Most of us will have cursed the internet at some time. It’s so slow, the page you want are always missing (the 404 error), Google has just given me 500 hits all of which are entirely irrelevant, and what’s more, it will take me an hour to find this out. When I do get a hit, which seems as if it might be of interest, the provider wants me to pay to see it, and when I do pay up, it turns out to be someone else’s ancestor, or it just has the information I already have. So; why do we bother!
Well actually, I think the www is rather splendid. First of all it’s free, and like many excellent things, it’s not controlled by the EU or the government. Well, free that is apart from the cost of a telephone call. The internet is provided by thousands of individuals on a voluntary basis. It is surely impossible to think of a subject which someone hasn’t written a web page about. Many people spend huge amounts of time building web sites, providing information about their obsessions. Some, like FreeBMD, (which is a voluntary project to put the ONS BMD indexes and images online), are extremely useful, whilst other, like ‘Motorway Steps’ are rather silly.
You could start by just putting your surname into Google and see what happens. My surname, Wainwright, is not particularly common, but unfortunately there are quite a lot of Wainwright pages which have nothing to do with either me or my family history. There is Loudon Wainwright III, (singer, songwriter), his wife Martha, his sister Sloan and his son Rufus. There is Fort Wainwright, Alaska, USS Wainwright, which was named after five US seaman, one of which was a Rear Admiral, Wainwright Bank in Boston, a famous court case of Gideon v. Wainwright, Martin Wainwright the journalist and of course Alfred Wainwright, the rambler. It’s better if you have no unrelated, famous people who share your surname.
Clearly one needs to refine the search. So if we omit organised web sites, like FreeBMD, IGI and the 1901 Census, what useful information have I found.
Adding a place name is easy and has the advantage over a first name, in that you might get more hits. In 1828 John W (01-Dec-1786 - 26-Jun-1874), my gg grand father’s brother, emigrated to Lower Merion Township, Philadelphia, USA. Typing ‘Lower Merion Wainwright’ into Google finds ‘Lower Merion Historical Society’ and John’s epitaph, "able, eccentric, esteemed." And a reference to the ‘Ardmore Chronicle letters by Josiah Pierce’. There are several similar hits including a reference to American Historical Record. Unfortunately there was also an artist Nicholas B W. But that’s not a bad start. One problem with this kind of search is that web page never seem to be deleted. So having found an interesting page, you will probably find it the next time, and the next time…
John’s nephew, George (09-Nov-1795 - 14-Nov-1880)., also emigrated to the USA, this time Trenton, NJ. ‘Trenton W’ finds us ‘Trenton Historical Society’, and a page: ‘How Trenton Streets Got Their Names’, ‘WAINWRIGHT AVENUE. This street was named for George Wainwright, who for many years conducted a nursery on the tract which the street now divides. Mr. Wainwright was a native of England. The old homestead still stands at the corner of Wayne and Princeton Avenues.’. Facsinating information, which adds so much to the bare BMD facts. Again there are hundreds of pages we don’t want to look at including the Wainwright Escort Agency of Trenton!
The other temptation is to convince yourself, without any evidence what-so-ever, that the 20 Wainwrights you have just found on the eastern seaboard of the USA must be relatives. Be skeptical! They must be presumed unrelated until proved otherwise. But you do find irrelevant but distracting articles such as ‘The execution of Wainwright, at Newgate’. There is also an excellent site called, ‘The Wainwrights of Penistone Parish’. Penistone (pronounced pen-is-stone!) is not very far Finningley, but so far I cannot connect my family with that of William Wainwright, who lives on Long Island.
My Wainwrights lived in Finningley (nr Doncaster) for about 300 years. Putting ‘Wainwright Finningley’ into Google, finds a page on a web site called ‘Curious Fox’ It seems to be a free to view but pay to post web site. I found Richard Wainwright b 1709 (my ggg gf) and his son, Richard. They are also on Notts FHS ‘members interests’; (probably my sister’s posting).
A site called ‘Strays In Lincolnshire 1881 census, listed ‘WAINWRIGHT Elizabeth 1841 Rosington (sic) Haxey’ This is Elizabeth Beaumont, wife of William W son of the George mentioned above. By a stroke of bad luck the Wainwright’s lived in three villages only a few mile apart, but they were in three separate counties, Yorks, Notts and Lincs.
The Wainwrights also lived at Rossington, but unfortunately, the previously mentioned Loudon has a band called Rossington Collins Band, which means there are hundreds of pages where this combination is found.