Tracking down your ancestors: discover the story behind your ancestors and bring your family history to life

273 Pages·2002·1.13 MB·English

by  Harry Alder

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Tracking Down Your
Ancestors
Discover the story behind your
ancestors and bring your family
history to life
DR HARRY ALDER
Special thanks to Else Churchill, a genealogist and director
of the Society of Genealogists (www.sog.org.uk) for her
help with technical editing.
Published by How To Books Ltd,
3 Newtec Place,Magdalen Road,
Oxford OX4 1RE,United Kingdom
Tel:[phone]. Fax:[phone].
email:[email protected]
http://www.howtobooks.co.uk
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced
or stored in an information retrieval system (other than for
purposes of review) without the express permission of the
publisher in writing.
Copyright 2002 Dr Harry Alder
First published 2002
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Cover design by Baseline Arts Ltd,Oxford
Produced for How To Books by Deer Park Productions
Typeset by Dorwyn Ltd,Rowlands Castle Hants.
Printed and bound by Cromwell Press,Trowbridge,Wiltshire.
NOTE:The material contained in this book is set out in good
faith for general guidance and no liability can be accepted
for loss or expense incurred as a result of relying in particular
circumstances on statements made in the book. The laws and
regulations are complex and liable to change,and readers should
check the current position with the relevant authorities before
making personal arrangements.
Contents
Abbreviations viii
Introduction 1
1 Getting Started 11
What do you know? 13
Who do you know? 18
What do you want? 20
One name studies 20
Getting started online 23
Start up guidelines 27
2 Online Family Searching 33
Surnames 33
FamilySearch.com 39
GEDCOM 41
Ancestry.com 47
3 Harnessing Internet Sources 58
Mailing lists 58
Newsgroups 65
Your own website 66
Finding and using professionals 66
Familia 67
Family history resources online 68
Cyndi’s Resources 71
Exploring deeper and wider 88
vi / TRACKING DOWN YOUR ANCESTORS
4 Tearless Transcribing 90
Making assumptions 94
Fields 95
Lifetime Logic 98
Vital information 99
Civil birth, death and marriage records 106
5 Organised Support 110
Society of Genealogists (SoG) 111
Federation of Family History Societies 114
Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS) 121
6 Vital Public Records 124
Purposes and processes 125
Vital statistics 129
Census returns 132
Exploring the catalogue 133
7 Interpreting Old Records 144
Knowing what’s important 145
Having the right attitude 148
Comparison of archives 150
Conventions and caveats 152
Mediaeval public records 159
8 Getting to Know Your Ancestors 162
Name searches 164
Place searches 165
Inheritance records 166
Immigrants to Britain 172
CONTENTS / vii
Emigrants and Britons abroad 174
The Armed Forces 178
Prisoners and criminals 181
Coroners’inquests 183
Litigation 184
The established church 184
Nonconformists 185
Roman Catholics 186
Jews 187
The poor 188
Land ownership 188
Tax 189
Name changes 190
Welsh genealogy 190
Scottish genealogy 191
Irish genealogy 192
Appendices
1 Instant Information: Public Record Office
leaflets and document archives 195
2 Help and support: local family history
societies 201
3 Genealogy and family history
bibliography 220
4 Useful websites and addresses 228
5 Glossary of terms 233
6 Computers in Genealogy: Society of
Genealogists quarterly magazine articles and
reviews in back numbers 1997–1999 256
Index 261
Abbreviations
The following are some common abbreviations I have used
throughout the book:
AGRA Association of Genealogists & Record Agents
BDMs Births, Deaths and Marriages
BigR British Isles Genealogical Register
BTs Bishops’Transcripts
CRO County Record Office
FH Family History
FFHS Federation of Family History Societies
FHC Family History Centre (of LDS), also known as
FHL (FH Library)
FHS Family History Society
FRC Family Records Centre
GOONS Guild of One-Name Studies
GRO General Register Office
IGI International Genealogical Index
LDS Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
MI Monumental Inscriptions
ONS Office of National Statistics
PRO Public Record Office
SoG Society of Genealogists
Introduction
Millions of people around the world spend time, energy and
money tracking down dead relatives. In the vast majority of
cases these enthusiasts are ordinary people,direct or indirect
descendants, with a personal rather than professional
interest. As a hobby,it seems this gives a lot of pleasure over
a long period.
‘Family history research’ is said to be the fastest growing
hobby in the UK, as well as being the second most popular
topic on the internet. Tracing ancestors has been especially
popular in the USA since the days of the epochal Alex Hailey
film and novel Roots. It seems to go deeper than your average
hobby, fulfilling some sort of basic need to get to know our
origins and, presumably, understand ourselves better in the
process. It can certainly throw up some great stories,
quotable even outside your own family circle,and provide no
end of fun and pleasure.
Based on the number of generations we have clocked up in a
few centuries, and the remarkable effect of compound
growth, we all have recorded ancestors in plenty. It seems
that statistically even the most anonymous of 21st century
families are the progeny of a motley congregation of the
good, great, sick, sad, strange, evil, infamous and
interestingly mediocre. Like leaves on a summer tree, those
early branches (we must come from somewhere) soon make
big numbers, harbouring more Toms and Marys, let alone
thieves and paupers, than you would have thought a