Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy: The definitive reference guide to tracing your family history

CHAPTER 4

Research Tips and Hints

The tips, hints and advice in this chapter will help you to achieve far more when you actually start looking for documents, and to make the most of your time in archives and research institutions. We also introduce the amazing array of resources now available online, give some advice about the pitfalls of Internet research, and what to do when you get stuck with your research and need a little shove in the right direction.

However, before you start worrying about where to look for help, here are a few useful tips to help you avoid making mistakes in the first place!

Avoiding Mistakes Early On

There is nothing more exasperating than spending several hours in an archive and a small fortune on certificates only to realize you’ve been following the wrong branch of people, simply because a small mistake was made early on. This can easily happen if you don’t order every registration certificate for a person and ensure each name, date, place and occupation on your family tree is substantiated with as much documentation as possible.

Never Assume …

Cross-referencing sources is essential, but if you cannot find conclusive evidence then do not just assume that links to earlier generations are correct, even if they look likely. Just because the name and date appear to be right doesn’t mean you’ve found the right person.

CASE EXAMPLE

Question the evidence

When researching Ian Hislop’s family tree, two people called Murdo Matheson were found living at the same time, in the same place, and who joined the same regiment in the late eighteenth century. Painstaking research was required to work out which Murdo Matheson was related to Ian, only solved by comparing the clasps on a medal awarded to Ian’s relative, which had been passed down through the family, with the movements of each battalion and therefore eliminating the ‘wrong’ one.

If you have run into problems, leave that branch for the time being and keep pushing back on neighbouring branches that might give you more clues. For example, it is possible to link witnesses’ names on a marriage certificate to family members who appear on earlier census returns to strengthen the case that you have found the right person, and therefore help you to fit the jigsaw together.

Where possible try to locate more than one source to corroborate information you have already found. If you discover that there is no concrete evidence whatsoever to verify a link, make a list of all the circumstantial evidence that led you to your initial assumption, and continue forward, making a note that you have not found firm supporting documentation.

‘Try to locate more than one source to corroborate information you have already found.’

Question the Evidence

You should always question the reliability, or at the very least the historical context, of every document you encounter. Primary evidence can contain errors, but if you have enough different sources available so that you can compare the vital details for each ancestor, then you should be able to work out which sources are accurate by a process of elimination. For example, census returns can sometimes give the wrong ages and can contain misspellings if names have been inaccurately transcribed from the original forms. Death certificates are also known to contain mistakes, especially if a young and distant relative, or doctor who was unsure of the facts, registered the death.

Our ancestors were prone to stretching the truth when asked about their age, or were themselves unsure of their own year of birth in times when paperwork and the process of filling out forms was far less common than it is today, which can explain discrepancies between a birth certificate and an age given on the same person’s marriage certificate. Any evidence of our ancestor’s existence is important, but you should be cautious when using this evidence.

Concentrate!

Simple mistakes are easy to avoid just by staying focused and alert. Keep checking the exact spelling of the names you are searching for so that you don’t waste half an hour looking for the birth of James John Clark, when it should have been John James Clarke. And it might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to confuse the marriage indexes for the birth indexes, so always double-check you are looking at the right set of documents.

HOW TO …

… avoid annoying mistakes

1. Double-check each fact; don’t assume it is right

2. Corroborate each source with another if possible

3. Beware! Primary documents contain mistakes

4. Double-check name spellings

Has Your Tree Been Researched Before?

Don’t be afraid to look for short cuts – they can save you enormous amounts of time and money! Here are a few places you can investigate to see if someone has done some work on your family tree already.

Society of Genealogists

Part of your initial research should include checking whether any part of your family tree has already been published or recorded. One of the best places to start looking is the Society of Genealogists (SoG), one of the country’s premium research institutions. The SoG is based in Clerkenwell, London, and for an annual fee you can access its impressive research library as well as copies of key datasets, attend lectures, seminars and workshops, and examine their extensive collection of manuscripts. Further information about the SoG can be found from their website, www.sog.org.uk.

Among the SoG’s records are pre-researched family trees, pedigrees and associated research notes left by family historians in the past who wanted to share their work with others. You check the SoG’s online catalogue at www.sog.org.uk/sogcat/access to see if your surname is listed. And don’t forget, it is also worth asking at your local studies centre or county record office to see whether they have copies of pedigrees deposited by other local researchers.

‘It’s worth asking at your local studies centre or county record office to see if they have copies of pedigrees deposited by other local researchers.’

Published Pedigrees

If you suspect – or even know – that you have blue-blooded relatives, then one of the volumes that publish pedigrees of the aristocracy will be of use. Surprisingly, this is more likely than it sounds, given that many aristocratic families can trace their lineage back hundreds of years, and as each new generation is born, the distribution of wealth and status thins out among the younger branches. You may not realize at the start of your journey that one branch has noble roots, in which case it will probably not become apparent until you have been investigating your genealogy for a while.

Alternatively, if there is a family story that a certain ancestor was descended from a specific duke or lord, then it is worth tracking down the pedigree of that family to see if it could link in with your own research at some point in time. Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage and Burke’s Landed Gentry have recorded the genealogies of titled and landed families throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland for over 175 years. Their content includes information on the extended family and deceased distant relatives of each noble name. Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage has been published since 1802, and is sometimes considered to be more dependable because it does not rely so heavily on information obtained from the family in the way Burke’s does. On the other hand, Debrett’s contains far less information about extended branches, preferring to concentrate on direct ancestors, descendants and living relatives.

Both publications are regularly updated and most libraries and archives have copies of these volumes, which include editions detailing the ancestry of extinct titles as well. Alternatively, you can purchase a subscription to browse the database of entries in Burke’s from the website www.burkespeerage.com. If you do manage to trace a line of your tree back to a titled family, then you can also look them up in The Complete Peerage by George Edward Cokayne, copies of which are held on open shelves at the National Archives in Kew and at other notable research centres. The Complete Peerage cites all of its sources and gives a bit of background about some of the more distinguished characters, such as their involvement in certain battles; however, it only follows the direct line of heirs.

In addition to the popular pedigree publications mentioned above, there are plenty of other editors who have printed pedigrees throughout the last few centuries, although these volumes are generally less well known because they are no longer in print. Check the shelves of your local library and archives for these. You may also find that a local historian has published genealogical records for families who lived in your local area.

There are some indexes to published pedigrees arranged by surname so that you can locate the relevant books that may contain information about your family tree. These are:

• The Genealogist’s Guide by G.W. Marshall of 1903; indexes a large number of pedigrees published between 1879 and 1903

• A Genealogical Guide by J.B. Whitmore, published in 1953; continues this cataloguing for pedigrees published between 1900 and 1950

• The Genealogist’s Guide by G.B. Barrow, published in 1977; for pedigrees published between 1950 and 1975

• A Catalogue of British Family Histories by T.R. Thomson; the most recent index for pedigrees, published between 1975 and 1980

It is highly worthwhile consulting these indexes for all of the surnames in your family tree, and continually referring to them as you find new names. Copies are held at most major libraries and archives.

College of Arms

The College of Arms, located in central London, has records of the visitations conducted by royal heralds in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were sent out by the Crown to review the claims of families whose status gave them rights to bear a coat of arms each time a new generation was born. (This need to check the family trees of the nobility became increasingly important after the English Civil War, 1642–46, at which time illegitimate claims were made to some titles.) Heraldry, or the system of displaying personal symbols on shields such as coats of arms, is of great use to family historians because of its hereditary nature. Heralds kept pedigrees of the families that were entitled to bear coats of arms so that they had a record of the line of descent the coat of arms could be passed down, which was usually to the male heir. Since the cessation of heraldic visitations, the College of Arms has been responsible for issuing coats of arms and holds updated copies of pedigrees for many distinguished families from around the British Isles. You can visit their website at www.college-of-arms.gov.uk to find out more about their history and the services they provide.

The College of Arms’ records can only be searched by members of staff, who are still known as heralds today. However, Frederick Arthur Crisp and Joseph J. Howard published a series of pedigrees based on the heralds’ visitations that include twentieth-century descendants, entitled Visitation of England and Wales and Visitation of Ireland. In addition, in 1952 Sir Anthony Richard Wagner released The Records and Collections of the College of Arms, which may be worth consulting if you believe a branch of your family may have been entitled to bear a coat of arms at one time.

Online Pedigrees

For those of us who are not so lucky as to have had our family history already published, it is worth scouring the many genealogy websites that enable researchers to share their family trees online. As has been explained in Chapter 2, there are many websites where you can upload your tree as you go along, including www.genesreunited.co.uk, www.ancestry.co.uk and www.myheritage.com, so why not use these resources to find out if there is somebody else out there looking for some of the same ancestors as you? Many of these sites allow you to search their database of records for free simply by entering the name of a particular ancestor you would like to find. Usually you will be provided with a limited amount of detail about all the people in the database that match your criteria, and if you subscribe to the website you can email other users who seem to be researching the same people to ask their permission to view their research in full. Some websites provide free access to other people’s online pedigrees, such as http://familysearch.org and www.genealogy.com.

Guild of One-Name Studies

The Guild of One-Name Studies is an organization that supports researchers keen to investigate the origin of a particular surname. Its members are interested in everybody who has the surname they are studying, though they might restrict their study to a certain geographical area, which means they are not looking at one particular pedigree. Nevertheless, their records sometimes include lineages of many families. Visit www.one-name.org to find out if a one-name study has been established for any of the surnames on your tree. For example, the Izzard surname is listed, so if you suspect you have a connection to Eddie Izzard, you can visit the site, click on the link and learn more about the origins of the surname and its derivatives, as well as how often it appears in historical documents through time.

The website provides a useful profile for some of the registered One-Name Studies, including their aims and the data that has been gathered so far, along with contact details for the Guild member who posted the information. You can contact that member if you have a specific question you would like to ask about their findings. The Guild supports projects designed for experienced researchers, so if a surname you are interested in is not registered with the Guild, it is wise to research your own family tree first and then build up a portfolio of information about that particular name before registering the surname and starting a study. There are guidelines about how to begin a one-name study on the website.

SUMMARY

Check the following to see if some of your proposed research has already been done:

• The records of the Society of Genealogists

• Burke’s and Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage, and The Records and Collections of the College of Arms

• Indexes of published pedigrees

• Genealogy websites

• The Guild of One-Name Studies, for a particular surname (especially if it is unusual)

Remember … Check the Evidence

It is imperative that you find out the sources of any research undertaken by other people before you even consider incorporating this data into your own family tree – it is vital that you can double-check their accuracy. Even if somebody else’s research has been published, their work is still liable to human error and it is not unusual to find a pedigree published in two books that has different dates of birth or death cited in each version. Therefore, check as many editions as you can for each published pedigree so that you can compare the information they contain, and then follow up the document references in the footnotes and examine the original sources.

Just as you did when you were collecting information from relatives, you should treat all second-hand evidence as merely a guideline to follow, rather than gospel truth. Use it as a short cut to the records that will allow you to verify the information, rather than taking the data at face value as proof of the past. Family trees published on the web are even less reliable simply because anybody can add to genealogy websites without needing to authenticate their entries. If you do contact another researcher who has seemingly investigated one of your family branches, do not be afraid to ask them how they came to their conclusions and what sources they have used. You can then follow up these sources yourself to see if you find them convincing as evidence.

‘Treat all second-hand evidence as merely a guideline to follow, rather than gospel truth.’

Despite these words of warning, family tree sharing facilities are fantastic genealogical tools, particularly the online versions that enable researchers to share ideas and learn from each other’s work. Once you have completed your research you should consider making it into a book, perhaps using one of the family tree software packages suggested in Chapter 2 – many of which include a publishing suite – so that you can deposit your work at the Society of Genealogists or your local record office for other researchers to benefit from.

Researching Your Genealogy Online

Genealogy as a pastime is at its most popular in the twenty-first century, partly thanks to the wealth of resources that have been made available online to millions of people at the click of a mouse. Whereas family history was once the domain of the upper classes who had access to (or were keen to prove) their pedigrees, and die-hard genealogists prepared to spend hours scouring reels of microfilm in search of each new name on their family tree, now anybody with a vague interest in their roots, regardless of status or origin, can start investigating. Because there is such an enormous interest in the subject, there will always be somebody online who can be of assistance if you are struggling with your research.

There are literally millions of genealogy websites out there – just try typing ‘family history’ into Google and see how many hits you receive! This can make it difficult to know where to begin, so here we’ll de-mystify the process and highlight the most useful sites you’ll need to visit. Basically, the core resources you will be working from can be broken down into the following categories:

• Commercial or institutional websites supplying access to datasets, images of records, or indexes to documents (‘dataset’ websites)

• Websites of genealogical organizations that provide advice, or links to other resources (‘portal’ websites)

• Websites where you can link with other users and join social networks (‘network’ websites)

Dataset Websites

Commercial Sites

There are many commercial websites that have worked in conjunction with archives to provide reliable historical material online. For example, The National Archives at Kew have teamed up with commercial companies such as Ancestry and Find My Past to enable online access to census returns, military records, ships passenger lists and more, whilst the National Archives of Scotland have established a partnership with the Scottish General Register Office and the Court of the Lord Lyon to create an official website – www.scotlands people.gov.uk – where Scottish parish registers, civil registration, probate and census records are available to those unable to travel to the archives.