Researching pre 1837 records, continued. (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, September 27, 2012, 05:22 (4513 days ago) @ Jezcuz2

Hi Jez, thanks for your kind words, it was a pleasure to help, we're all learning - I'm just an enthusiastic amateur still fairly new to it all.
I recall just a year or so ago when I started using the PRs to research my Jones line (so clearly MANY to choose from, most not related tho), I hadnt spotted the Adv Search link. I would slowly and laboriously but (importantly !) METHODICALLY go thro ALL the Jones PRs in a given likely Parish area, hoping to stumble across someone of mine, picking up names & clues on the way. It worked but sooo slow. When someone kindly pointedout the AdSearch it was a revelation to put it mildly !. We knew my elderly grandmother had had a sister who visited us occasionally, but not eight more, and so on.. !! I hadnt realised the importance of long standing traditional family names, or the fact most C19th adults were married and starting families by their late teens, or of the often large family sizes and high infant mortality rates, etc etc.
I also now know my local library is packed full of lots of very usefull guides and manuals abt FH research, as is the internet, so lots to learn for little or no cost. I'm really pleased to hear you enjoy solving mysteries, thats good as this hobby can take over your life in a nicely addictive way, but surely more usefull than suduko etc ?.
Re your Devon researches, I expect you know them but here's a few sites that may be of use to you. Just by carefully searching the internet I've found many dozens of great sites full of reference data and sometimes Census info etc, including this FoD one of course which was a revelation for me and probably the best of all of them (and I mean right across the UK, so lucky! us). I've just "Googled" these abt Devon esp Teignmouth, there will be more of course:

Genuki is a great site for all parts of the UK, http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/Teignmouth/
http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/about.htm best for local PRs etc it seems
Very usefull tips on the local gov site !
http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/councildemocracy/record_office/family_history_3.htm
http://www.devon.gov.uk/record_office/family_history_3/parish_registers/index_and_trans...
http://www.teignheritage.org.uk/
http://www.francisfrith.com/teignmouth/
http://www.oldukphotos.com/devon_teignmouth.htm
http://www.trusham.com/Census%20data/Census%20menu.htm (small village website has many census transcriptions free to access)
http://www.devonheritage.org/FrameMain_ParishRecords.htm (has Shaldon nr Teignmouth Census returns for example, worth a read it seems!)