EUREKA MOMENT

Andrew Alston struggled to find a missing ancestor until he had a brainwave that solved the puzzle, Rosemary Collins discovers

Andrew Alston found a missing forebear with some creative thinking

How long have you been doing your family history?

I started on family history just after the release of the 1901 census. My mum had inherited several family stories and wanted to find out if any of them were true. She still can’t believe how addictive this hobby can be.

What had you managed to uncover before hitting your brick wall?

My surname, Alston, is not a common one. It is the name of the highest market town in England, but I expected my ancestors to come from the rural hamlet with the same name on the outskirts of Longridge, Lancashire. Little did I know!

I managed to track down the November 1891 marriage certificate for my great grandparents, Christopher and Emily Alston, but I was unable to locate Christopher in the 1891 census, although his future wife, Emily Fulham, was in service at a chemists that later became a branch of Boots.

What was stopping you progressing your research?

There was a possible Christopher Alston five miles away in Preston. His father had the right name and trade, but he had the wrong sort of occupation and the age was a bit out. Finding him in 1901 when my ancestor was known to be living in Chorley definitely ruled him out.

Although Alston, being a relatively unusual name, seems to a new researcher to be easy to find, it is prone to mishearings and mistranscriptions – for example, I occasionally receive mail addressed to Holsten.

How had you tried to solve your brick wall previously?

Knowing that he was likely to be in the same area as his intended, I had already trawled through the 1891 census at the Lancashire Record Office, looking for my Alstons. It was only on microfilm back then, but there were paper indexes of surnames to work through. I looked at every Alston in the area and ruled them all out.

What was your eureka moment?

I became convinced that the surname had been mistranscribed, so I searched the area for just ‘Christopher’, and found him, living with his parents, under the surname Austin. The 1881 and 1871 censuses were rapidly looked at, and Christopher appeared in both with his father, Robert Austin.

Then came the realisation that surnames actually change and evolve all the time, contrary to popular perception (and my own attempts to stop others changing mine).

Christopher’s father is then listed as Robert Austead in the 1861 census and Robert Alstead in 1851.

How did your realisation solve the mystery?

I realised then that people wrote down not what was said, not even what they heard, but what they thought they heard. The parish priest had never heard my great grandfather’s surname before, but he was familiar with the Catholic chapel on the outskirts of Longridge, so he wrote that down. My ancestor, being illiterate, did

I looked at every Alston in the area and ruled them all out

not know any different. His new wife was literate, but carried on using what was written on that certificate. Even if Christopher had been literate, he would be unlikely to correct someone in authority.

Having decided that name changes were more likely than not, I followed the family back to my 4x great grandfather Christopher, who married as Hallstead in 1790.

Via the International Genealogical Index on familysearch.org, I found his baptism record in Colne in 1770, but he was recorded as “Christer son of Robert & Susan Horsefield of Waterside”. Someone had mistranscribed quite badly.

However, I sought out the bishops’ transcripts and found “Christer son of Robert & Susan Halstead of Waterside”. Hang on, that register of baptisms must too have been a copy – of a now lost original. The surname had simply been duplicated from the baptism of Titus Horsefield written just above.

So I now know what my name ought to be, although there is a spanner still in the works. Christopher’s grandfather, Abraham Halstead, was baptised in 1715. The entry states that he is the illegitimate son of Patience Halstead and Abraham Kershaw!

How did you feel when you made this discovery?

I was gobsmacked. I remember actually thinking “I’m not who I thought I was”.

Did you discover anything else interesting along the way?

My dad had an uncle he’d never been told about. John William Alston, born in 1892, died in France three weeks after the Armistice in 1918. Nobody thought to tell my dad, born ten years later, that he had even existed. We are almost certainly the only relatives ever to have visited his grave.

What would your advice be to other family historians who hit an obstacle on their tree?

There can be several sources showing the way to take in your research. Not all of them are reliable. Some, like mine, may appear to be official documents, but still lie.

So use as many sources as possible to follow your search. Some may be plain wrong. Others may give more detail to enlighten you about your family. I’ve found comments in the margins of registers which are not recorded in any transcript.

It is possible to use statistics too. My incomer came from the area with a much higher proportion of people carrying that surname. If you want to find out what area that is, pick a database with locations and search. Any census will do. Narrow the results with a first name if there are too many to deal with. UCL’s surname distribution tool is very useful (