djvu.txt It may provide additional clues to our Buchanans. I will examine it after getting my present projects wrapped up. One last thing, Patty sent me an email message today saying that a perfect DNA match (67 markers) has been found with a member of a different Buchanan family from County Tyrone. Their genealogy goes back to the same 1700's time period as ours, but further matches should help us with the "paper trail" further back in time!

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Saturday, April 18th was a busy day for me. In the morning I gave a presentation to a church group made up mostly of LDS Family History Consultants from the greater Edmonton area. My topic was "How to Get Help From FamilySearch Support". It was a Powerpoint presentation on FamilySearch, and the resources and help available. Obviously it included the toll-free support number 1-866-406-1830 and the email address support@familysearch.org I also mentioned that we are in need of good people to join our ranks as "support missionaries". Interestingly, a week later all LDS Family History Consultants received an email message from Salt Lake City extending the same invitation. Great minds think alike? or the Spirit was conveying the same message? It was an enjoyable meeting. My session followed an excellent session on research and research standards by Sue Barnsley, the trainer for the Edmonton Riverbend Family History Center. In the afternoon I gave a presentation "How to Put Your Genealogy on the Internet", Session D3 at the Alberta Genealogical Society's annual conference in the Chateau Louis Conference Center. This was a "live" session, and I had been warned that the internet connection in that room had not been working that morning. David Obee was giving the session before mine, and I decided to attend it to see if the internet connection was working. David gave an excellent session, but it was a slide presentation. I kept sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for him to access the internet but it never happened. At the end of his presentation, I went to my car to grab my old Win98 laptop, thinking that the laptop David used was his own. When I got back, someone pointed out that the laptop he had used belonged to the AGS and was available to all presenters. And the internet connection was working perfectly. I plugged my flash drive in the AGS laptop and I was "ready to roll". The people in attendance were excellent, and I was able to answer most of their questions as I demonstrated registering at http://tribalpages.com/ and uploading a gedcom file for an instant family tree on the internet. Then I demonstrated registering at http://blogger.com/ and doing a blog posting. I also demontrated registering at http://scribd.com/ and uploading an electronic document. Lastly I went to http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/ and discussed their message boards. Unfortunately I couldn't find one for Rogate, Sussex. I should have chosen a surname board, but the people in attendance seemed very satisfied with my presentation.