Re: Suggestions for researching the surname "Jones"

Austin Powers wrote:
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My question is:

If you have had to research names such as Smith and Jones, where there are hundreds (or thousands) of names, what techniques (if any) have you used to help find the people who you are looking for, from the throngs of others with the same surname?

I suspect that there is no easy solution to this question, but if I do not ask...
This is a question that I feel uniquely qualified to address, for if I should draw up a standard pedigree tree of myself the topermost name would be Smith, and the lowermost one Jones.

I have to confess that neither name falls into the 'comparatively easy' category of names to work on as does the name 'Sellon'; my blessings on gr. gr. grandfather Smith for changing his name.

There are three main requirements that you must acquire, the patience of Job, luck, and a sense of serendipity. Do not follow Don's thoughts and give up, how defeatist (and, I would have thought, most unlike him), but be prepared for the long haul. After a lapse of some ten years I made, in December, progress on 'my' Smiths, finding their roots to be in the depths of the Shires, rather than the West Country where family tales placed them.

The most likely time for you to make progress is when you are totally immersed or occupied on something else. A eureka moment will occur about every eighteen months when you stumble across an unexpected Smith (or Jones).

Should serendipity truly strike in my case I will one day be presented with a direct blood link to my old friend Rev. Sydney Smith of St. Paul's, (I don't know how new you are to the list and whether you have met him or not), in place of only a connection by marriage.

Yours Aye Andrew Sellon
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