To many, staring at microfiches and poring over indexes
in pursuit of a long-lost great-great-aunt must seem
like indoor train-spotting: not exactly offensive
as a private pursuit, but somehow unappealing. The
phrase 'Get a life' seems to hover somewhere in the
background.
But 'getting a life' has something to do with it.
In my case - and I think in many others - a mild curiosity
becomes something more at about the time mortality
is brought home to us. As parents and other relatives
die, it seems more and more important to have a sense
of what has shaped not just ourselves but our family
as well. I had boxes and bags of family photographs,
a few papers, some memories of formidable great-aunts
(I never knew my grandparents), and the stories of
my parents. It seemed important to put them into some
sort of order, to fix the ephemeral and transient.
Even if the resulting story was just like millions
of others, it would still be our story. The
information in these pages has been put together since
about early 1996 (with a head-start from a family
bible and the various inherited records and memories).
It may become an obsession for a while; but one of
the advantages is that you can pick up a thread or
leave it as suits you. The subject matter is as permanent
as it can be. The dead aren't going anywhere; records
either exist or they don't. And there's always another
puzzle to tease out. For example, I have my great-grandmother's
passport to go to Russia as a governess - an
impressive piece of paper like a very large banknote.
Who altered the year of issue to look as though it
had been issued three years later (just a few months
before she died)? And why? According to an old family
birthday book, 'Papa and I' sailed for America in
1885? Who was that? My grandparents married
in South Africa in 1891. My grandfather had presumably
gone out to join his brother, who had already been
there for some years. But how and why did my grandmother
get there?
Interesting patterns emerge. I wasn't surprised to
find how many male ancestors married a second time,
their first wives having no doubt been worn out by
childbirth. I was surprised to see how many of my
ancestors moved into London from quite far away, before
the railway age. I was fascinated to see how the simple
records of births, marriages and deaths in one family
demonstrated Victorian social mobility: from marriage
in Shoreditch with one partner signing the certificate
with a cross, to a family home in then newly-developed
South Hackney, to the next generation moving on from
Hackney to Edmonton to Barnet, with the final settlement
of an estate worth £4000 around 1900. (No, it
didn't come to me).
If you would like to explore what I have found out,
you can start with my entry,
or go through the pages for each family. If you would
like to contact me - especially if you have links
to any of these families - please
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How
to get started
As everyone advises - start with what you know already.
Get together all the information you can on family
birthdays, marriage dates, occupations, and so on.
You can probably put together quite a family tree
on paper from talking to relatives now. Even where
there are vague stories, they can give you clues which
might help later on. As I've already said, this is
not a subject where speed tends to matter: a modicum
of organisation and persistence is what counts.
There are many useful sources of information and
advice (please note that everything that follows relates
to Britain and to some extent Ireland). I really didn't
get started until I found a book while I was just
browsing - Track Down Your Ancestors by Estelle
Catlett (Elliot Right Way Books). The bookshop at
the Family Records Centre in London sells Tracing
Your Family Tree by Stella Colwell (a Teach Yourself
book), and The Family Tree Detective by Colin
D. Rogers (Manchester University Press). Both the
FRC and the Society of Genealogists sell a wide range
of both general and specialist books. Both have websites,
included in my list below.
YOU CANNOT EXPECT TO FIND OUT EVERYTHING ON
THE INTERNET. Sorry to shout, but there's
been a sight too much fanciful misinformation in the
newspapers and on television about this. Searching
the Web and the newsgroups may give you some clues
as to where to start looking for answers, but don't
expect to have it all handed to you on a plate (that
wouldn't be much fun, now would it?). There's unlikely
to be much alternative to following the chain from
certificate to certificate, to get back to the start
of civil registration (1837 in England and Wales,
1855 in Scotland). From a death certificate or a marriage
certificate, you can identify an approximate year
of birth. From a birth certificate, you may be able
to make a reasonable guess as to the latest date of
the parents' marriage (but be prepared for occasional
surprises!). From all certificates, you can derive
information on relatives and addresses to check in
the censuses up to 1901.
Censuses are very useful in identifying other family
members; but as with all these processes, you have
to allow for the possibility of errors in transcribing
names and ages (many people somehow managed to age
barely 5 years in the ten years between censuses).
The 1901 census records are searchable and viewable
online; there is a complete microfiche index of the
1881 census of England and Wales, county by county.
Census records allowed me to add to the information
I already had from family bibles, etc, to identify
in one great-grandfather's family an adopted son no-one
had ever mentioned, and in several families the parish
of birth of the preceding generation (i.e., before
civil registration and central indexes).
The Mormons (more properly, the Church of the Latter
Day Saints, commonly abbreviated to LDS) have constructed
an International Genealogical Index (available on
fiche and CD-ROM in many locations). Although it's
far from complete and sometimes contains transcription
errors, it can be very helpful. It lists variant spellings
of surnames together and makes it easy to identify
patterns associated with names - for example, children
with the same parents' names, or the same parishes
appearing again and again. Similarly some local family
history societies have indexed census records for
their districts.
If, like me, you have Scottish ancestors, then computerisation
has made searching much easier, if perhaps more expensive.
If you go to Edinburgh, the computerised indexes take
the labour out of rather vaguely-defined searches;
and the results can be tested out on the spot as you
have access to the microfiches of the original records.
In two days I managed what in England would have taken
weeks of searching through the books of indexes, and
a great deal of money and time in ordering certificates
to check out references. However, in Scotland you
have to pay a daily fee for access. Similarly, the
computerised indexes are available over the Web for
a fee (but you have to order and pay for certificates
to check them out). Personally I don't object to paying
for access as well as for certificates. This is one
of the topics that can start controversy in the newsgroups,
on the argument that our taxes pay for registration
information to be publicly available. However, what
our taxes pay for is for people to be able to check
out the facts they already have, for fairly specific
'public' or legal purposes. I don't see any reason
for the taxpayer to pay for us to have reasonable
space, comfort and lots of additional finding aids
to pursue speculative searches of indexes for a hobby.
Not that I don't appreciate the great efforts that
they have made: but in the short period the new Family
Records Centre has been open, the level of demand
seems to have shot up, and I don't see how public
funding can keep up with it.
You may find other public records essential at certain
points, particularly in respect of military or other
public service. I found at the National Archives:
- the record of one great-grandfather's discharge
to pension from the Metropolitan Police, which gave
all sorts of details about his record and origins
- complete service record dockets from the Royal Artillery
for another great-grandfather, and his father as well
- the war service diaries for my father's unit, the
Red Cross and Protecting Power reports for the prisoner-of-war
camps he was in, and an affidavit he gave with all
the other papers of a war crimes investigation.
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Contacts
and links
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As you're on the Internet already, you presumably
won't need me to tell you how to search the
Web or connect up to newsgroups.
It would be a good idea to spend some time
'lurking' on the soc.genealogy.britain newsgroup
to see what kind of information is requested
and provided. Many of the people who post
here are searching from other countries, and
ask for general information about British
history and customs - who knows, you may be
able to help someone before you've even started
on your own search! Don't forget, Google will
help you search the newsgroup archives (on
the off-chance that there have been some messages
relevant to your area of interest - but many
of the messages relate to US interests).
People are very willing to help and advise
the newly-started, but please try to help
them. Before you ask for help, make sure you
have put together as much information as you
can already, and that you have clearly identified
the gaps in what you know and the obstacles
to remedying them. Nothing causes more irritated
responses in a newsgroup than messages (which
people have to pay to receive) saying 'Where
is Bacup' or (as I've seen, and this was the
entire message) 'I couldn't get my grandmother's
birth certificate although I knew I had the
right date and place of birth - what should
I do next?'
Just doing an ordinary search on the Web
may turn up something of interest (a second
cousin found me through turning these pages
in a routine search, so you never know your
luck). Most of the big search engines tend
to return a lot of US information. For searches
in the UK and Ireland, I would strongly advise
looking first at GENUKI: it has good advice
and links to all sorts of organisations and
sources, such as the Family Records Centre
(the commercial site 1837online.com lets you
search the indexes online), Scotland's People
for the Scottish records, the National Archives
(the 1901 census is online, and they also
link to commercial indexes for other censuses)
and the Society of Genealogists, as well as
local family history societies and specialist
sources, like those for London listed here.
Genes Reunited uses the same concept as Friends
Reunited to help you match your researches
with others who may be interested in the same
people: at a price, of course. Other main
international sources on the Internet are
of course the Mormons' International Genealogical
Index and the ultimate guide to genealogical
sites worldwide: Cyndi's List.
To find places in Britain, try the Multimap
site (if you haven't got a good road atlas).
The other links in the list are based in the
USA or Canada, but offer some links into various
UK sources as well. They also offer some searchable
databases, but don't get your hopes up - they
may not always be complete or accurate.
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