Carnival of Genealogy - 115 Flash family history

Jasia of Creative Gene is hosting the 115th Carnival of Genealogy. The challenge is to write a "flash family history" in 300 words or less.

Here it is in 300 words - my Crosby line.

All of my Crosby ancestors came from north of the Tyne, between Edinburgh, in Scotland, and Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Crosbys were Presbyterians from the north of Northumberland, only a few miles south of the Scottish border.

Marrying directly into the Crosby line are the Pickens, my Scottish connection, originally from Edinburgh, and the Gilroys, from Rock and Embleton in Northumberland.

These three families arrived in Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1830s, a quarryman/carter, a brass finisher, and a glass flint grinder.

Marrying into the Gilroy line were the Robertsons, who were in Newcastle by 1817. In this line is my only known Irish ancestor Sarah Robertson, maiden name unknown, born Ireland in the 1790s, and that is all I may ever know about my Irish ancestors.

The Marrs married into the Robertsons resulting in my GGgrandmother Eleanor, the tripe shop keeper. Her daughter Elizabeth was a butcher, continuing to run the shop after the suicide of her husband left her with 3 children under 15.

There were bricklayers, a blacksmith, a glassmaker, a ship builder, pitmen, and a keelman (an occupation made famous in the old song “Weel may the keel row”).

There were families where most of the children did not survive, and others that were prolific and more fortunate. There were early deaths of a father to insanity, and his son to suicide; there were young men whose lives were taken in the First World War, and my grandfather who survived it.

Many were named to acknowledge those who came before - some named for grandparents, and some carried surnames as middle names. There was Stoddard Baird, who was only a stepfather to my GGGgrandmother Elizabeth Gilroy (nee Hazon), and yet his name echoes down the generations from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

There it is, my first contribution to a Carnival.

SNGF The Ancestors' Geneameme

Thanks go to Geniaus for this Geneameme.

The list should be annotated in the following manner:
Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type

You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item

Which of these apply to you?

1. Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents (Thomas Berry, Mary Ann Sedgwick, John Harrison, Sarah Jane Henderson, Jane Gregg, John Hall, Elizabeth Walker, William Murray Crosby, Janet Cameron Picken, William Gilroy, Eleanor Robertson, William Clark, Ann Raper, Joseph Wilkinson, Sarah Marshall. That is 15; the 16th is not named on either the birth certificate, or marriage certificate, so is probably never going to be known.)
2. Can name over 50 direct ancestors
3. Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents (Have only two, but who knows, maybe someday I'll find more)
4. Have an ancestor who was married more than three times
5. Have an ancestor who was a bigamist
6. Met all four of my grandparents (They were all alive until I was in my twenties)
7. Met one or more of my great-grandparents (Four of them were alive when I was born. If I met them it was when I was a baby)
8. Named a child after an ancestor (My daughter's middle name is one that was used over the generations in my mum's family, and my son's name goes back four generations on my dad's side)
9. Bear an ancestor's given name/s (I have my mum's name and her grandma's name)
10. Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland (All of them)
11. Have an ancestor from Asia
12. Have an ancestor from Continental Europe
13. Have an ancestor from Africa
14. Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer (Many)
15. Have an ancestor who had large land holdings (No, only farmers of a few acres)
16. Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi
17. Have an ancestor who was a midwife
18. Have an ancestor who was an author
19. Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones
20. Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng
21. Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X
22. Have an ancestor with a forename beginnining with Z
23. Have an ancestor born on 25th December
24. Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day
25. Have blue blood in your family lines
26. Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth (All born England)
27. Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth (Again, England)
28. Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century (On a number of lines)
29. Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier
30. Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents
31. Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X
32. Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university (I think mine is the first generation to go to uni)
33. Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence
34. Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime
35. Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine (Tell us where)
36. Have published a family history online or in print (Details please)
37. Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries
38. Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family
39. Have a family bible from the 19th Century
40. Have a pre-19th century family bible

SNGF Your Genealogy Database statistics

The latest Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver is to use our Genealogy Management Program (GMP) to find out how many people, places, sources, etc. are in our databases.

I use RootsMagic 4, and it shows these statistics for my family.

And these for my husband's family.

This is my achievement from nearly four years of research. It doesn’t seem very much compared to others who have participated in the challenge. (I could probably spend less time reading genealogy blogs and more time doing research).

Still, it is an exercise I have not done before, and it will be interesting to come back and compare in the coming months.

These I knew, Grandparents: Berry, Gregg, Crosby and Clark

I was born and mostly raised (apart from a spell living in Western Australia) in Newcastle upon Tyne, in the north-east of England, and always thought of myself as a "Geordie" and proud of it. It was a bit of a surprise to find that neither of my parents were born there, they each moved there in their childhood, and of my four grandparents, only one was from Newcastle, although they all spent a lot of their lives there and they all died there.

I knew all four of my grandparents; they were all alive until I was into my twenties.

So who were they? Let me introduce them.

Grandad Berry was Harold Harrison Berry, born 2 January 1896 in Sadberge, County Durham and died 5 August 1975 age 79.

Grandma Berry was Jane Elizabeth Gregg, called Jennie, born 17 August 1901 in East Layton, Yorkshire North Riding and died 3 February 1982 age 80.

Grandad Crosby was William Murray Crosby, and the one from Newcastle upon Tyne. He was born there on 25 June 1895, and died 27 May 1977 age 81.

Grandma Crosby was Lily Clark, born 25 February 1901 in Seaton, Yorkshire East Riding and died 1 June 1977 age 76.