Alborowes and Youles - should I bother?

[Phoenix]

I amworking hard on both families. The names can be spelled in lots of different ways and I am finding them in all sorts of different records, but....

The surnames disappear from my families in the mid 1600s. They are only relevant in Tudor and Stuart times. I have to hunt for them in my increasingly unwieldy tree and although I have wills and occupations and hints of personalities, they feel vanishingly different from more recent ancestors.

Will plugging away, looking for records, bring them to life for me?

[kiterunner]

I usually stop tracing side branches forwards after about 3 generations unless I get in touch with other researchers also tracing those branches.

[Mary from Italy]

Personally I would carry on tracing them if you have time, especially if you have wills and other docs that bring them to life.

Whereabouts are your Youles, out of interest? My BiL's tree has Youles from Cambs and Northants, but I've only traced them back to the mid-c18 so far.

[Piwacket]

My (late) OH's Financial Advisor is a D. Youles near Peterborough.

[Nell]

Sometimes Phoenix it's a good idea to take a break from one branch of the family and return to it refreshed. Although in fairness I must point out that sometimes previous brick walls are every bit as frustrating as when you last banged your head against them!

[Phoenix]

Nell, my problem is that this is all the research I did in two days at the NRO and I have about a dozen new ancestors. A huge brick wall smashed down, and clear sky beyond. I took about a hundred photos of the records and am steadily cataloguing them. The chase is wonderful: I'm wondering which poor sucker would like a holiday in Norfolk with me! But I'm not so good at the cataloguing,

If I don't plough on and get this all written up quickly, I'll never remember what I've done.

[Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Mary from Italy

Whereabouts are your Youles, out of interest? My BiL's tree has Youles from Cambs and Northants, but I've only traced them back to the mid-c18 so far.

My Youles (Yowels, Ules etc) are in Fulmodestone, Norfolk up to about 1650, but I lose track of Samuel then. They could easily have spread into Cambridge from there. I don't have all the links backward, but I think they are there at the start of parish registers. Should you have a Blithe in the family we would definitely have a link. (Though I suspect she hated the name as I haven't found later references.)

[Mary from Italy]

No Blithes so far. The earliest Youles/Yewles I've found are in Eye, near Peterborough.