Genealogy Chat

Can anyone tell me if travellers back in the 1890's registered marriages and births.Found out that my great grandad was a traveller but cant find no marriage certificate for him and no birth certificate for my grandad.Without these we cant go back any further.My grandad was a tinsmith and this was the occupation.

I don't know how likely it is that travellers would register events. There was less need to have a birth cert then - you didn't need a passport. I think you had to have a death cert to organise a burial though. You may not find a marriage cert because they may not have married!

Try this website http://website.lineone.net/~rtfhs/a1.html It seems to have a good set of links to other sites

Ann, I just wanted to say GOOD LUCK!!!!!!! lol I too have gypsies, and what b***ers they are! In answer to your question, i do think it is a matter of each individual. In my tree there are two brothers, one who registered everything, the other who registered only deaths, and the occasion marriage. The problem is that they often did not get married! You may be able to find baptism records. But still due to the travel, even that is difficult. I hope that your ancestors were English, as there are many more records for them than foreign gypsies. My g granparents travelled extensivley, starting out in Romania, Travelling into the US and Canada before my grandfather was born in Brazil. They then came back to Europe, went into Ireland and eventually settled on the outskirts of London. I have some gypsy documents, if you can give me a name, i will look in them for you. Pat

Also have travellers in the family and was very surprised to find as much info on then as I have, Make sure you search the census, as this was a great help. Births marriages etc., are registered, but not always as you hoped, for example in the 1870's one family registered all children’s births at the same time as registering the youngest child..... Travellers tend to stay together even with out marriage vows, but you will also find that not all marriages are made when you would expect. My mother informed me that there was a rash of weddings during the wars even though the couples had been together for many years - to protect the women in case of death of 'husband' Also search on the surnames on travellers sites. You will also find that many travellers have unusual first names so you can often track them that way. Still not happy with my mother for giving me such a common name...especially with the lovely family traveller’s names she should have given me LOL LOL

Have you joined the Romany, Gypsy and Travellers Family History group. I saw an address in Practical Family History for November. It's on a thread here somewhere.

At least one branch of my Gypsy ancestors all married, but they often didn't marry until they had already had several children. Sometimes the children were baptised with the mother's surname and sometimes with the father's. Likewise, of those who registered their children some were registered as Gregory (the father's name) and others as Lee (the mother's name) So my advice would be to search under both surnames in any records you access Also see my site www.passing-through.co.uk

Hi I would also like to add that if you look in the census look at all the names on that page as i found my gg grandfather William Lee was living near his dad and on another one he was near his brother.

Hi Julie My G-G-Grandfather was a William Lee b1849(hawker) too. It's such a common name isn't it. I have him from 1881, but no sign of him in 1871. I spoke to a lovely man who ran the Romany And Travellers FHS, at the West Surrey F H Fair last week. He said that the census enumerators weren't supposed to go on to the sites, but stand at the fence and count the number of tent's or caravans. I still can't find his marriage, although I do have his death cert and his childrens birth cert's. Hi Jackie Your site is brilliant, I emailed you quite a few months back, and you sent me a lot of info on my lot. Thanks again for that. Sandra

Hi sandra i know what you mean i have 3 generations of William Lee, im lucky as they didn't move about too often. Julie

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