Delving into the family history on and off for about 20 years has left me hopelessly addicted to the following clues, hunches and inevitable red herrings that are all needed to piece together the bare chapters of someone's life. Unable to resist people's 'brick walls' or an innocent query re the origin of grandparents and those before, there's nothing better than trying to find the unfound.
This is my sudoku, my multilevel crossword, my jigsaw where most of the pieces are missing and there's definitely no picture to start from.
So - to satisfy this addiction, each week I intend to choose someone at random from the 1881 census (checking that their story hasn't already unfolded on ancestry.co.uk) and uncover, piece together what I can from internet sources their untold story.
The puzzling and the unfolding story will be told in this blog.

Sunday, 22 July 2012

First protagonist - Alexander Cowan

The Nottinghamshire Alexander Cowan dismissed as he married in 1877 according to an ancestry tree,

 With no obvious sign in 1891 of Alexander both on ancestry and on findmypast using both a wild card* after Alex and no surname in case of misspellings, I've checked the death registers and the parish burial records for West Yorkshire. There was an Alexander Cowan buried in Moorgate Cemetery in Rotherham 17 April 1890 aged 37 (possible birth year 1853) - has my first protaginist died already?

 Tried to find the Kings Arms Doncaster Gate in 1891 using search by address - only pub apparently on Doncaster Gate was the Wheat Sheaf ( no sign of him there). The Wheat Sheaf was also there in 1881,a couple of pages further on in the census, however even going back a number of pages Doncaster Gate in 1891 seems to start at no. 7.

 Checked the new Discovery search on National Archives to no avail.
Checked Access to Archives for the King's Arms Rotherham, Cowan Rotherham and Alexander Cowan to no avail.
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