One group I have found difficult to research in my family tree, so far are the family sharing the surname Watson. Sure I could have found them on the various census records if they had been born before 1901, but my grandfather, James William Watson had been born in 1929 and had been married in 1955 to Marjory Bell. The parents of James were actually James William and Jane Hannah Richings. Other than knowing their names there was not much else I knew about them. I knew when James and Marjory were married, his mother was alive and father James William was listed as deceased.
Searching for Jane Hannah Watson’s death was not hard, although I did not know which one I was looking for as I had found two around a certain time. I asked a family member and she gave me the date of Jane’s death being 1964. The death certificate did not give me any clue to when they had been married, although a search revealed two more dates for her children. The birth dates and Jane’s age did have me concerned that I was tracing the wrong person, although the certificates did confirm she was the mother. Jane’s birth was in 1883 to John and Margaret.
By searching through the marriage indexes from 1922 backwards from the oldest child was the only way I could find the marriage record for Jane Hannah Richings. After around two hours I had actually found the record I had been searching for although to make sure I had the right person, I looked to see if James William Watson was located within the same record. He was and the date was actually 1908 in the town of Chester le Street, Durham. Later I did find another child by Looking at Jane Hannah’s death certificate, although all it had was B. E. Nesbitt, daughter. A search for marriage records found the name of Beatrice and a birth and death.
I may not have broken into the 1800’s with the Watson's, but so far the Richings have gotten me that far. Only time will tell, by how much information can be found and how many siblings my grandfather had. I was once told there are no records about the Watsons and since I never believed that, I had actually found several generations and a great grandfather who had worked in Heworth, Durham as a crane operator on Coal staithes.
