TODD-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: todds
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 18:54:16 EDT

Dear Bert,

I have just reviewed all of your posts on this list for 1999-2000 on the
Rootsweb archives and I must say that you make it very difficult for anyone
to help you. As far as I can tell, your Todds and Holts were either born in
Liverpool or married there or possibly just residing there at the time of the
1881 census. You make reference to additional information such as a copy of a
marriage certificate but you don't reallyl take the time to give us enough
information.

I see that you have apparently been able to determine William or Daniel Todd
and Shara Holt's children's names and ages from the 1881 census. When was
your grandfather born? Did he have brothers or sisters? Cousins, aunts,
uncles? Although we cannot rely on given names as an absolute, they do give
us possible starting points.

Todd researchers are scattered all over the world. I sympathize with the fact
that most of the researchers on this list are apparently researching Todds in
the United States. My Todd grandfather came to the United States from
Scotland in the 1920's and I thought that I would never find a connection
between me and most of the other TODD-L subscribers. But I have received
invaluable help from other researchers on this list, even though most of it
served to weed out possibilities. And I explored some of the other Rootsweb
mailing lists as well. I started out with LANARK-L because I remembered my
grandfather talk about Glasgow and I checked maps and found out that Glasgow
is in Lanarkshire. After a while I expanded out to adjoining counties.
Finally I found "my" Todds in Stirlingshire in the parish registers of the
1860's and on the 1881 census. From there I was able to use the LDS
Familysearch site to look up possibilities in the IGI. IImagine how delighted
I was when I found someone in Australia who was researching the same people I
was guessing about! And imagine the sheer joy when we made contact and she
was able to confirm those guesses as absolute facts! And now, I'm back to
1729 and still going! And I've finally made sense of my connections to other
Todds in the United States.

I believe that Liverpool is in Lancaster. Have you checked the Lancashire
mailing list? How about any of the neighboring counties? A quick check of the
query pages for Lancashire at the England GenWeb Project at Rootsweb came up
with several other people looking for Todds. Although they may not be related
to your Todds, it's always possible that they might know of someone else with
additional information.

Please keep in mind that most of us are not scholars. You shouldn't expect
others to know what county Liverpool is in, just as I wouldn't expect you to
know that there are five counties comprising the city of New York. Get
yourself a good map and make contacts with as many people as possible. If you
don't know how to make your way around the Rootsweb or Family Search site,
ask! People are happy to help you once they realize that you are willing to
do a little work.

Regards,
Gail on Long Island
in NY

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