Last night I found a great site whilst Googling some family ancestors (try it – you never know what you may find – but be prepared for anything!)

In searching for Sarah Elizabeth GOLDSACK, I located the site of Larry Goldsack at http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/goldsack/ and located Sarah in the (very full) details page. It tended to suggest that Sarah’s mother was Mary Ann SHARPE, not HORN as I had believed.

This is entirely down to me assuming (again!) the wrong information. Searching on FreeBMD had found a few candidates for the family, around close registration districts; I had picked the wrong one! I should be able to easily verify this via Sarah’s birth certificate (which I do not yet have).

I have therefore updated the tree (go here) to reflect the change – I am a lot more confident in it’s reliability than my attempt!

I now have another great source to progress my mother’s side of the family!

A few weeks ago my mother sought the services of a professional photographic studio to attempt to “repair” one of her family photos. It was of her grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth CASTLE (née GOLDSACK) and her adopted daughter, Daisy (born to Frances Georgina FAGG).

Despite my insistence that the photo was really beyond saving, she chose to use the services of The Studio, at Herne Bay in Kent. Despite a little artistic license being required to rebuild baby Daisy’s facial features, I think you’ll agree they did a wonderful job from a very poor original!

Before retouching

After retouching

If you have need of such services, give them a go. Check out their details at http://www.theonlystudio.co.uk/.

I received a couple of marriage certificates yesterday – George CASTLE m. Sarah Elizabeth GOLDSACK, and Richard HATTON m. Margaret GARLINGE. The latter couple appear at the edge of online records, in the early 1800s. Despite me having supposedly found Margaret’s family in early censuses, the marriage certificate suggested I was wrong! Her father is not named as a William GARLINGE, as I had thought, but James GARLINGE!

I have retained the other family records, but now have to prove which is correct via another means, and that will probably be Parish Records. After all, it is not unknown for names to be incorrectly listed on certificates!

The other certificate at least verified my maternal gt-gt-grandfather was Stephen CASTLE, and after a couple of hours I traced back to my gt-gt-gt-grandfather, Daniel CASTLE (b. ~1814 in Stelling, Kent) and a gt-gt-gt-gt-grandfather of James PAY (b. ~1796-1801), his father-in-law.
The GOLDSACKs are just too numerous for me to assume anything at the moment, but I at least found Sarah’s immediate family.

I really must get some trees online!

I received a letter back from Keith Goldsack, of the Goldsack One Name Study. He did not have my gt-grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth GOLDSACK in his study, and was seeking any information I may have to contribute to his database!

Well, Keith. As soon as I have more, I will let you know. I expect to be ordering her marriage certificate soon, to enable me to confirm her father, and that of her husband, my gt-grandfather, George CASTLE. Once I have these two, I expect to make much further progress on my maternal grandmother’s side of the family.

Watch this space …

Call me naive, but when I began my family research, I thought that my surname, BALDOCK, was fairly uncommon and that tracing people would be quite easy as a result… how wrong I was!
To top things off, I received my maternal grandmother’s birth certificate on Monday, which revealed her parents as George CASTLE and Sarah Elizabeth GOLDSACK. Suddenly, alarm bells started ringing …
You see, GOLDSACK is a very well researched name, is undergoing a One Name Study, and appears to have more variations than you can shake your fist at!

Time to make contact with Keith Goldsack, the researcher, I think!