Back to work

It's been a quiet ten months on here but I am now ready to return. I have just finished the penultimate year of my degree, hence the lack of activity, but I now have a free four months with which I hope to make some more in roads.

Summer 2013 To-Do List:

1. Upload all the info I have to WikiTree.
   I like the fact it is free but also easy to manipulate. I do not want to just upload a GEDCOM; I want to make sure it is done correctly which will take some time but I think it will be worth it. Also hopefully I will meet some other distant relatives.
2. Put together a document with all the Elders research I have.
   My Grandad's brother is not very well, so I would like to put something together to take and show him.
3. Cowton name study.
   I would still like to take a look at this, and recording all the names will be quite relaxing and require less thoughts than my research!
4. Investigate the Whittaker side.
   It would interest my Gran so I'd like to take a look.

This year has been hard due to losing my Grandad last October. Whilst the loss of my first Grandad kick-started my family history research, the loss of my second has given me a drive to do more within my community and 'give back'. This summer is the last summer I will have before I graduate so I need to work out what I want to do with my life. Hopefully some of my ancestors can help point me in the right direction!

An idea

So I have an idea bubbling away in the back of my mind; conducting a one name study.

I would like to do it about Cowton. It's a surname that appears not too far back in my tree, but it's one that is manageable. The village of Cowton is 20 miles from where I grew up, so I know at least one branch of the family hasn't moved far.

I plan to begin by looking through the census' and BMD records before applying to become a fully fledged member of the guild. I return to university at the start of October so I won't have too much time, but I feel a ONS would be easier to do than a family tree (mostly because I desperately need to tidy up my citations in my own tree!).

Am I being realistic? Or taking on too much?

Occupations Transcription

I've exhausted the census records for my paternal Granddad's ancestors so I have moved on to my paternal Grandmothers. So far they're all farmers! But I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what is said in the 1891 census:

From the bottom, I can read Scholar and Ag Assistant (?). The top one has me confused however. The first word seems to be Father (The owner of the occupation, Jeffrey Cowton, is 23 in 1891). The household does have three children; Mary E, Robert F and Ethel I Cowton, however I can't work out who their father is as Jeffrey has a number of siblings!

If anyone can make sense of the occupation I'd be very grateful!