As I mentioned yesterday, December is a time of reflection, along with mild panic about the amount of work still to do this year – I don’t think I mentioned that part in the 1 December post! Here at FWL, we are very proud to reflect on a 100% crack rate on finding people (with just two cases on the books at the moment which are taking longer than usual!)…. but something family history searches aren’t so easy. Certificates and censuses aren’t always right because people tell lies to cover up a multitude of ‘sins’….
But in 2015, there are many things I would like to know – some genealogical and some not:
1. Timothy Kitcher – you were born and married but where did you go after your son, Tom Baker Kitcher, was born in 1861?
2. Whitby William George Baynham – why did you change your name to John Ford in 1900?
3. Ann Robson (nee Codling) – after you were widowed in 1841, where did you go? Great-great-grandmother’s letter says you married again but had no children after you were thirty and that you had cousins who were the proprietors of the Morpeth Herald….?
4. Humphr(e)y Sillifant – I know where you married and where you are buried. But, where were you baptised and who were your parents?
5. Why do people send Christmas cards with just a signature, Joe and Josephine Bloggs? We haven’t met up all year and I have no idea what is going on in your life – how about a letter or just a few lines to fill me in on ‘the year that was’?
6. What is the best way of storing all the reference books we have here in the offices of FWL? Three rooms with wall shelving seems a little ‘over the top’ but even that doesn’t provide enough space….
7. How is it possible to purchase a printer toner, open it (when the last one runs out) and the new one does not work, saying it’s ‘out of toner’! That’s happened twice to us this year, but thankfully we always have a spare spare in house!
8. What is the acceptable time scale to follow-up (read: chase up) an email? We had one potential client this year leave a very aggressive answer machine message – ‘I expected at least an acknowledgement by now’ – having sent the email at lunchtime on Friday and called on Monday morning! We would have responded, if the email had been correctly addressed and actually reached us. Apology from potential client? What do you think?!
[Don’t forget to keep an eye out over the course of December for the hidden message in the titles of FWL blogs…. When you think you know, email us so as not to spoil it for others!]
