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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 1998-09 > 0904655282


From: eleanor <>
Subject: Essex people who emigrated to USA or Canada
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 14:08:02 +0100


Hi everyone,
Thanks for the e-mail on Essex people who emigrated to USA or Canada.
So far, I have received about 25 e-mail and I would like to receive
many, many more.
Several queries have been raised and as these are of a general kind, I
am answering them by an e-mail addressed to everyone.
1. “Essex” refers to the county of Essex. Essex is not a town or city
in England.
2. Who is an Essex emigree?
Anyone who was born in Essex is an Essex emigree even if he or she
lived elsewhere in England before emigrating to USA or Canada.
Anyone who was born in another county of England is an Essex emigree if
he or she lived in Essex for some time before emigrating to USA or
Canada.
3. Please include marriage details of the husband & wife who emigrated
from England. I forgot to ask for that item.
4. This project is being done by myself & not as part of any other
project.
I am a very keen amateur family historian. After about 12 years of
passionately researching my own family history, I have more or less
ground to a halt as my research has been quite successful. Several
years ago, my interests extended to the local history of several
parishes which could be called the “home parishes” of my family. Having
more or less exhausted that line of research, I am now taking up a new
challenge.
In my own family history research, I tried to trace the lives of
brothers & sisters of my ancestors. Although I did find most of them,
there were others who seemed to disappear forever. Many of these
disappearances occurred at times which are well documented as years of
large emigrations to USA & Canada. But, unless the researcher has an
approximate date of departure, the place of destination & the name of
the ship, it is really impossible to locate the shipping list which
will contain the names of these lost brothers & sisters. The American
series entitled Passenger & Immigration Lists Index: A Guide to
Published Records of more than 2,795,000 immigrants is useful
but all too often there is insufficient detail to be able to be certain
that the correct person has been found.
This new project of mine will be covering two English counties - Essex
& Cambridgeshire. Because my family came from parishes lying on both
sides of the border between north-western Essex and southern
Cambridgeshire, I am greatly interested in these two counties. The
project should be useful for others and, just maybe, it will turn up
some of the lost brothers & sisters of my ancestors.
Some of you have added comments about the difficulty of tracing your
ancestors in Essex who were born before the mid-19th century. For those
of us who reside in England and whose ancestors did not live in big
cities, it is not very difficult to trace the English ancestors back to
someone born circa 1750. It is much harder to trace them back to a date
before 1750. Most of you seem to be relying upon parish registers &
census returns to discover the English ancestors of the mid-19th
century. But what documents (or microfilm or microfiche of these
documents) are you using to push back into the deeper past for your
English ancestors? I have especially wondered whether you have access
to books which index the Wills of a county and to microfilmed copies of
the Wills themselves. There are also Monumental Inscriptions which
often help to connect members of a family. Various societies &
individual persons seem to be creating indexes to all the baptisms or
marriages or burials (after a date such as 1750 or 1800 or 1813) in a
county and these indexes make it possible to locate family scattered
over a county.
I am well aware of the vast collection of microfilmed records held by
the Church of the Latter Day Saints at Salt Lake City. But in practical
terms, what documents (or microfilm or microfiche copies) are available
to you to trace your English ancestors back to circa 1750.
Hoping to hear from more of you
Jean

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