Identifying the Irish line happened quickly in my genealogy journey. My father’s mother’s birth certificate showed she was born in England, as were both her parents. But in censuses, her grandparents on her mother’s side indicated that they had both been born in Ireland, as had their eldest child. Irish ancestry confirmed.
But finding my Scottish ancestors proved much more difficult. My father’s father’s birth certificate showed he was born in England. So I moved back a generation. But his father’s mother was born in Huntingdonshire in England — not Scotland. And records showed that her parents were also English, not Scottish.
And on all census reports from 1881 through 1911, my father’s father’s father, Joseph Henry Lowe, showed that he too was born in England — specifically Bury, Lancashire in 1850. So I went looking for his parents, guessing that one or both of them must have been born in Scotland. Other than a notation on Joseph Henry’s marriage certificate that his father was Henry Lowe, a tailor, I had no information on his parents. So I went looking for him in the 1851, 1861 or 1871 censuses when he should have been living with his parents. I also searched for a birth or baptism of a Joseph Henry Lowe in 1850 with a father named Henry. And although I ordered a dozen birth certificates and tracked numerous candidates through the censuses, none matched. Joseph Henry Lowe’s line of the family became my first brick wall.
After banging my head against that brick wall for awhile, I moved on to researching other lines of the family. But after each success elsewhere, I returned to Joseph Henry or JH as I called him. But his brick wall seemed to grow stronger with each run at it. I enlisted the help of other genealogists, but they had no luck either. I created theories and then set out to research them, but each time I hit a dead end. I began to wonder if there was ever going to be a way to break through this brick wall.
But finding my Scottish ancestors proved much more difficult. My father’s father’s birth certificate showed he was born in England. So I moved back a generation. But his father’s mother was born in Huntingdonshire in England — not Scotland. And records showed that her parents were also English, not Scottish.
And on all census reports from 1881 through 1911, my father’s father’s father, Joseph Henry Lowe, showed that he too was born in England — specifically Bury, Lancashire in 1850. So I went looking for his parents, guessing that one or both of them must have been born in Scotland. Other than a notation on Joseph Henry’s marriage certificate that his father was Henry Lowe, a tailor, I had no information on his parents. So I went looking for him in the 1851, 1861 or 1871 censuses when he should have been living with his parents. I also searched for a birth or baptism of a Joseph Henry Lowe in 1850 with a father named Henry. And although I ordered a dozen birth certificates and tracked numerous candidates through the censuses, none matched. Joseph Henry Lowe’s line of the family became my first brick wall.
After banging my head against that brick wall for awhile, I moved on to researching other lines of the family. But after each success elsewhere, I returned to Joseph Henry or JH as I called him. But his brick wall seemed to grow stronger with each run at it. I enlisted the help of other genealogists, but they had no luck either. I created theories and then set out to research them, but each time I hit a dead end. I began to wonder if there was ever going to be a way to break through this brick wall.
Top image courtesy of unsplash.com.
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