Free Family History Mini-Class : Lesson 7

Some of the first and most important genealogical sources you will use in tracing your family tree are birth, marriage, death, and census records.  You can search many of these online at no cost using websites compiled by various organisations, often by volunteers.

If you’re starting out in the British Isles, try using Free UK Genealogy or UK BMD for indexes to England & Wales civil registration, British census returns and parish records. Note that UK BMD provides more than one source for the England & Wales BMDs; their main web page explains this in more detail.

For birth, marriage and death records, both civil and religious, on the island of Ireland, you can search indexes and see free certificate images at Irish Genealogy.ie.  Some great tips on browsing these images are found on Shane Wilson’s blog. 

Perhaps your British ancestors worked or lived (or, indeed, died) abroad; if so, you may find their life events indexed at FamilyRelatives where there are military and consular records of births, marriages and deaths.  You will need to register with this site to carry out a search, but there is no charge for viewing the results or digitally imaged indexes in this category.

For many other countries as well as the UK and Ireland, FamilySearch’s indexes and images (both indexed and unindexed) are freely accessible.  You can search or browse civil registration/vital and census records, and video learning courses are provided to help you use them.  Creating a FamilySearch account is free and allows you unlimited access to all the website's resources - see this earlier post for a few of the things you can do.

Finally, if you’re trying to calculate someone’s birth date using their age on a census, here’s a handy chart to pinpoint the various dates on which censuses took place in the UK, Ireland, and the US. 

Free Family History Mini-Class : Lesson 5

In this week’s mini-class, I'm looking at graveyard research, and how to get the most out of visiting your ancestors' final resting place.  But it's not just a matter of grabbing a pen and paper and heading off to the cemetery... 

Before you go...

☙  Speak to relatives who may know the whereabouts of family graves, or have paperwork relating to burials.

☙  Contact cemetery or local authorities to find out about a graveyard’s opening hours.  Some offer look-up or research services - sometimes for a fee - which might make your search easier.

☙  Check for the existence of layout plans or maps for large cemeteries. Public libraries (and their websites) or council offices sometimes hold copies of these.  GENUKI is a useful source of information about burial grounds - as are the groundskeeping staff in the cemetery.  If you can't find a plot, ask them.

☙  Use online sources to identify ancestral grave sites and memorial inscriptions - try FindAGrave, BillionGraves (and their free mobile apps), and for those who died in wartime, Commonwealth War Graves.  Smaller churchyards and other burial grounds may also have been surveyed and the inscriptions made available on the Internet, and a good online search should track them down.   

☙  Family history societies produce indexed cemetery publications which you can buy directly from them, or from organisations like the Family History Federation or the Scottish Genealogy Society.  Public libraries often hold copies of these monumental inscription books for local parishes.  Search their online catalogues to find out what they have on their shelves. 

During your visit...

☙  Don’t try and scrape lichen off gravestones as this will do more harm than good. A safe way to clean a memorial is to wash it carefully with a damp cloth, perhaps using a very soft brush afterwards to remove dirt residues.  Don't be tempted to use abrasive cleaning materials which can cause irreparable damage to masonry.

☙  Damage to memorials can also be inflicted by rubbing with chalk, crayon, or any other materials to try and read or record the engraving on a stone.  Record the inscription with a photograph instead.  This will allow you to take a note of the setting as well as the information on the headstone.

☙  Use non-invasive methods like foil reflectors, artificial or natural light and shade to highlight worn and hard-to-read inscriptions.  Or do what my friend Anne did and wait for the sun to providentially break through the clouds!  You can learn more about looking after gravestones from Historic Environment Scotland.

☙  Be careful of unstable stones and soft ground.  Follow cemetery authorities’ advice regarding visits, health and safety, and care of graves.  Take heed of signage on site which may alert you to hazardous areas of the cemetery.

☙  Look on the back of ancestral headstones for more names - sometimes there wasn't enough room on the front!

After you return home...

☙  Check dates and names from headstones with certificates and other sources. Beware of gravestone "typos" – if a name was added well after the event, or if the deceased’s age was uncertain, the inscription may contain inaccuracies.  

☙  If you’ve photographed headstones you may wish to upload them to FindAGrave or BillionGraves, along with a transcription of the wording on them. Sharing what you’ve found can connect you with others researching the same families.

☙  Add what you’ve found to your records, remembering to use pencil if you haven’t double-checked the information yet.

☙  Share your findings with your family, especially those relatives you asked for help beforehand.

Next time, I'll show you how to tell

the good from the bad on the Internet.

Free Family History Mini-Class : Lesson 4

In this lesson, I’m looking at organising the information you find about your family.  This could be on a visit to a record office, a graveyard, or in conversation with a relative.  If you want to start with what you have at home, check out my post on shoebox genealogy.  Whichever method you choose, you’ll need something to help you make sense of all the details you’ve recorded in your notes.

To start with, you should decide if you’re going to store your family tree on paper, in electronic format, or perhaps both. 

Paper options

·       ☙  A good hard-backed notebook, with a page for each individual or family. The kind with alphabetical index tabs built in is ideal.

·       ☙  A loose-leaf folder or lever arch file for family sheets, which you can organise by surname or family line. This is a really flexible system - polythene pockets can protect your records and keep related documents together

·       ☙  Index cards, one per person – but beware, this can grow very rapidly and take up quite a bit of space!

·       ☙  Once things really take off, you may want to splash out and get a filing cabinet.  This is a great method for storing copies of documents as well as your family history notes and charts.

Electronic options

·       ☙  If you’re comfortable using database or spreadsheet programs, you might like to consider adapting an existing package like Access, a cloud-based app such as Google Sheets, or a free office suite of programs. 

·       ☙  Install specialised genealogy computer software on your laptop or PC – check out some of the many free packages available to download.  Try some out before deciding on one with the features you want.

·      ☙  Use a genealogy website with online tree hosting facilities – and you don’t need to have a paid subscription with them.  In a previous blog post I compare a few of these companies’ free offerings.  

Next time, I'll look at how to plan and

carry out a cemetery visit in search

of family gravestones.

Free Family History Mini-Class : Lesson 3

Once you’ve identified the repository that holds the records you need to search, you can start to make preparations for your visit there.

Here are my suggestions for ensuring nothing gets forgotten:

☙      Contact the archive in advance to make an appointment, where necessary, as well to pre-order any materials that require notice to consult.  Make the most of archive staff's expertise in the records and the local area by asking them for advice regarding your search.

☙      Make a list of all the records you want to see, alongside the names of the people you hope to find in them.  For instance: Sequestration records - Andrew Byrne, 1911 - and include the reference numbers from the catalogue, to save time looking them up again.

☙      Put together a file or database to take with you that contains details of all the relevant family groups that you will be researching.

☙      Review the rules and visitor information on the repository’s website or in their literature to ensure you are properly prepared, for instance

• Whether you can buy food there or need to take your own, and if there is somewhere on the premises you can eat

• If change is required for lockers or cloakroom - you won't be permitted to take your coat, bags, or food and drink items into the search area. Many archives provide clear plastic carrier bags to allow you to carry essential research kit to your seat

• ID requirements. You may not get into the archive without specific forms of identification, so be sure to take the correct paperwork with you on the day

☙      Practice some palaeography if you’re going to be consulting records with unfamiliar handwriting styles.  I’ve listed some websites to help with that.

☙      Prepare a research log book or use pre-printed log sheets to keep track of what you find, what you don’t find and, most importantly, which records you’ve searched. This is a good safeguard against re-doing the same work. 

Download and use this ready-made log sheet.

In the next class I'll explore some of the 
options for organising your family information.

Free Family History Mini-Class : Lesson 2

In this lesson, find out how to identify which record office, archive or library you need to visit in order to move your research forward.  If you missed Lesson 1, you can catch up here.

☙      Do your homework by reading background material on the place and time your ancestors lived in, and find out what types of records they may have generated: consider court documents, rental rolls for tenants, electoral registers, and school records, for instance.

☙      Use the websites of archives in your ancestors’ city, county or country to learn what kinds of records they hold, and what information those contain.  Specific subject guides are often available to download and study.

☙      Search online catalogues.  Some apply just to individual archives and are found on their websites, while others such as The National Archives’ cover the country as a whole – check out their guide for mining the catalogues. 

☙      Be aware that as well as official government records, archives are held by charitable, religious, business, private, and academic organisations.  If you know that your ancestor worked in a specific profession, for example shipbuilding or medicine, you should consider investigating what relevant archives exist.

☙      Contact the archive(s) you plan to visit if you’re not sure what records will help you.  Staff have an excellent working knowledge of their resources and can advise you on how to get the most out of them.

☙      Make sure that the documents you want to see will be available at the time of your visit.  Some are stored off-site and require advance notice to be produced for searching – you should see indicators of this in catalogue entries.  Records undergoing conservation might also be out of circulation, but staff will be able to check this for you.

The next mini-class will focus on practical

 preparations to make for your research trip.

If you've a question about this lesson, just
post it in the comments below.

Free Family History Mini-Class : Lesson 1

In the first of my series of family history mini-classes, here are some do’s and don’t’s to remember when writing down your family information:

☙      Print rather than write – you may like to use block capitals to highlight surnames.

☙      Pick a format and stick with it. For example, if you prefer to put the surname first, be consistent.

☙      Use pencil when adding information to charts, then go over it in black ink (for permanence) once you’ve confirmed it as accurate.

☙      Write names out in full if known – avoid abbreviating for speed’s sake as you may not remember what the abbreviation stands for!

☙      ALWAYS record a married woman’s details using her maiden name, if known. Don’t be tempted to fill in a blank space with her married name, as this can be confusing.

☙      Write dates in standard genealogical order – e.g. 8 Oct 1840 rather than 8/10/40 which can be interpreted in more than one way.

☙      Write places with smallest area first – parish, county, country – with any farm names or townships before the parish.

And to help you get started, here's a family group record you can print off and use as many times as you like.

Please comment below if you have any questions about this lesson!

The next mini-class will cover identifying record sources.

A bunch of goodies

This week, some freebies to help you organise and grow your family tree.

Keep following the blog for more events and goodies!

1. Research Log - download this handy file to help you keep track of your work.

2.  Scottish Indexes online conference, Saturday 11 July.  Talks will cover a variety of topics like maps, problem genealogy, and the records of the medical profession. Click on the link to find out how to join the event.

3. Download free magazines.  Your public library’s website should offer access to electronic versions of popular hobby and special interest magazines.  These can be read on any device, including computers.  All you need to do is register using your library membership details and you can access as many of the titles as you like, including family and general history mags like Who Do You Think You Are? and BBC History.

4. Legacy Family Tree Webinars.  There are always selected webinars that are free to watch.  They cover many subjects such as DNA, different record types and research in various countries.  

5. Genealogy: Researching Your Family Tree – a free online course from the University of Strathclyde that runs throughout the year.  The content includes research skills, record types, writing your history, and preservation techniques.