My Heritage: progress and minor frustration

Okay, the new tree is going really well for the most part.  My biggest excitement came when I was able to find records for my husband’s great grandmother in Wales and England.  Frustration came quickly after since I have not figured out how to page through the images.  So, where do I begin?  How about with finding new a new document?

Last month I received the death certificate I ordered from the state of New York for Thomas Pittard.

He was my husband’s 2^nd great grandfather who immigrated to the US in the early 1880s with his children and 2^nd wife.  On it there were clues to who his parents were, which made me giddy beyond all belief.  You see Pittard is a very common name in the area he was from on the border of Wales and England.  Plus, throw in Thomas, which is not a very distinctive name, and you have dozens upon dozens of hits.  However, becasue of the new record now I know that his parents were Thomas Pittard and Elizabeth Palmer and the whole family was born in Martock, Somerset, England.

I know, death certificates cannot be trusted 100% of the time.  Yes, the person may be giving information they think is correct but may be all wrong.  Yep, got it, but I am inclined to believe it for a couple of reasons.  First, they were married in England before coming over and the wife may have known them. Second, the family lore that his 2^nd wife and 1^st wife were sisters.  If that is correct I am pretty sure she would know their names.

Last week a record hint appeared for the 1851 England Census.  Thomas was born in 1850 which made him 1 on this census.  Lucky for me it looks like I found the family.  Whoot!  He was there with his parents and a slew of siblings.  Plus, an uncle named Thomas Jeans who was 51 and deaf.  I copied the image of the census record below:

Needless to say there are now lots of little clues coming up very frequently.  It is hard to spend only my allotted time working on this (I do have other things I have to get done after all) but it is very nice to come and see actual record hits every time I open the page.  Yes, it is the beginning and in the beginning there are a lot of hits, I wonder how long I can keep building the tree out from these records alone before I have to go to my files.

The thing that I am extremely frustrated about is that I can’t browse the images.  I like to look forward and back from my family of interest to see what else I can learn about the community and to see if there are other potential relatives there.  I still can’t figure out how to do that with the website and it is bugging me.  I mean, the image is awesome, but for good research I need to be able to research and that means looking forward and backwards in the record pages. 

If you know the hint to solving this problem let me know.  I’d really love to hear it!