U3A Roseland and District
I have included some information and links to other sources to help members in their own family research. Most of the content is intended to assist in research from the early 19th century onwards. Many earlier records and other documents such as wills, deeds etc. will only be available through personal contact with County Records Offices but the group will try to point members in the right direction.
Click on the topic below or scroll down to see the whole page.
Civil Registration - Births, Marriage and Deaths
Keeping Family History Records
Documents
This section provides some guidance on the documents which are fairly easy to obtain for research into familes living from the early 19th century until the end of the 20th century.
Censuses were carried out every 10 years and provide an invaluable aid to research by identifying members of a household at different points, giving information about addresses, ages, relationships, occupations and place of birth.
The information given was not always 100% accurate and whenever possible should be verified with other data, but there is no better starting point for tracing ancestors during the 19th century, up to 1901 which is the last census so far released as public information.
Once you have established the name, approximate age and probable location for an individual you are looking for in say 1901, you can use the information on parents and siblings to work back through earlier censuses and create an outline of the family over several generations.
You then have the opportunity to work forwards again from the earliest individual you have found to track other members of the family to begin creating a complete picture of that line.
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1841 Click on the image for a larger view |
The first census which is useful for research took place in 1841. It included the names of all the individuals at an address, but not their relationship to each other. It also showed their age, but used an odd convention in which all ages above 15 were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest whole multiple of 5. However, some enumerators rounded up, some down and some used actual ages (as given although they were quite frequently incorrect). Occupations were included but not the place of birth. Instead the individual stated whether or not they were born in the county in which the census took place, showing a 'Y' or 'N' in the appropriate box. However, many answered 'Yes' regardless of whether it was correct! In spite of its shortcomings, the census is useful in placing family members together and identitying where they were, usually as a check on other, more reliable information. |
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1851 to 1901 Click on the image for a larger view
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From 1851, censuses contained more information, including the relationship of the individuals shown at an address to the person shown as Head of the household. They also included their marital status, showed whether they were an employer or worker, and their place of birth. Ages could still vary considerably from census to census, as could the place of birth, but these details can usually be verified from other sources |
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Civil Registration - Births, Marriages and Deaths
From September 1837, all births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales were required to be registered by law. Prior to that date, the only record of those events was in parish records (or sometimes in non conformist records). In fact, there was no requirement to record births or deaths, so in most cases the only entry to be found is of a baptism or burial.
Whilst burials could be expected to take place fairly soon after death, baptisms could take place some years after birth. The general practice was for baptisms to be arranged fairly soon because of the high rate of infant mortality, but this was not always the case and it wasn't unusual for 2 or more offspring to be baptised at the same time, so having 2 or more children of the family baptised on the same day wasn't necessarily evidence of a multiple birth.
Copies of original certificates can provide a wealth of information, as well as being a real record of your family's history. These can be obtained from the General Records Office and the details required will be the name of the individual (groom or bride for marriage), the year and quarter in which the event took place, the Registration District, plus the Volume Number and Page in which the event was recorded. These details can be obtained from the Civil Registration Index.
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Civil Registration Index The Civil Registration Index is a central listing compiled quarterly from all the entries made in birth, marriage and death registers in all the registration districts in England and Wales. It is divided into separate sections for each type of event and is a simple alphabetic listing which shows the surname and given name(s), the registration district, and volume and page numbers of the registry entry. In the case of marriages, the name of the bride and groom appear in their own alphabetic positions. After 1911, the entry includes the surname of the partner but before this date there is no link in the index. The only way to make the link is to identify those persons appearing in the same registration district, volume and page. A large part, but not all of the early indexes have been transcribed into a database which can be searched for the name of the known partner and will also show the names of all others with matching details. If the first name of the partner is known through census details for example, it may be possible to identify their full name from the matches. However, most pages have between 4 and 8 names appearing so if there is more than one with the same first name, a copy certificate will be the only way to identify the partner for certain. The database can be searched at no charge at FreeBMD and other sources in the Links section below. |
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Birth Click on the image for a larger view
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Apart from giving the date of birth, the certificate will show the name and occupation of the father (assuming one was named, which wasn't always the case), together with the maiden name of the mother (if she was married) All of this can help to confirm information you already believed to be correct and to provide entirely new leads |
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Marriage Click on the image for a larger view
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Marriage certificates contain a substantial amount of useful information to not only confirm the date of marriage and the names of the parties concerned. They will show the age of the bride and groom (although particularly in early marriages if both were over 21 the entry may read 'Of full age'). You will also have the occupation of both at the time of marriage, their place of residence, and very usefully for further research, the names and occupation of both fathers. The names of the witnesses can also be useful, as they are often other family members and they can set you off on more research. |
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Death Click on the image for a larger view
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As well as providing details of the date and cause of death, the certificate confirms the age and occupation of the deceased. This can be very useful as a means of determining the approximate birth year to work backwards when this is uncertain. It also describes the person informing the Registrar of the death, which is likely to be another family member and can provide an additional lead for further research, |
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Links (click on the link titles)
There are thousands, of websites dealing with genealogy, many of which you will find as you do your own research. I have tried to list some of the more useful ones to get you started.
Created and maintained by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), this site is the most comprehensive free resource available. It is particularly useful for pre 1837 BMD records, which although far from complete and not always 100% accurate, are a very useful guide. Most of these are in the International Genealogical Index which mainly focuses on the UK, USA and Australia.
The site also has the 1881 England and Wales census and the US 1880 census available for search free of charge.
This is a free site containing a huge amount of information for the UK. Although it does not have details on individuals, it has many links to tell you where you can find it, based on locations.
Every major parish in the country is listed by County with some outline historical information about that parish and a description of what records are available and where.
Another free site which has over 45,000 links to genealogical information for the UK and Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Continental Europe.
Part of a volunteer organisation called FreeUKGEN which is sponsored by the Ancestry Group.
It is transcribing and indexing the Civil Registration Index for England and Wales so that it is possible to search for individuals in a given period rather than having to wade through the original index pages line by line. The project mainly covers years up to 1911 and is not complete, but a huge amount has already been transcribed and the database is continually updated.
Another free alternative for searching BMD records. Many county registration offices have put their own records from 1837 into searchable databases which are sometimes more complete and cover later periods than FreeBMD.
To search in this site.click on the 'Select a County' drop down list in the left hand menu and click on the county you are interested in. Then click on the 'County' button. If the first entry that appears is the name of a county or region followed by 'BMD' there are records you can search.
Other sources of information for that county will also be listed.
This site is run by the Federation of Family History Societies and contains databases created by each of the County FHS's across the country.
It can provide valuable information about pre 1837 marriages and deaths because most of the information is transcribed and indexed from parish records by society members. Coverage is very variable, but you can see what is available for each county. In some cases, records include some census transcriptions.
You can search the records free of charge, but if you want to see the details on a likely result there is a charge which seems to average about 7p, depending on the type of records. You buy search credits which are available from £5 and each record you view is debited from you current credit balance.
This is the largest free site and is also sponsored by Ancestry. It contains thousands of family trees which have been submitted by individuals willing to share their own research and can be searched to see if any members of your family are listed. If you find a match, you can download the information in a form you can add to your own records (see theFamily History record keeping section).
The site also has a wealth of other information about researching ancestors and is worth spending some time exploring.
The best known and most comprehensive of all subscription sites containing a massive collection of databases.
Probably the most powerful single tool is the fully indexed transcriptions of every census for England and Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man from 1841 to 1901. This allows you to search for an individual by name, date range and county of either birth or location at the time of the census.
It also has copies of the complete Civil Registration Index from 1837 to around 2000. These are the original documents and can be more time consuming to search but if the entry you are looking for hasn't been transcribed into one of the searchable indexes, it is the only place you will find it.
The latest addition to their databases in the first stage of putting the early UK telephone directories online. This can give you a unique way of finding out where members of your family were living in the 20th century, although of course in the early years, subscribers were relatively few.
Their monthly subscription is £9.95 and annually, £79.95. You can also buy electronic pay per view vouchers. Although the costs seem fairly high, if you become hooked on research the value of what you can get is very good.
A collaboration site in which members submit their own family trees which can then be searched by others entering a name and approximate birth date to identify possible matching relations. There are curently over 5 million trees on this site containing over 82 million names.
It can be very useful once you have some details on your own family tree as a means of expanding it and/or contacting remote relatives you probably didn't know existed. I have communicated with dozens of distant cousins and worked with a few of them to develop branches of our mutual family lines.
The database can be searched free of charge, but if you identify a possible match, you must become a member before you can communicate with the other member. The subscription currently only costs £9.99 per year.
A database of over 10 million records held at 408 Records Offices and other depositories. It is a searchable catalogue of what records exist and where so that you can follow up with the appropriate source to find out whether they hold the particular records you are looking for.
You cannot access the actual records online.
This is the place where you can order copies of Birth, Marriage and Death certificates online once you have obtained the information described in the Civil Registration section.
Her Majesty's Court Service maintains a register of all probate records from 1858 and these records include a copy of the will where one exists. You can make a postal request for a search of the National Index provided you know roughly the date of death. A search for a period of up to 4 years from the date of death currently costs £5.00 and provided an entry is found, you will receive a copy of the 'Grant of Representation' and the will if one exists. There is an application form to request a search on the HMCS website at the link above.
Keeping Family History Records
Once you research begins to take off, you are likely to be amassing a considerable amount of information. If you trace all of your great grandparents, which generally isn't too difficult you will have 16 individuals and the numbers will double with each additional generation.
And that's just the direct lines. When you begin to add the other children of each family - your aunts, uncles and cousins the numbers will increase rapidly.
Keeping track of all the relationships, and storing the information you have gathered about the people - occupations, addresses etc. is likely to become increasingly difficult.
That's where a family history computer program comes into its own. Obviously you will still have documentation on key members of the family such as census pages, BMD certificates etc., which need to be filed, but these can also be cross referenced so that you know exactly what you have at a glance.
The computer program will not only allow you to link everyone together and create the type of family tree charts that we are familiar with, but also to produce book type reports which turn your family history into a real story that can be shared.
There are a variety of programs available and most are not too expensive. One advantage is that they all use a common file protocol called GEDCOM. That means you can exchange information with other people, no matter which program they are using, and upload your own tree to sites such as Genes Reunited or Rootsweb if you want to share your history with a wider audience.
One totally free option is called Personal Ancestral File which can be downloaded direct to your computer from the Mormons' Family Search site. If you would like to try it click here to go to the download site, and select Personal Ancestral File 5.2.18.0 Multi Language.
To see an example of the type of reports that can be produced click here to go to my site. All of these reports (and more) can be produced as printed pages, not just as a website.