Genealogy Case Study: Using the FAN Method
- Lex Knowlton
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
In genealogical research, there are multiple methods you can employ to go deeper into the record sets and find missing links. One useful way to do this is the FAN method.
FAN stands for Friends, Associates & Neighbours. It’s basically anyone within your ancestors' lives who wasn’t a family member. Although not relatives, these people can still offer invaluable insight into the lives of our research subjects.
I have been researching my 2x-great-grandmother Ada Williams for some time now. You can read about her in these articles:
The TL;DR?
The story surrounding Ada was that her parents were Welsh Estate owners, but she was orphaned young. She was taken in by an uncle who was a lawyer, and he fiddled about with the papers and took the money and estate for himself, kicking her to the curb. The truth was she was a working-class lass, 1 of 4 girls. She was orphaned young, being 13 when her father died. Her mother died earlier, but I can’t pinpoint a date. Her paternal grandmother was living with the family at the time, but was obviously unable to support the girls. Ada and her three sisters were taken in by the poor law guardians. No fancy Welsh estate for me after all…
So I proved the family myth was just that, which was great — I was furthering my research — but then I hit a wall. I couldn’t get any further back. I was getting frustrated.
I took a break from her, and sometimes that's the best thing we can do in genealogy.
I stopped researching Ada for about 6 months, and then went back in with fresh eyes. Lo and behold, I spotted a new research angle — that was actually right in front of me the entire time.
My first stop when re-examining Ada was my timeline of her life; I knew a fair amount by now about her earlier years. But there was one neglected record that this time piqued my interest. The 1911 census.[1]
Ada had aged out of the care system at 14 — while the poor law guardians could hold children until they were 16, reality was that schooling ended at 14 and most left care to enter employment. As we can see, this is what Ada did.
She was a general domestic servant for the Atkin family who owned a Beer House in Christleton.
Previously, I had just filed this away as a checkbox. Yep, found her on the 1911 census — very good, moving on. Major rookie error!
This time when I looked at the census return, fresh avenues suddenly appeared. My first thought was wanting to add the location of the Beer House to my growing map of pinpoints for ancestors in Chester. But the census didn’t give an exact address. Just Plough Lane in Christleton. I’d have to do some digging into Mr John Atkin…
I was able to locate him in an 1878 Post Office Directory of Cheshire[2] as a beer retailer on Plough Lane:
I was then able to map this out using the Great Britain/Ireland Ordnance Survey (25 inch 1892 - 1914)[3]. The inn was a long way from Leadworks Lane, Ada’s old home.
This would have been a major move for young Ada. Leaving behind the hustle and bustle of Chester’s Leadworks district for a small rural inn. It got me thinking, why here? How did she end up in the employ of John Atkin? Surely there was domestic work in Chester that wouldn’t have required such a move? But my number one burning question was… who was John Atkin?
To answer this question, I turned to the newspaper archives[4], where I found a fabulous article — which included a photograph of John.
John Atkin was born and raised in Christleton and was from a family who had resided in the area for a long time. When he retired (which is what the above article is celebrating), he had been one of the longest licensee holders in the area — running the Plough Inn for 52 years!
This article also threw up a very interesting little tidbit. One of John’s daughters was a “Mrs Beech” who was living on Plough Lane — the name rang a bell in the back of my mind. I was sure that was the maiden name of Ada’s paternal grandmother, the one who had been living with them at the time of her father's premature death.
I went back to Hannah William’s and checked the marriage record[5] I had… sure enough, her maiden name was Hannah Beech.
What are the chances? Ada William’s, the granddaughter of Hannah Beech, becomes an orphan and at 15 secures work at a rural inn run by a man whose daughter married a Beech? Are these families interconnected? I have a feeling they are, and I’m having a lot of fun (and some mild frustration), trying to untangle the web and figure out exactly how Hannah Beech and Ada William’s are connected to John Atkins and his daughter Jesse and her husband John William Beech.
As you can see, a small question about a man I thought was just an employer has cracked open a now huge avenue of genealogical research. FAN method for the win!
I’ll be sure to post an update when I figure this all out. In the meantime, I’d love to hear in the comments about times you used the FAN method and what little gems you came across.
SOURCES
Ada Williams. 1911 England & Wales Census. FindMyPast, accessed 20th July 2026.
John Atkin, 1878 Post Office Directory of Cheshire. Cheshire County Council.
Great Britain/Ireland Ordnance Survey, 25 Inch, 1892 - 1914. National Library of Scotland.
Cheshire Observer - 29 September 1923, FindMyPast.
Hannah Beech & John Williams. Church of England Marriage Banns, 1859. Ancestry.
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