Hi Dinie,
Right. Let\'s see if we can cut to the chase on this one.
You already have some pretty good information. Have you tried St Catherine\'s Hous Indexes?
Some years ago, I was helping a young chap with his family research and, in his case, the help needed was more intensive because of learning disabilities. However, once shown how to do something and set a task, he could handle it quite well. Needless to say, though, he hit a brick wall. As a result, i spent some time travelling with him to the main centres for access to the indexes. We could get them in Liverpool, but could only have an hour at a time. So, we travelled to St Helens, where we could be on all day.
I started a general search of all records for the family name and we wrote out every record we found on A4 refill pads - there were hundreds. I then set to and starting writing out record cards for every entry we found. When that was done, I sat and started sorting them. First into district, then into year within that district and so on. Eventually, I had found all the names he had got. Plus, I was able to add details of 17 other individuals he knew nothing about. The end result was that, from these cards, I was able to take him back a further three generations and cracked the brick wall wide open. it involved shovelling through an awful lot of entries. But, we got there.
I think if you do a general search of birth, marriage and death entries for the names you have, covering the known years you are dealing with, in the two areas you have in mind, there is a very good chance you will find what you are looking for. The beauty of the St Catherine\'s House Indexes is that they cover the whole country (England and Wales) and are arranged alphabetically within each quarter. From these, it should be fairly easy to pin these records down. Although it will require a fair bit of time being spent doing so. There are no shortcuts.
If you are not sure of the years of birth, or place(s) of birth of the siblings, look for the entries of death. That will give you the ages at death and, from them, the year of birth. If you find more than one entry for a given name (meaning that there is more than one person in the records with that name), write them all down and then work out the years of birth from that. Next, check the birth indexes for the years you have and write down all the information for each and every one of them. When you get home, write out record cards for each one and then start sorting them, using common information such as parents\' names or locations. Consider that all children of a given family will probably have been born within within a period of 20 years. So, if you have a group which matches the names you have, and fits the time period, you only now need to look at the parents names. If they match, you\'ve got them. For the sister, the first thing you will need to do is find an emtry for marriage. This will do instead of an entry of death, as it will have her age at the time of the marriage and you can work out her year of birth from that.
Before you start any of the above, write out all the information you do have, for each name, on separate index cards and carry them with you when you go. Compare the information you have on the cards with entries you find and, you should be able to start filling in gaps there as well.
I wish I could be with you to show you the way but, I am going to have to rely on you to do as I say (no more and no less at this stage) and report back to me how you get on. There will be a lot of frustration. there will be trips when you fnd nothing. There will be other trips when you come home with lots of info. Much of it will prove irrelevant and will seem pointless. It isn\'t. Trying to identify the right records can be like trying to identify an unknown object. If you don\'t know what it is, eliminate what you know it isn\'t. That reduces the number of records that will fit and, as you cut the numbers, the process of elimination gets easier and quicker. Eventually, you will be left with only a few to check on further and, very quickly, you will identify the right ones.
Keep up the work and let me know how you get on.
Keith.