wanderlust

Can anyone help me find further records for Beatrice, Edward and Fred?

I found these distant relatives of mine in the 1900 US census, living in Fell Township, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania:

Matthew Branton Head M 39 b. England

Elisabeth A Branton Wife F 42 b. England

William Dawe Stepson M 21 b.England

Jennie Branton Daughter F 5 b. Pennsylvania

Fred Branton Son M 3 b. Pennsylvania

Rena Dawe Stepdaughter F 14 b. Pennsylvania

Susie Branton Daughter F 14 b. Pennsylvania

Beatrice Branton Daughter F 10 b. Pennsylvania

Edward Branton Son M 8 b. Pennsylvania

I have done well in tracing further records on most of these people (I now have full records on Matthew, his first wife, Ann nee Stone, formerly Fawcett and his second wife, Elizabeth, nee Bowden, formerly Dawe, later Blythe. I have also traced marriage records and records of births of children to Jennie, Rena and Susie. I do not need any further information on them).

However, I'm drawing a bit of a blank with some of the others. I have found nothing on Edward after his WW1 draft card, nothing on Beatrice after the 1910 census (when she is living in New Hartford, Oneida, new York, as a boarder in the house of Theodore and Margaret Barret) and nothing on Fred after the 1910 census (when, as "Frederick Brenton", he is living with his mother and two siblings in Avoca, Luzerne County.

Can anyone find anything on Edward, Beatrice or Fred that i've missed?

I have a relative, Mary Grace Branton, who seems to have vanished after the UK 1871 census, only to reappear in 1901. I'm wondering if anyone can help me find her on censuses (either in the UK or abroad) between those dates?

She is born in Hartland, Devonshire in 1862 and appears on the 1871 census (RG10/2206/4, household 29) as an eight-year-old living in the hamlet of South Hole, Hartland, with her father, William, mother, Mary, and siblings (Susanna, William, Thomas, Ellen and Georgina).

I can find no trace of her in the records after that until 1896, when she (as "Mary Grace Bronton") marries Charles Frederick Iles in Stoke Bishop, Bristol. She thereafter appears in the 1901 and 1911 censuses under her married name, Mary Grace Iles, working as a pork butcher in Bristol, by which time she has a niece, Maud Braunton, living with her (Maud DOES appear on the 1891 census, living with her grandparents, William and Mary, back in Welcombe, Devon, so this Mary Grace is clearly the same as the 1871 one).

Can anyone help me find her between 1871 and 1896? My family were regularly using both Branton and Braunton as a surname spelling at that time and I've also searched under "Bronton" (which she seems to use at her marriage), but with no joy.

She may well just be working as a farm servant somewhere in Devon under a really unusual transcription error name (but for TWO censuses?), but it's just possible she may have been abroad during those dates (3 of her brothers were living in the US or Canada for some of the time she goes missing).

Or maybe I'm missing something really obvious?

I accidentally spilled about a tablespoon of an old bottle of glyphosate weedkiller on the concrete floor of our back porch yesterday, while clearing out a load of garden chemicals that my dad bought decades ago. I stupidly tried to clear it up by diluting it with about 8 buckets of water (I now know that that is the completely wrong thing to do - you should absorb it to try to stop it spreading before washing the floor). I have washed the floor with soapy water, but it still has a slightly chemical smell and I'm worried that it will be toxic to the cat and/or give of toxic fumes. Anything I can do to fix it?

UK question.

Is it just me, or does genealogy become total guesswork before 1837? I'm getting a bit depressed because, although I've done loads of research using parish records, unless the family are given to using really unusual given names that are handed down from one generation to the next, I'm never entirely certain that I've found the right person, as there are no census returns, detailed certificates etc to double check against.

Things are further complicated by the facts that my family lived close to county and parish boundaries and didn't always marry/baptise in the same church (and had phases on and off non-conformism), had surnames very common in the area and gave their children very popular given names.

E.g. if I'm looking for a Grace Colwell, who I know from census records was born 1784ish, as both "Grace" and "Colwell" are such popular names in the district, even if I only find one that fits in the three most obvious parishes, I'm never confident that I haven't missed one in the next parish or in some non-Conformist records I haven't found yet.

Has anyone got any tips for narrowing it down?

For about the last 18 months I've been living with my parents, who are in their 80s and were just not coping on their own. Previously to that, I'd tried to help them out by just visiting lots without giving up my independence, but it wasn't enough.

It's really hard, though - as I don't own my own home, I had to move in with them (a couple of hundred miles away from where I lived), not vice versa. This meant giving up my job, my friends, the whole big city lifestyle I really enjoyed. As I'm living in their home, I've ended up totally compromising to fit in with their daily routine, and I just feel I have no control over how I spend my time any more.

I got a job in their town, but I had to give it up, as I ended up taking so much time off work whenever one of my parents became ill/had a doctor's appointment/got their pills mixed up etc.

I feel like I'm completely losing my own individuality and personality. Help!

Hmph. I stand accused of being "biased" and, by implication, anti-semitic, because, in my response to a question yesterday about the alleged removal of the Holocaust from UK history syllabus, I said that I thought that other forms of racism were as wrong as anti-semitism and that anti-semitism should perhaps not be given more prominence in the curriculum than other forms of racial hatred. Can anyone explain why this is anti-semitic or "biased"?

Oh, and I was also criticised for describing as "a hoax"an inaccurate and malicious e-mail, which has been doing the rounds, obviously designed to stir up anti-Muslim feeling, alleging that the UK AS A WHOLE has axed the Holocaust from the curriculum in order to pander to Muslims. Why was I wrong to use this word, when "malicious hoax" was the phrase used to describe the e-mail by the Jewish activist who had first raised concerns that a few schools in the UK have stopped teaching the Holocaust?

I am currently trying to research the history and descendants of one of my great-great-uncles, who emigrated from England to the US in the 1880s and worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines.

I have already gleaned a few things from ancestry.com. Are there any other resources I can use which are either online or otherwise accessible from the UK?

NB I'm a reasonably experienced amateur genealogist, so I don't need the basic, general advice like "don't believe everything you read on the internet", "always verify with the original documents" etc. But I'm not at all familiar with US sources and I'd be grateful for any reasonably reliable resources that could give me some pointers.

Please don't just give web links - I'd love to hear recipes you've tried and tested yourselves and can personally vouch are good.

NB British Christmas cake is a very heavy, very rich cake made with dried fruits, alcohol and spices, cooked for several hours at a very low heat, and has unreal keeping qualities - you can keep it for several years without it going bad. I'm open to anything similar.