Find Ancestors

Can I just repeat Sarah's earlier request that if you nudge this thread, to then delete your message. Otherwise, it will be several pages long, with numerous messages just saying "nudge", which will put people off reading it. Thanks, Carole

thank-you nudge

1837 Online information re: pricing etc. £5 for 55 units 10 pence valid 45 days £10 for 122 units 9 pence valid 60 days £15 for 194 units 8.5 pence valid 90 days £25 for 345 units 8 pence valid 120 days £60 for 891 units 7.5 pence valid 365 days £120 for 2640 units 5 pence valid 365 days It costs 4 units per year - one for each qtr, March, June, Sept & Dec. Searches are done by the Qtr. See the site itself for a fuller explanation. *ALSO* ... many people who have already spent lots of money on 1837online have downloaded pages and saved them ... this is what we call "1837 Saved Pages". There are several threads with this heading on the Records Office board. Do a search for " 1837 Saved Pages "and it will give you something like 12 results on the R O Board. Click on this and see the list. There are numerous different threads started by different people. The quickest to view are the one's headed 1837 Saved Pages A - E, F - J, K - O, etc, folks have kindly added under Surnames lists of what they have got and have offered lookups to see if they have what you need. Always worth a look first.

good advice thanks sue

nudge

Could I ask that people who have posted a request for help respond on the thread they have started and not by personal message? As an example, I have received a message today from someone and the message reads 'She was believed to have been of Welsh origin, but that is all I know'. I assume that I have responded to a request for help and asked for more info but I try and help lots of people so have no idea who/what this message relates to! I have had quite a few of these in the last couple of weeks and even trying to look back at my threads haven't helped find some of them so I can't assist any further. Also it will help anyone else that looks at your thread to see the additional info and they may be able to help as well. Sam

A big thanks to everyone who has been nudging this topic! I don't get online much at the moment as its getting near Christmas so I'm having to work lots of extra and bizarre hours (yes I work in the food dept of a famous store). If other people could keep nudging this up I'd be really grateful. Thanks Sarah

Another tip when searching baptism records is that description of the occupation of the father might not be accurate as some parishes were to fussed about the accuracy of occupations, ie a domestic coachman, who would of been a coachman for a rich family might of been put down as servant under the fathers occupation in baptism records, but not on actual certs And, if you cant find a birth record of an ancestor, it is possible they were registered under the mothers maiden name as she hadnt yet married the father. Dont forget that there are more records not on the International Genealogical Index that there are on there, so if you cant find a baptism of an ancestor, they might be put on at a later date.

nudge

As a novice at all of this, the advice given here is invaluable. Many thanks. Ellen.

SEARCHES BEFORE 1837 In the second half of 1837 general registration of births, marriages and deaths began in England and Wales. Before this point your only source of birth, marriage and death information is from parish records. Lookups in parish records can be quite difficult sometimes as some villages did not have their own church but travelled to the nearest one which could be anyone of 5 in different directions. Larger towns and cities often had more than one church and so pinpointing which the family might have used is difficult. Access to parish records is much more limited in comparison to the BMD registrations. Parish records are usually held in county record offices with some libraries around the country holding films of their local parish records. The LDS church can order films they hold for you to use in their centres too. There are very few online transcriptions of parish records. Beause of the difficulty in searching for parish records, its unlikely that your lookup requests will be answered. All you can do is 1) Contact the county record office of the area and find out if they do searches, how much it will cost etc. 2) Find out if there is a library near to (or in) the place that you're looking at that has films of parish records and see if they will do a search 3) Find the time to visit the County Record Office or library with the films to do the research yourself 4) Find out where the nearest LDS family history centre is to you and if you can order the film you want and use it. Their list of worldwide centres is at http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp and their catalogue of films is at http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp They also hold films of a lot of different things so its well worth a search round their catalogue for a place to see what it throws up :)

IMPORTANT NOTICE! I've been asked to add the following because of the recent spate of BMD lookups, so please read! BEFORE asking for a BMD lookup always check FreeBMD and/or Ancestry first, these two sites cover 1837 - 1910, but are not complete: the addresses are as follows: http://www.ancestry(.)com http://fre ebmd.rootsweb(.)com remove brackets from both addies! There are also BMD sites such as LancashireBMD, CheshireBMD and others, which cater 1837 onwards for the county specified. If a lookup on those few sites fail to find what your looking for then you need to try 1837online: http://www.1837online(.)com .. remove brackets 1837 is a pay per view site, free to register and then you need to purchase minimum £5 credit. For this you get 55 units. You need 4 units to search 4 qtrs of each year, so £5 covers at least 12 years. Always check for yourself before asking others, and remember, lookups after 1910 COST ! ____________________________________________________ I've been asked to add this message because of the recent spate of lookup requests that cannot be looked up Lookup requests before 1837 and after 1910 are very very difficult to do and cost money! Pre-1837 BMD lookups can only be done in parish records which are difficult to get hold of (see Pre 1837 searches message below). Post 1910 BMD lookups require the use of the pay to view website www.1837onlin(e.c)om . It costs £5 for 50 credits.

bump

THANK YOU! A big thank you everyone who has contributed to, nudged and recommended this topic! Please feel free to continue adding comments/advice etc :) Would love feedback on the new layout! If I could ask people to remember to delete the 'nudge' messages though please :) If the topic/thread looks too long people will be put off reading it! Thanks :)

SEARCH ENGINES Originally posted by Brenda Borrows :- I've found a mountain of useful information by the use of a search engine. There are lots of websites out there with the information already researched on some of our names. I 'google' to find them. The information doesn't necessarily appear at first attempt - so keep trying - perhaps enter the county, or the family name along with the words 'family history' using different variations. Some info. is hidden within other pages. some of the family history societies are goldmines. Then there are the pages with old occupations, lost streets, immigrant ships - so many wonderful sites, with such a wealth of information. It really is worth just playing around on a search engine and seeing what is out there.

GENERAL GENEALOGY ADVICE Originally posted by Benjamin Caine :- Here are also a few other genealogy tips and hints. Never be thrown off balance by inconsistencies in names or ages especially in censuses or marriage certs. ie, the surname Knott might of been transcribed as Nott, and if for example, you think you ancestor was James Knott, born in 1850 in Holborn, London, but there is no record of a James Knott born in 1850 in Holborn but there is of a James Nott, dont discard that entry, as it was in the old days the case of spell it as you hear it. Also someone who was bought up by their uncle might of put their uncles name as their fathers name on marriage cert, and someone called Tom Smith might of been known as John Edwards. And if you cannot find an ancestor in a particular census, the it could be it was mistranscribed, your ancestor was abroad, or the enumerator simply missed the house or street they were living down, or the census page for that street is missing itself. That has happened to me in 1861 London census. Originally posted by Sarah MacLean :- Another tip which would help you is, know what you want! Its all very well having a name and wanting to know everything about that person, but the truth is you won't. Also, where do you start? There are so many records that might be of use to you! What you really need to do is when you have someone you want to know more about, make a list of what you have on a piece of paper. Do you have their baptism? marriage? burial? If the person was around after 1837 maybe theres a birth, marriage or death certificate you can get for them. Added to that there are census returns, electoral registers, trade directories etc that might be of use. Were they in the army? navy? airforce? Were they in a profession that might have had registers, such as minutes from meetings or union records? Was the person ever in the poor house? Have you found maps to look at for the addresses you know they were at? The list is endless! You must always start with what you know! When you've made a list of what you have, make a list of what you want on a piece of paper. Be specific with yourself! Once you know what you want, find out if its possible to get records in regards to that. Then you're ready to start asking for lookups :) Originally posted by Rosalyn Barclay :- I don`t think you mentioned the Scottish Records office -.www.scotlandspeople .gov.uk-very good site. Rosalyn

IGI - Although the familysearch.org webiste is an incredibly useful website, users should be aware of one or two things. First of all it is NOT a complete database of parish records. It holds no parish burial records and some churches have withheld their records from the Mormon church who set up this website. Not only that but not all parish records that they do have have been transcribed. Watch out for patron submissions! These are not always accurate (they don't need to be for the purposes they were made). Always check the source of the record you're interested in so you can check it up or mark it as suspect. To do this click the word 'Source' at the bottom of the record and read what it says.

PARISH RECORD LOOKUPS Please be specific about which church and which parish you want lookups doing in! Some towns and cities have more than one church and so trying to find the information will be difficult. Just put what you know and if you don't know anymore, put in your original request that that is all the information you have. One way of finding out a parish might be by ordering a marriage certificate to see if the couple were using a specific church. Another way is by taking note of the parish under which the family were living in the nearest census to the period you're interested in. This is usually in the top right hand page of the census return. Originally posted by Lysianne Egan :- One thing I'd like to say about Parish Records, though, is that I've found them quite variable, and while I'd agree that you generally get a lot less info than on the standardised post-1837 certificates, I think quite a lot depended on the person who recorded the information in the register pre-1837. I have had some really helpful entries from NW Oxon, including baptisms of illegitimate children pointing the finger (whether rightly or wrongly) at certain gentlemen of the parish, records of the banns being interrupted by outraged mothers, and all sorts, so you might just strike lucky with something really juicy...

CERTIFICATES The only way of getting information about an entry in the GRO records is to send off for that certificate. A birth certificate will contain the following information :- Date & place of birth Child's name and gender Father's name (if available) Father's occupation (if available) Mother's name and maiden name Mark or signature of informant A marriage certificate will contain:- Date & place of marriage Groom's name, age, stauts (e.g. Bachelor or Widower), occupation and address Groom's father's name and occupation Bride's name, age, status (e.g. Spinster or Widow), occupation and address Bride's father's name and occupation Names of 2 witnesses and their mark or signature A Death certificate will contain:- Date and place of death Deceased's name, gender and age Deceased's occupation (or the occupation of nearest relative e.g. father or spouse and their relationship to the deceased) Cause of death and whether or not a doctor was present Signature, description and residence of informant Date when death was registered Certificates are only available after the start of civil registration You can order your certificates here http://www.gro.(gov.u) k/gro/ (content)/ Costs for ordering certificates can be found here http://www.gro.gov(.) uk/gro/(content) /births/(obtainingbirthcertificates) /certificatefees(.asp) Remove the brackets for the address

BIRTHS, MARRIAGES AND DEATHS Civil registration did not begin until late 1837. Before this time births, marriages and deaths can all be found in the parish records. You cannot get certificates before civil registration begins. For the purposes of civil registration the year is split into 4 quarters.These 4 quarters are called March quarter, June, quarter, September quarter and December quarter. Each quarter covers registrations in the two months before the month after which the quarter is named as well as that month e.g. March quarter covers registrations in January, February and March. Only marriages that occur after civil registration begins will have details of married couple's address, age, occupation and father's names and occupations. Parish marriages before civil registration only list the couple's names and the day they married. Parish burials only give the name of the deceased, their age and where they were living (usually only the village). Sometimes you can be lucky and the reason for their death is added along with other titbits, but this is rare. Even after the introduction of civil registration not all births, marriages and deaths were registered despite fines and other incentives :) Late registration does occur and so your ancestor might be in a different quarter from the one you expect! If you can't find the birth of an ancestor it might be that they were illegitimate. Illegitimate children were often registered under their mother's name. Of full age on a marriage certificate means that the person was 21 or over. Be careful when using ages from marriage certificates. Brides in particular would pretend to be older than they were to get married! As a general rule of thumb when trying to work back how old a bride or groom might have been if they have lied is to work out a rough age range that they could be. The youngest they are likely to be is 16. It was however legal for girls aged 12 and boys aged 14 to marry back in the 19th century! IMPORTANT!!! MUST READ FOLLOWING!!! BEFORE asking for a BMD lookup always check FreeBMD and/or Ancestry first, these two sites cover 1837 - 1910, but are not complete: the addresses are as follows: http://www.ancestry(.)com http://fre ebmd.rootsweb(.)com remove brackets from both addies! There are also BMD sites such as LancashireBMD, CheshireBMD and others, which cater 1837 onwards for the county specified. If a lookup on those few sites fail to find what your looking for then you need to try 1837online: http://www.1837online(.)com .. remove brackets 1837 is a pay per view site, free to register and then you need to purchase minimum £5 credit. For this you get 55 units. You need 4 units to search 4 qtrs of each year, so £5 covers at least 12 years. Always check for yourself before asking others, and remember, lookups after 1910 COST !