Final newsletter

 I am reproducing the text of the ninth newsletter here which will be the last in this form but will continue to write blog posts if anything interesting comes to light. Links to news items or other websites will be posted on the Rigmaiden Facebook page.

Ninth newsletter of the Rigmaiden One-Name Study Group

1.     I have decided that this will be the last Rigmaiden One Name Study newsletter as I feel that I have taken it as far as I can and will be concentrating on the completion of a book on the subject in the coming months. I hope that you have found the newsletters interesting and that maybe they have answered questions for some of you or encouraged some to take up your own researches.

I will continue with the blog at http://rigmaidens.blogspot.co.uk/ and the Facebook group which is called the Rigmaiden Family History Group, for the time being.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, there has not been anyone interested enough in the Rigmaiden family to take the FamilyFinder DNA test though I do understand that some may have chosen the Ancestry DNA route. If anyone wants to transfer their results to the FamilyFinder website from Ancestry I believe that this option is available. The cost of the Ancestry DNA test which is an autosomal one is £79 plus postage but they do offer special prices every now and again.

I have the sad news to relate that David Hedges, one of my earliest and most enthusiastic Rigmaiden descendants in the United Kingdom passed away last March. He was able to tell me many stories of the family of Edward Henley Rigmaiden and his children, most of whom were daughters, from direct recollection and experience. I must thank Nora, his widow, for taking the trouble to write to me to let me know.

As I move forward in putting the research into some sort of form I will be sending the primary source documents to the Society of Genealogists Library in London who keep a surname index collection relating to specific family studies.  There is already a box for the Rigmaiden family but when I last enquired there weren’t many documents in the box. My contributions will include civil registration certificates, wills, parish register extracts and so on.

Anyone who may be interested in researching a particular branch or aspect of the family may find something of interest there and, of course, the Society of Genealogists Library is the first port of call for geneaologists.

Lastly, I would like to thank all correspondents in this country and abroad who have contributed their own recollections and knowledge to this project and hope that it has inspired others to take up a One-Name Study, maybe their own family name, one that appears somewhere in their family tree or maybe a name that they have an interest in. The Rigmaiden profile which appears on the Guild of One-Name Studies website will remain. Many of us have at least one unusual surname in our family trees that may have piqued our curiosity and many of us may have more than one.

Obviously, it is not recommended to study a common surname particularly if you are working alone but some of the less unusual names have taken on by teams of people, looking at particular aspects. Sadly, the Rigmaiden family does not have any living descendants in the UK anymore but the name is more prevalent in the US.

The Guild of One-Name Studies is an excellent society to join and will give lots of help for those starting out. They offer local meetings, annual conferences, national seminars, a journal and a very helpful website.

For those who are more interested in local studies I understand that One-Place Studies are also possible projects which may involve a study of the village or town where you live or a village connected with your family.

Best wishes and Happy Christmas!

Julie Parker