Fletcher Researcher

In the flurry of all the British research, I happened upon another researcher who is working on the Fletcher line. His name is Peter and he lives in the U.K. I've sent him a gedcom with everything I have on the Dodd line. Thanks to the recent British Bonanza, I had something to send him! Anyway, if you're a Fletcher researcher, here's the address to Peter's website: www.fletcherfamilytree.net.

Here are the Fletcher's from my family tree:

Agnes Dodd d/o Joseph and Agnes (Anderson) Dodd
m 26 Mar 1895 St. John, Dukinfield, Cheshire
Arthur Fletcher b. 1875 Hyde, Cheshire

Agnes and Arthur had the following children:
Percy Vincent Fletcher b. 25 Jan 1896
Mary Louisa Fletcher b. 11 Jul 1897
Hepzibah Fletcher b. 10 Oct 1899
Jack Fletcher b. Mar 1903

After all this activity, I'm back in a lull...gets bits and pieces as I go back and concentrate on people who have the Custom ID of D for dead (or based on their date of birth, probably dead). Genealogy can be a goulish pursuit.

Agnes Anderson + Joseph Dodd in England

The family of Agnes (Anderson) Dodd is one of the English families that I'm chasing. Here's a run down of the family.

Jospeph Dodd
Joseph Dodd (b. 1835 Wallasey, Cheshire d. Mar 1900 Ashton Under Lyne, Cheshire)
m. 16 Mar 1857 Saint Stephen's Church, Audenshaw, Lancashire to
Agnes Anderson (b. 1834 Ireland d. 1886 Woodchurch Hospital, Cheshire)

Joseph and Agnes had the following children:
Sarah Jane Dodd b. 1859 (I have no additional information)
Fredrick Dodd b. 12 Feb 1861
William Edward Dodd b. 24 May 1863 (I have no additional information)
Albert Dodd b. 18 Apr 1866
Louisa Dodd b. 21 Nov 1869
Robert Dodd b. 3 Dec 1871
George Duncan Dodd b. 17 Nov 1873 (See Find A Grave memorial 68439906)
Agnes Dodd b. 23 Mar 1876

Fredrick Dodd
m. 17 Oct 1886 St. Michael's, Ashton Under Lyne Lancashire
Esther Middleton b. 1862 Mottram in Longdendale, Cheshire

Fredrick and Esther had the following children:
John William Dodd b. 13 Nov 1887
Ernest Dodd b. 13 Feb 1890
Sarah Ann Dodd b. 14 May 1893
Henry Dodd b. 21 Dec 1896

Albert Dodd
m. have no info
Mary Jane (Unknkown)

Albert and Mary Jane had the following children:
Sarah Jane Dodd b. 1891
Albert Dodd b. 1893
John William Dodd b. 1895
Alice Dodd b. 1898
Nellie Dodd b. 1900

Louisa Dodd
m 29 May 1897 St. Michael's, Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire
John Owen b. 1864

Louisa and John had the following children:
Robert Andrew Owen b. 26 Jun 1899
Jack Owen b. 21 Dec 1904

Robert Dodd
m. between 1891 and 1895
Alice Gillell

Agnes Dodd
m 26 Mar 1895 St. John, Dukinfield, Cheshire
Arthur Fletcher b. 1875 Hyde, Cheshire

Agnes and Arthur had the following children:
Percy Vincent Fletcher b. 25 Jan 1896
Mary Louisa Fletcher b. 11 Jul 1897
Hepzibah Fletcher b. 10 Oct 1899
Jack Fletcher b. Mar 1903

I have some additional information on marriages for the grandchildren. If you are chasing info for this Dodd family, please contact me. I'm happy to trade info with other researchers.

British Bonanza

For about the past 24 hours, I've been consumed with a website. My marathon session started when I asked a question on the Cheshire (England) list about the National Burial Index (NBI) CD. The latest CD costs about $50 and has 18,000,000 burials on it. Before I plunked down my cash, I wanted to know what the coverage was for Cheshire.

In response to my query, I received lots of information, all of which lead me to the conclusion that I'm not interested in the NBI CD right now. I was most grateful for the help. Trying to figure out what to buy and what to do in another country can be a challenge.

One gentleman, Adrian Bruce, replied after all of the flurry of emails had pretty much subsided. He suggested that I visit the Bereavement Services page of the Tameside website. I'm familiar with the website. In England, the county and city councils all have websites that provide their citizens with government-related information and services. In past visits, I hadn't found much of interest for me.

On faith, I followed Adrian's instructions to look for Family History - Burial and Cremation Records. Below the link is a Search the Records link for 175,000 burial and cremation records from Tameside MBC cemeteries. The entries cover Ashton (Hurst), Audenshaw, Denton, Dukinfield, Droylsden, Hyde, Mottram and Mossley. I've had Dodd and Anderson relatives living in many of these places. So I gave it a whirl...OMG! Here's what I hit.

Albert Dodd (b.18 Apr 1866 Dukinfield d. 1940). He's buried in Ashton Cemetery, Section B, Grave 523. His appointment date was 15 Jan 1940, which I assume is the day he was brought to the cemetery. Albert's grave reference is a link. Click it and you find out who else is buried in the grave with him.

Mary Jane Dodd (b. 1867 Ashton Under Lyne d. 1943 (new info!). I knew from English census entries that Albert was married to a Mary Jane, and I knew the couple had the following children: Sarah Jane, Albert, John William, Alice, and Nellie.

Alice (Dodd) Mottram (b. 1898 Ashton Under Lyne d. 1967 (new info!). Alice's appointment date was 11 Mar 1967. Using Cheshire BMD, I had narrowed down possible marriages for Alice and one of them was to a William Hector Baden Mottram. I can now look at ordering certificates with a bit of assurance that I'm on the right track.

Glenys Dodd was the last person included in the grave site. Her appointment was 22 Jan 1942. I'm not sure who Glenys is. I'm assuming she's a granddaughter that I've yet to discover. In all of this I haven't stopped to check Cheshire BMD to see what her date of birth might be.

I've been in look up overload as a result of this initial success. Here's a list of everyone at the website that I've found so far:

George Duncan Dodd (b. 17 Nov 1873 Dukinfield d. 1918 Ashton Town)

Robert Dodd (b. 3 Dec 1871 Dukinfield d. 1915) w/wife Alice (Gillell) Dodd (d. 1915)

Sylvia (Storer) Dodd (Mrs. John William Dodd) (b. 1908 Ashton Under Lyne d. 1999 Ashton) The list includes John William Dodd's but none of them look like the right one.

Agnes Eleanor (Kay) Gough (b. 1924 Stalybridge d. 2007)

Norman Gough (b. 1920 Stalybridge d. 1 Apr 2000 Ashton Under Lyne)

Isaac Henshaw (b. 1891 Dukinfield d. 1929)

Jane Anderson (Smith) Henshaw (b. 1893 Ashton Under Lyne d. 1961 Ashton and Mossley)

James Taylor Kay (b. 1892 Ashton Under Lyne d. 1957)

Dinah (Smith) Kay (b. 1895 Ashton Under Lyne d. 13 Oct 1979)

I'm sure I still have discoveries to make at the Tameside website but I'm just overwhelmed at the moment. I'm going to have to do so much backtracking to get all of the possible records.

And on ordering certificates...When you use an intermediary to order certificates, they cost north of 12 pounds (about $20). So being pretty sure you are ordering the right certificate is important if you don't want to spend a fortune on these things. In the past, I have ordered two and got one that was right and one that wasn't...batting 50/50 at these prices made me shy about ordering without some pretty good evidence that I'm ordering the right certificate. Using the Tameside website has given me lots of assurance. So I guess it's time to pull out the credit card.

I sent a great big thank you to Adrian and an open ended offer if he ever needs any info on dealing with research in the U.S. It doesn't seem like much given what I've gotten from Adrian's bit of kindness to me.

Terri Helps Again

My favorite librarian (and new BFF) Terri came through for me again. She provided me with the five additional obituaries that were in her library.

--Robert Stanley Boyd, Sr. (F.A.G. memorial 67901945)
--Lillie Mae (Browning) Boyd (F.A.G. memorial 67900574)
--Robert Stanley Boyd, Jr. (F.A.G. memorial 50030236)
--Imogene Lenora (Stanford) Boyd (F.A.G. memorial 50030614)
--Zelma Dean (Boyd) Self (F.A.G. memorial 60052880)

The obituary for Lillie was particularly useful in that I've had very little luck with tracing info on Lillie. Her obit answered many many questions.

So again I say thank you to Terri.

The Same Lesson...AGAIN!

I'm not sure exactly how many times I have to remind myself to chase down every single available census entry for every person in my database. I found another missing one. Specifically, I had missed the 1930 entry for Alfred John Chasse and his wife (my relative) Sarah Jane (Anderson) Chasse.

When I checked the 1930 census, I had too many entries under Alfred or Sarah Chasse; however, when I looked for their daughter Janet, the family popped right up. The only reason I knew about Janet was because she appears with her parents in a 1941 city directory. Janet was born 31 Dec 1920, which was after the 1920 census was taken.

In 1930, the Chasse family is living in Biddeford, Maine and they have a son. John Anderson Chasse (b. 4 May 1924 Biddeford, York County, Maine) is fairly easy to trace; however, as a researcher, I had to know he existed to look for him! Thus we have me learning yet again to pay attention to census entries and to make myself systematically track down every last one of 'em.