Family Tree - Genealogy
It doesn't matter if you are interested in researching your Family Tree at the moment or not, you should go to the oldest member of your family and question them about your Ancestors. Ask about any old documents, photographs etc. Why? Simple, my Grandmother died and she kept talking about her Parents and Grandparents. I thought nothing more about this for a few weeks until we were going through her old photographs. They looked to be from the late 1800's to early 1900's. I can guarantee that she would have named every person on the photo's, the identities of the people on the photo's are almost certainly lost forever, every one will be in the Family Tree but we have no idea what they looked like.
My mother has been researching our Family Tree for some time and had got stuck in the late 1800's. I looked through her documents and found nothing that could really move us on any further, most was guess-work and luckily most of the guesses turned out to be spot on. I looked for errors as a wild goose chase would have been certain but these were few and far between. The Family Tree had only reached the late 1800's but we are now at 1786. Most of the work I have done is without documented proof but it is almost certainly accurate. Now we have the skeleton we can get the flesh on to the bones by getting copies of Birth, Death and Marriage certificates.
The first thing I did was go through all of the old documents and write down important dates, places and names. Birth, Marriage and Death. I listed all family members and showed ages of people at these times, post-it notes are brilliant for this and are a good visual aid when stuck on the wall. On the post-it note write the persons Name, Date of Birth, Date of Marriage and Date of Death, when you can put them on a wall you get a good idea of where everybody fits. When I was sure the dates and names were accurate I started to search the web for good sites and did gain extra information. I also found names of people that I thought could be connected to our family, they have since been proven to be actual family members.
Because I was born in the County of Northumberland I started looking for information concerning Genealogy in this County, I joined The Northumberland and Durham Family History Society to gain access to archives they have, so far these have remained un-used as the information available on the Internet grows by the day. We should still join societies like these because they are supplying a lot of the information that we need to access. That reminds me I must send off this years subscription!
Buying a copy of the 1881 British Census on CD from the Church of the Latter Day Saints was a great idea, the information is at hand 24 hours a day and without incurring crazy call charges. The cost of the CD is less than a night out, it's probably closer to half of the cost of a night out. I will do some research for people if requested but remember I also have a life so can't spend all of my free time browsing the CD for others, the Census was carried out on Sunday 3rd April 1881. I have also purchased old map's of the area's where my family lived and some of these map's also have names of people who lived in the area, none of my family members were listed but somebodies relatives are so that could also be of use to aid research.
I also keep a regular check on the Free BMD web site, the site is Free Births, Marriages and Deaths. It is another very good site and seems to grow by the day, I've found people one day who were not listed the day before.
Going back to the 1881 Census, one of our biggest problems we've had with locating relatives was with a Jemima Spencer. I knew that she was born in Wales and from her birth certificate I knew her parents names and father's occupation, he was a coal miner. Apart from that I had no idea so I searched all of Britain for Jemima, no luck at all, not a single Jemima Spencer of any age, another brick wall. I then searched for every Samuel Spencer and looked at every record to see if a similar name to Jemima turned up, again I hit another brick wall. We had an old family Bible so looked at the way her name had been written in it and went through every Census record for Samuel Spencer one by one until I found what I was looking for. A Samuel Spencer who was a coal miner with a daughter who had a strange name. I again checked the Bible and then realized how somebody could read her hand writing and come up with the name they did, she was named Iso...ia according to the Census and I'll show why.
This is the information found in the 1881 Census:
Dwelling: 20 Office Row
Census Place: Trimdon, Durham, England
Source: FHL Film 1342179 PRO Ref RG11 Piece 4904 Folio 34 Page 10
Samuel SPENCER M 45 M Wales Rel: Head Occ: Coal Miner
Sarah SPENCER M 46 F Wales Rel: Wife
Sarah Ann SPENCER U 19 F Wales Rel: Daur
Thomas SPENCER U 17 M Wales Rel: Son Occ: Coal Miner
Edward SPENCER U 16 M Wales Rel: Son Occ: Coal Miner
Mary SPENCER 11 F Wales Rel: Daur Occ: Scholar
Iso...ia SPENCER 7 F Wales Rel: Daur Occ: Scholar
This
is an excellent site, Searching for family members on the internet has never been
easier. Because of this site I've been able to remove quite a few links that are
no longer necessary.
This is another good site with lots of information to browse. Finding information on-line is getting easier all of the time.
The database is still in preparation and being tested but keep checking back from time to time as it looks as if it will be another good source of information.
This is an excellent site packed full of local photographs which you are allowed to use for free, this is not really a genealogy site although it does have photographs of some local grave yards. If you are interested in Newcastle or the North East of England it's the place to go.