Collins Tracing Your Family History

MAGAZINES

There are a number of family history magazines on the market, publishing ‘how to’ articles, items on general and specialist sources and specific family stories, and usually including book, software and website reviews, question-and-answer pages, letters, news and contact details for both professional and private researchers. The main ones in Britain are Family History Monthly, Family Tree Magazine, Practical Family History, Who Do You Think You Are?, Your Family Tree and Ancestors, the latter produced by TNA. In a similar category is the Genealogical Services Directory, which provides up-to-date contact details for all British Isles record offices, family history societies, organisations and professional record searchers and genealogists.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Much research has already been published and it is always worth checking to see if your family tree is included. The main British genealogical bibliography is G. W. Marshall’s The Genealogist’s Guide (GPC, reprinted 1973); supplemented by J. B. Whitmore’s A Genealogical Guide: An Index to British Pedigrees in Continuation of Marshall’s Genealogist’s Guide (J. B. Whitmore, 1953). Besides the well-known Burke’s publications, heralds’ visitations (see here) and much else, these books encompass the rich veins of material ranging from transcripts of pedigrees in Close Rolls to copies of memorial inscriptions in overseas cemeteries, published in Victorian and early 20th-century antiquarian journals.

Coming closer to the present, there is G. B. Barrow’s The Genealogists’ Guide: An Index to Printed British Pedigrees and Family Histories 1950–75 (Research Publishing Co., 1977), followed by T. R. Thompson’s A Catalogue of British Family Histories (Research Publishing Co and SoG, 1980). Incredibly useful too are Stuart Raymond’s County Bibliographies (S. A. and M. J. Raymond). These books reference published material (including family history journals) in terms of family histories and local histories, newspapers, county histories and published records of all sorts, particularly providing an overview of the publications of the county and national record societies and publications.

For Scotland there are M. Stuart’s Scottish Family History (GPC, 1978), supplemented by P. S. Ferguson’s Scottish Family Histories (National Library of Scotland, 1986), and for Ireland, the bibliographies compiled by B. de Breffny in 1964 and E. MacLysaght in 1982.

Many privately published and rare manuscript family histories are catalogued in the SoG’s online catalogue, SoGCAT, www.sog.org.uk/sogcat/sogcat. Many printed family histories are digitally available in the Family History Library catalogue section of www.familysearch.org.

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARIES

Many countries have biographical dictionaries. Britain has led the way with L. Stephen and S. Lee’s Dictionary of National Biography (Smith, Elder&Co., 1885), which was kept up to date by a series of supplements and completely revised and re-edited to create the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP, 2004). It is available in print and can be searched online on a subscription basis at www.oup.com/oxforddnb, though it should also be available at good libraries. You can search not just under the names of the subjects, but also under any other names (such as wives, sons-in-law, and so on) appearing in the articles and also by topic. So if you want to find any biographies mentioning something like ice cream, you can.

The DNB has been fully updated by a huge team of writers, including me, and the biographies include, where known, dates and places of birth, death, marriage and burial and any known details of parents, family origins, spouses, and offspring and is thus a formidable genealogical as well as biographical source.

Many people were important or well known in their time but are not considered so by posterity. There have been many biographical dictionaries past and present, not least Who’s Who (OUP), which has been published annually since 1897, and its accompanying Who Was Who (OUP), concerning the deceased, both of which are combined on a CD-Rom version. Here you will find the great and the good, from holders of public office to captains of industry, the top brass in the armed forces, the upper echelons of the clergy, and also writers, artists, editors and a host of others. Brief details are provided of dates of birth, marriage, death, parents and offspring. It is more useful for providing a date of birth so you can seek a birth certificate than in actually providing adequate genealogical details in its own right – but, of course, the biographical information it contains is marvellous.

From hip to history:Linda McCartney’s tragically early death means she has joined Princess Diana in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Besides these, there are many further biographical dictionaries relating to specific groups in society, like the armed forces or religious groups, which are discussed in the appropriate chapters.

RECORD SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS

Many county record offices and archives have published indexed volumes transcribing some of their original records. The Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, for example, has published many of its counties’ wills, royalist composition papers, freemen records and much else. Trawling through these can throw up all sorts of treasures.

The easiest way of finding out what has been published is through E. L. C. Mullins’ Texts and Calendars: An Analytical Guide to Serial Publications, Vol. I (RHS, 1958) and Vol. II, 1957–1982 (RHS, 1983), D. and W. B. Stevenson’s Scottish Texts & Calendars: An Analytical Guide to Serial Publications (Royal Historical Society, London) and Scottish Royal Historical Society (Edinburgh, 1987). These may save you very lengthy searches through original records.

THE SOCIETY OF GENEALOGISTS

MANY PUBLISHED and even manuscript family histories have been deposited at the Society of Genealogists. Their catalogue is therefore a sort of superbibliography of work done previously. As of 2005, the catalogue can be searched online at www.sog.org.uk/sogcat/index.html. Many family histories can also be seen online at www.lib.byu.edu/fhc.

SPECIALIST INDEXES

A catch-all to the many weird and wonderful indexes out there is J. Gibson and E. Hampson’s Specialist Indexes for Family Historians (FFHS, 1998). This covers topics as diverse as Congregational and Baptist ministers at Dr William’s Library, London (see here); multiple births worldwide; memorial cards (1846–1980); criminal registers in TNA class HO 27 (1805–92); members of the Ancient Order of Foresters; and much else.

RESEARCH DIRECTORIES

Besides magazines, journals and an increasingly huge number of websites, many private researchers are also listed in special directories and for a small fee you can be listed too, with your name, address and the names you are interested in, with specific periods and countries, if applicable. The best known directories are the Genealogical Research Directory and the Federation of Family History Societies’ British Isles Genealogical Research Directory, commonly known as the ‘Big R’, which is now available on CD-Rom. If making contact by post, be aware of the widely practised code of conduct: always to enclose SAEs. Some people will not reply to correspondents who do not do so, even if they are offering valuable information or are long-lost cousins. Online equivalents to these directories are the many websites that put people in touch with those with similar interests, particularly www.genesreunited.co.uk (see here).

WHERE TO SEARCH
EXAMPLES OF ARCHIVES IN OTHER COUNTRIES

Many people living in Britain were born abroad and many more have ancestry from overseas. Most have national archives or equivalents. To find them, you can consult www.cyndislist.com or T. F. Beard with D. Demong’s How to Find your Family Roots (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1977). Besides Europe, these are countries that will contribute most significantly to the ancestry of people living in Britain over the next few generations, and their archive details are given here.

INDIA

Much of India belonged to the Mogul Empire, which was founded in India in 1526. Various European states, starting with the Portuguese, established trading bases in India but the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) had become the dominant power by 1691. The British Empire in India was recognised by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

In 1947, the records of the HEIC were transferred to the British Library’s Oriental and India Office Collections, known as the India Office Library, whose records are comprehensively described in M. Moir’s A General Guide to the India Office Library (British Library 1988). The library’s vast collections are very well indexed and has a biographical index, which brings together details on individuals from many of its sources, including records of birth, baptism and so on. These can be found at http://indiafamily.bl.uk/UI. Records include ships’ passenger lists for those coming and going – and a vast many did, either with the army or in some civil capacity

In addition to the wealth of material at the India Office, the SoG has a formidable collection relating to the British in India, not least the India index, containing much biographical data. The Indiaman, a magazine covering the British in India, has launched a wesbite www.indiaman.com. In India the main archives are the National Archives of India.

PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH

Pakistan was created in 1947 out of two distinct parts of India as a separate state for Muslims. It was a British dominion and became a republic in 1956, and a federal Islamic republic in 1973. In 1971, the eastern part of Pakistan achieved its own independence, as the state of Bangladesh. The main archives are the Pakistan National Archives. Bangladesh’s main archive is the Directorate of Archives and Libraries.

KENYA

The British established a protectorate over the region in 1895 and white settlers arrived from South Africa and Britain, with many Indian immigrants arriving also. Many Kenyan Indians were subsequently forced to leave due to the ‘Kenyanisation’ of business and commerce in 1968 at which point they moved to Britain. The archives are at Kenya National Archives.

JAMAICA

The national archives for Jamaica are the Registrar General’s Department Island Record Office.

QUICK REFERENCE

INDIA OFFICE LIBRARY

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF INDIA

nationalarchives.nic.in/

PAKISTAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES

DIRECTORATE OF ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES

KENYA NATIONAL ARCHIVES

REGISTRAR GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT

PROFESSIONAL GENEALOGISTS AND RECORD AGENTS

An increasing number of people and small firms are advertising their services as researchers in genealogical magazines such as Family History Monthly, in the Genealogical Services Directory and similar publications, and in the lists of independent searchers maintained by many record offices. They come in two categories – professional genealogists like me who plan, implement, direct and report on projects investigating family trees; or record agents, who are hired to undertake very specific pieces of research at their client’s instructions. It is best to hire those who are qualified under educational systems such as the IHGS or who have a proven track record of experience and professionalism. Many belong to organisations such as the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA), but be aware that membership often means just that and does not imply very stringent tests of ability.

There are very few dishonest researchers in the field, but a great many incompetent ones. If someone’s initial response to your enquiry is in any manner unprofessional (badly typed or not typed at all), throw it away. Very few professionals worth their salt are without email. Whoever you hire, make sure that they understand exactly what you want to know before you part with your money.

Be equally understanding, though, that professionals must charge for their time and effort regardless of whether they find exactly what they and you were hoping for. Negative results must be paid for too and it is not always entirely negative to know where an ancestor was not.

QUICK REFERENCE

INSTITUTE OF HERALDIC AND GENEALOGICAL STUDIES (IHGS)

www.ihgs.ac.uk

ASSOCIATION OF GENEALOGISTS AND RESEARCHERS IN ARCHIVES (AGRA)

www.agra.org.uk

GENEALOGY SURVIVAL KIT/1

THESE PAGES contains various miscellaneous but also very useful facts to help you in your research.

ENGLISH WORDS

You will come across lots of old-fashioned expressions and phrases, which is half the fun of exploring the past. There are some specialist dictionaries like R. Milward’s A Glossary of Household, Farming and Trade Terms from Probate Inventories (Derbyshire Record Society, occasional paper 1). A stalwart source, however, remains the Oxford English Dictionary, the older the edition the better.

OLD HANDWRITING

Reading old handwriting is called palaeography. There are two sorts of problems:

1. In the past, some letters were written differently to the way they are now, so are extremely unfamiliar.

Examples of the different styles of letters are given to the below.

Be aware, too, that writers often abbreviated words using apostrophes, or sometimes apostrophes followed by the last letter or two – and sometimes the apostrophes were just missed out. ‘William’ was often written ‘Will’m’ or Wm, James as ‘Jas’, ‘Majesty’ as Maty’ and so on.

Two excellent guides to old scripts are H. E. P. Grieve’s Examples of English Handwriting 1150–1750 (Essex Record Office, 1949) and L. Mumby’s Reading Tudor and Stuart Handwriting (Phillimore for BALH, 1988).

2. Bad handwriting. However, like cracking codes, you can often work out what an incomprehensible letter is by studying its companions. For example, if you can read ‘Ed-ard’ then you can surmise the other letter is a ‘w’ – but look for the letter elsewhere to make sure you have it right: never go with an unsupported guess.

You can also see how letters are written in phrases or words where you know what the letters should be. Many wills, for example, start ‘In the name of God Amen’, so you can see how the scribe wrote his ‘I’s, ‘n’s, ‘t’s and so on before tackling the will itself.

Don’t be daunted by age. Sometimes a 16thcentury document can be so beautifully written as to be easier to read than some modern scribble.

MONEY

Besides being a 60s’ drug, LSD was also the acronym for pre-decimal currency of pounds (livres), shillings and pence (dinarii). This was written in a number of different ways; for example, four pounds, two shillings and three pence (‘thruppence’) could be written £4–2–3 or £4 2s 3d or 4l 2s 3d or using Roman numerals – IVl IIs IIId or even IIIJl IJs IIJd.

It is very difficult to find out how much money was worth relative to what it is today. The Bank of England has a ready reckoner and you can also study C. R. Chapman’s How Heavy, How Much and How Long? Weights, Money and Other Measures Used by our Ancestors (Lochin Publishing, 1995) and L. Mumby’s How Much is that Worth? (Phillimore for BALH, 1996).

DATES

Years and days haven’t always been recorded the same way in every country. C. R. Cheney’s Handbook of Dates for Students of English History (CUP, 2000) lists all old forms of dating, including by saints’ days and popes’ and kings’ regnal years.

Years were often counted from the date of a sovereign’s accession, so, for example, the first day of the first year of the reign of Elizabeth II started on 6 February 1952, the day she succeeded her father.

The book also provides a calendar for looking up which day of the week fell in what date in a given year. So, if someone wrote a letter dated 25 May 1657 saying their father died ‘last Monday’ you can find out that 25 May 1657 was a Friday, so ‘last Monday’ must have been 20 May.

OLD STYLE AND NEW STYLE

Britain and Europe used to use the old-style Julian calendar, whereby the year began on Lady Day, 25 March, not the new-style Gregorian calendar, which starts the year on 1 January. The Julian calendar started to die out among lay people in the Tudor period, and by the 18th century it is often hard to tell whether a date is being given in old style or new style.

A member of Pop Gregory’s commision on the calendar pointing out the backslide of the Julian calendar.

Different countries changed to the Gregorian calendar at different times. Most of Western Europe changed in 1582, Scotland in 1600, England and Wales in 1752 and Russia and the Balkans in the 20th century. Therefore, a letter written in France on 1 February 1610 was likely to have been written just under a year before one dated 25 January 1610 in England.

It also means that dates appearing in old records need adjusting to make sense in modern terms. A baptism recorded in a PR on 24 January 1722 would, in modern terms, have taken place on 24 January 1723 because, under the old calendar, New Year’s Day (25 March) had not yet arrived.

To avoid confusion, researchers tend to record the date using ‘double dating’, recording the old-style year followed by the new-style year, i.e. 24 January 1722/3. Never, when you see this, strip out the ‘old’ date and just write 24 January 1723, because someone else may come along, realise that 23 January is before 25 March, not realise that you’ve already adjusted for double dating and write 24 January 1724 instead.

On the International Genealogical and Vital Records indexes (see here), dates are allegedly adjusted but without double dating. Non-conformist registers were using new-style dating well in advance of 1752.

Another difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was that the latter used leap years and the former didn’t. By the time Pope Gregory introduced the new calendar in 1582 the lack of leap years had already caused the old-style date to lapse ten days behind the solar year, so he simply ordered ten days to be cut out off 1582, between 4 and 15 October. Because England persisted with the old calendar, it sunk increasingly behind Europe, and was 11 days behind by the 17th century. Therefore, events that share the same dates in different countries, such as the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes on 23 April 1616 in England and Spain respectively, actually took place 11 days apart. England and Wales cancelled the days between 2 and 14 September 1752 to catch up with Europe.

COMMON ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMNS

Someone in AGRA or the SoG will know how to work back from GRO records at TNA and PPR and maybe stuff in class WO 97 at TNA (the old PRO) back via the IGI to CMBs taken from PRs or BTs on mf at CROs. I have tried to keep acronymns and abbreviations to a minimum in this book, but here are the main ones I have used together with some additional acronymns you will encounter in the outside world.