Murdered Ancestor
Having successfully traced one family li ne back to the 1700s we decided to order some of the relevant death certificates to add more depth to our research. We discovered that one young father had been murdered in the 1860s and wanting to know more we approached the local Records Office to try to find the inquest report. Unfortunately all the records for that particular period had been destroyed but we were able to find newspapers cuttings reporting the incident and subsequent inquest. From these articles we were able to build up a picture of the murdered man which gave the family an insight into his character and description of his work and area in which he lived.
From postings on a message board we were also able to learn that his widowed mother and four younger siblings had moved to America some ten years earlier where one of his sisters and one of his brothers had drowned whilst trying to cross a river after travelling to a nearby town to get medicine for their mother.
Amazingly neither of these stories had been passed down to the present generation of this family.
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Missing Bible
Never underestimate the value of registering with message boards when researching your ancestry. You can find relatives you never knew you had and sometimes learn about what happened to your ancestors when they moved abroad. There are so many message boards out there that it is worth registering with a few and checking the postings from time to time.
 One such posting helped us retrieve a family bible that someone had saved from being thrown away during the refurbishment of an old people's club. She posted a message giving a few details of the early 19th Century family listed inside the bible and we knew immediately that we had found valuable information for a client's family tree. Eventually we were able to return the bible to its original owner's descendents.
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