I have had difficulty balancing work, keeping house, making a living, raising children, writing a newsletter, writing a blog, researching my family tree and on and on and on. So my blog posts have been few and far between.
I have had a recent breakthrough in my research that has restored my motivation. Again it was a matter of going back to the basics. Reading the instructions. Starting with what you know and building on it.
Rather than continuing to bash my head against the Iron Curtain Brick Wall searching for my Romanian grandfather, I decided to turn my attention elsewhere and come back to Romania later.
Where to go now? I decided to start at the top with my Mitchell line. The Mitchell line marches back fairly simply: Donald Norman, son of Norman Wilfred, son of William Richard, son of George William, son of William. (I must say the English show little imagination in choosing names for their children.)
It's with George William that I get stuck. He has been conspicuously absent from census records. In fact, it wasn't until I started searching for William Richard as a child that I found anything.
By searching for the children I was able to find the parents, the grandparents and some younger siblings that nobody knew about before. I found George's marriage record and learned that he was a mariner. This explains his absences and it also explains Patrick's passion for sailing. Check out his blog here.
I was also able to correct the mistaken identity of my great-great-grandmother. Dad had her name listed as Ellen Daily. Turns out her name was Eliza Darby--transcribed in FreeBMD as Eliza Darley. This is why seasoned genealogists advise newbies to keep an open mind about spellings.
By being open to alternate spellings, I found that the surname Schaeferling, which means Shepherd evolved from Schifferle, which means something to do with sailing ships. Another clue into Patrick's nautical blood.
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