yesterday I was a bit bored and wondering about family history things, decided to see what would happen if i typed some names straight into google,
the first dozen or so came up with no relevant information (there is a porn star with the same name as one of my 18th century ancestors though),
then I struck gold, a distant relative called amelia dyer had her own page on wikipedia, she was a notorious murderess! (nicknamed the reading baby farmer), a bit of a skeleton in the cupboard of the family history, but at least her life is well documented, a bit more research and I had pictures of her, a copy of her confession, newspaper articles, a review of a book written about her and even a review of a tv programme about her where she was played by joan sim (of carry on fame, I cant imagine her as a murderer somehow), within a couple of hours i had more information on her life than i have on any other ancestor!
just goes to show that sometimes a nonstructured random type of search can yield results, I could never have got all that info from bmd certificates or parish records.
Anyone else on here found an ancestor on google?
Jon
the first dozen or so came up with no relevant information (there is a porn star with the same name as one of my 18th century ancestors though),
then I struck gold, a distant relative called amelia dyer had her own page on wikipedia, she was a notorious murderess! (nicknamed the reading baby farmer), a bit of a skeleton in the cupboard of the family history, but at least her life is well documented, a bit more research and I had pictures of her, a copy of her confession, newspaper articles, a review of a book written about her and even a review of a tv programme about her where she was played by joan sim (of carry on fame, I cant imagine her as a murderer somehow), within a couple of hours i had more information on her life than i have on any other ancestor!
just goes to show that sometimes a nonstructured random type of search can yield results, I could never have got all that info from bmd certificates or parish records.
Anyone else on here found an ancestor on google?
Jon
