What county/part of the UK is FH more difficult?

[benny1982]

I am talking about a county or country in the UK or Ireland that seems to be very difficult and challenging when it comes to ancestors, either due to the lack of records, or lack of online records or even where the surnames of that area are much more common (thus less of them in that county).

I find County Durham seems to be an area where tracing ancestors seems to be very tricky due to the commonness of surnames such as Richardson, Hodgson, Foster, Wilson etc. Those surnames are common but they seem even more common in Co Durham. There seems to be hundreds of Isabella Hodgson's daughter of William Hodgson's.

 

[emeltee]

I've always found Durham OK for finding info, even with a common name like John Smith. I managed to get his branch back to the late 1600s.

I have problems finding data from Cumberland and Berkshire. You'd think that with a name like Branthwaite it would be easy but there's lot of them in Cumberland and not the ones I want, unfortunately.

Certain parts of Gloucestershire can be tricky too.

Certain counties are much better served than others.

Emeltee

 

[Ellie7]

Wisbech can be difficult.

Ellie

 

[DaveHam9]

E Sussex for my tree.

Dave

 

[benny1982]

In my Durham lot I have Forster's and Richardson's and seem to struggle past the 1750s. Durham is quite covered online but it is hard trying to identify which Thomas Forster belongs to which branch if any.

Suffolk is poorly covered online now, the old IGI was good but the new IGI is useless.

Yes I find Berkshire coverage very thin on the ground online.