Is your family tree full of women with a '?' for their surname? Mine is, even with my tenacious passion for tracking the matrilineal lines.
All those missing surnames, these “unknown” women, lead to whole “unknown” families we haven’t found yet. And we may never find them.
There are books dedicated to helping genealogists and family historians smash through brick walls when it comes to female ancestors, blogs full of tips and strategies, and plenty of other researchers out there tearing their hair out with the same frustration.
If you’ve ever been frustrated, and just left these "Unknown" women be, I challenge you to go back to those “Unknown” women and see what you can find. I am going to try and attack one “Unknown” woman a month, double and tripling checking all of the sources available to me, and hopefully I’ll be able to put surnames to all these Marys, Janes and Catherines.
So, keep an eye out for my “
Matrilineal Monday” posts, on the first Monday of each month, where I’ll take up fellow blogger
Jennifer Geraghty-Gorman’s invitation to post about my efforts “uncovering the ladies”.
This is a post for the April A-Z Challenge. This Challenge will cover each letter of the alphabet, one per day (except Sundays) for the month of April. I didn't register my blog with the organisers, but I'm going to follow along anyway. You can too! See www.a-zchallenge.com for more information.Labels: A-Z Challenge, Matrilineal Monday