Of course, in recent years, the internet has made it much easier in the sense of being able to access sources.  In the past, all family history research involved travelling to county record offices.  In my job as a professional genealogist, my work has completely changed.  I spend a lot more time at home on the laptop than I do in a record office in front of a microfiche reader.

So, in many ways, it is a lot easier to search your ancestors now that the census records and GRO indexes are all online – and many other records, such as wills and a growing selection of parish registers, are also increasingly available online.  If you could not afford to travel across the country – or even to another country – to visit the appropriate local archives in the past, you either had to give up, or hire a local genealogist (which could be difficult if your ancestors came from lots of different places) – but now most people with internet access can – in theory – trace their ancestors back to the early 19th century.

I say “in theory” because it’s not always as easy as it sounds!  Here are a number of reasons why people get stuck:

• Search engines at the main genealogy sites are a great way to find ancestors quickly – but if your ancestor’s name has been badly mis-spelled (which happens far more often than you might imagine) by the original enumerator, or by the modern transcriber, you might find they seem to be “missing” on the census or in BMD indexes, even when you use phonetic searching.

• If your ancestor has a very common name like John Smith, particularly if they lived in a large town or city, it can become almost impossible to work out which John Smith is yours.  The search then becomes more complicated as you really need a lot of information to start with in order to work out which one is the right one, and a large amount of detective work is necessary.

• Where an individual was born in another country, the records in the resident country may not say anything other than “born in England”.  Unless the name is extremely unusual, this can be almost impossible to find, unless you have some other cross-referencing information such as a marriage that took place before emigration.

• Once you get past 1837 (the date when birth, marriage and death registrations became law in England), the records get less reliable.  Parish registers are the main source of information, but as you go back in time, they are often badly damaged, difficult to read – or sometimes lost or destroyed.  There are other records that can be helpful, but the further down the social class your ancestors were, the less likely they were to be on any documentation – apart from paw loor, criminal records or settlement records.  Very few of these are online.

There are all kinds of other reasons why people get stuck.  Sometimes the results just get very confusing, and sometimes documents contradict each other, or ages and places of birth don’t match what you know. We need to remember that most historical documents were not created for the pleasure of future ancestry seekers!  They were there for different purposes, and often we have to read between the lines, look at the context and know a bit about the historical background in order to make sense of them.

I am truly not trying to put anyone off searching their family tree!  Tracing your ancestors is an exciting, fun and fascinating hobby, and the chances are that you will be able to trace many generations of several lines of your family.

The difficulties and frustrations that result from the problems I have outlined above are all part of the fun – and you need to be prepared to come across some or all of these problems as you trace your family.  Just don’t get led to believe that you can trace your tree in a few days.  And don’t forget that every time you go back a generation, the number of people on the tree doubles – that’s a lot of people to find!

Professional genealogists often work very hard to work out puzzles, and get past brick walls that amateur family historians get stuck at.

In fact, for the professional genealogist, this is becoming the main thrust of the work – getting people past brick walls, rather than doing the whole thing from scratch – because more and more people are doing it for themselves.

So, to sum up.  Yes, it’s much easier than it used to be for anyone to trace their own family history – but it is not in itself easy.  If you are interested in history, determined, tenacious, have a mind like a detective, imaginative and have attention to detail, you will find the ups and downs of ancestry research extremely rewarding.  But if you are looking for an easy hobby that doesn’t take up too much brain work, I would try something else – and get a professional to do your tree!

Seriously, though, most people, once they start tracing ancestry, find it completely addictive.  That’s why I became a professional.  Tracing my own tree just wasn’t enough.

And I like a challenge.  Luckily – it still is – and always will be.

Ros

Do you need someone to help you trace your ancestors?  See my RESEARCH SERVICES PAGE.

Normally, I find they are pretty quick at sending out certificates when you order online, but I have ordered several certificates lately, and wondering why they had not arrived within the usual week, I looked at their website and found the following announcement:

Service Announcement – Thursday 29 April 2010

Current Despatch Times
Customers may wish to be aware that standard orders are subject to a delay of 7 working days. This additional time should be added to the estimated date of despatch given at the time of order.
The priority service remains unaffected and orders placed via this service will be despatched on the next working day from receipt of order, if received before 16:00.
GRO apologises for any inconvenience this may cause to our customers. We anticipate that normal service will be resumed by the week beginning 17 May 2010.

I’d better warn all my current clients who are waiting for information!

Anyway – if you’re wondering where your certificate is – that should answer it for you – though It would have been nice if they had given a reason.

Ros

The family tree of Herzog Ludwig I of Württemberg (ruled 1568-1593

It is only in the past 5 decades that tracing ancestors has become a popular past-time for all members of society. However, it is not a new idea. In times when it mattered to be a part of the upper classes, many wealthy people felt it was important to be able to prove their lineage and validate their standing in society. 

However, it was not something that was of interest – or even possible – for the middle and lower classes. It was not thought to be of any benefit to trace your family’s history, and even if it was possible to do so, there would have been no pride in tracing a line of agricultural labourers or tradesmen. Family history was for the noble classes.

Times change, and so do attitudes. In the last century, professional historians have come to realise that social history is just as important as political history, and an interest in family history has grown alongside the growth of interest in the history of the common people.

Tracing your family tree became more popular in the latter half of the 20th century as records became more accessible to the general public, and parish registers had to be held at County Record Offices rather than at the church itself.

However, in the last few years, the internet has made some records even more accessible to people on a global basis, and while some documents still need to be seen in situ, records such as census returns and birth, marriage and death indexes can be searched for and viewed online.

Along with TV programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are, this accessibility of records has made it far easier for anyone interested in their roots to trace back several generations quite quickly.

But what is the attraction of tracing your ancestors? Why is it such an addictive and fascinating past-time, despite being, at times, incredibly frustrating and disappointing? Is it just because, as human beings, we have an inbuilt curiosity, or is it more than that?

I believe it has something to do with our need to establish a personal identity, to understand more about ourselves, and why and how we are who we are. It also gives us a sense of continuity and belonging. We are not totally alone. We are made up of the genes of those who came before us, and our genes will be continued in those who come after us.

Genealogy connects us with the past as no history lesson can ever do. I personally became more interested in history through an interest in my own family history. It had never interested me at school. Now I have a degree in it.

History, whether family, social or political, tells us where we have come from and teaches us that while fashions, attitudes and technologies may change, basic human nature does not. Yet it also teaches us to avoid the mistakes of the past so we can choose a better path.

Nowadays, we are more likely to be fascinated (if a little discomforted) rather than shamed by finding we have a criminal or a workhouse inmate in our family history. It’s interesting. We want to know more about them.

While there are still those who would like to find they are related to royalty, I find that the ancestors I have (tradesmen, factory workers, fishermen, labourers, railway workers) are just as fascinating as any royal – if not more so. I am proud of them because they worked hard, suffered and survived, and because they are a part of me.

Tracing ancestors is a hobby that is never finished – that is both the beauty and the frustration of it! Once started, it is almost impossible to stop. You will be caught in its grasp and it won’t let you go. You have been warned!

In February, I am going to increasing my charges from £15 per hour to £18 per hour….BUT…

… if you order any of my services now, I will keep you at the old charges for the duration of the service you order, no matter how long it takes. 

To order ancestry searches in the UK, go to my services page and choose the service you require.

Here’s to achieving your family history goals in 2010!

Or – perhaps you are the family history expert in your family, and you are looking for a way of presenting the family tree to your other family members?

Either way, there are plenty of products that you can choose from to suit anybody.

One great website where you can find a range of products is My History. You can find all kinds of products here, including:

• Software
• Binders & storage
• Books
• DVDs
• Maps
• Blank charts
• Family History starter packs
• Personalized Mugs
• Subscriptions
• Gift vouchers

To browse their range of products CLICK HERE.

Orders are dispatched on the same day for UK buyers, and within 48 hours for those outside of the UK.

Genealogy gifts are better than socks any day!

Have a Great Christmas!

Ros

Tracing English ancestors in the past generally meant that you had to travel.  Either to London, or to the relevant county record office to look at census records.  Many parish registers were still held at the relevant church so you often had to travel to remote villages in order to find your rural ancestors.

Genealogists today have it easy.  Anyone with internet access can sit in the comfort of their own armchair with a laptop, choose out of several genealogy sites and search the civil registration indexes with a few clicks.  You can view all the census records, and if you have difficulty deciphering some of the writing there are often transcripts provided for you.  While you still need mostly to search parish registers in local county record offices (where they now have to reside), you can use the online International Genealogical Index provided by the Church of the Latter Day Saints to help with your parish searches.

It is no wonder that genealogy has increased in popularity over the last couple of decades.

However, there are so many genealogy sites now that it can be difficult to know where to start with your family tree. 

Personally, I use three main sites for my searches, and occasionally use others when I want something more specific (such as Irish ancestry).    They provide me with the main information that I need.

If you are just starting and want to use an online site to start your searches, you need to decide whether you are just going to dabble a bit or whether this is going to be a full time hobby.

If you are going to do this seriously and spend regular time I would suggest you take out a subscription to Ancestry.co.uk.  You don’t need to subscribe to anything higher than the basic subscription to start with and this will give you the freedom to search the civil registration indexes, census records (1841-1901 at present) whenever you want to.

You can also search military records, passenger lists (though you will have to upgrade your subscription to view the records), and add your family tree to the One World Tree, and see if someone else has your ancestors on their tree.

My one warning about using Ancestry is that there are numerous errors in the indexes and transcriptions.  Names and places have been spelled or “guessed” wrongly and so may not turn up when you use the search tool.  You may need to try several spellings of your ancestor’s name, and use different search criteria when searching if you do not find the person you are looking for straight away.

If you just want to try out a few searches to see what’s there, or you think you will only be searching your ancestors now and then, I would suggest you start with Find My Past.  Here, you can buy credits for a one-off payment and then use those credits for your searches.  At present you can buy 60 credits for £6.95 or 280 credits for £24.95 with which you can search all the civil registration indexes, all the census records (including the 1911 census), migration, military and other records.

At the moment, Find My Past is the only site where you can view the 1911 census, though in 2011 this should also be available on Ancestry.co.uk as well.

The other site that I use a lot is Family Search.   This is where you can search the International Genealogical Index which attempts to list baptism, marriage and some burial records from parish registers.  This is a very useful tool if you are searching an elusive ancestor or you cannot get to the county record offices to view the parish registers.  However, any information found here should always be backed up by a proper search at the appropriate parish register.  Also you need to remember that this is not a full index.  If you cannot find your ancestor here it does not mean the documents do not exist.  Some areas are better covered than others.  If you do not have access to the local county records offices, you need to back up your findings by using local genealogists.

If you want to find out if someone else has some of your ancestors on their tree, I recommend Genes Reunited where you can add your own tree and get in contact with people who have common ancestors.

There are many other genealogy sites (you can see some more links on the right hand panel), but those I have described above are the ones that I use most of all and are probably the best place to start if you are just starting out with tracing ancestors.

Good luck!

I haven’t fallen off the planet – I’ve just been very busy with some genealogy work and writing work, as well as taking a short holiday in Devon.

Now the summer is virtually over, why not find out more about your UK ancestors?  You can use my comprehensive research services here, or use an online service such as Ancestry or Find My Past.

Tracing ancestors is such an exciting and fascinating hobby.  Once you get started you’ll be hooked!   You’ll get a new sense of identity, and you will feel more connected to social history and events of the past.

I only charge £15 per hour at present (some researcher charge up to £25).  However, I will be putting my prices up to £17 soon – so get in quick!

Find out about my research services here.

Ros Bott

There are many websites that you can use to trace your UK family history, but one that makes it easy to search different kinds of records, including the census, births, marriages and deaths, and military records, is Find My Past.

Find My Past is based in London and carries more than half a billion family history records. They have an extremely good reputation for accuracy and excellent customer support.

They were the first to allow public access to birth, marriage and death records online, and were originally known as 1837online.com (because this was the year that these records began).

Find My Past offers a very good payment system for viewing records. If you do not want to pay an ongoing subscription (as some other sites only offer) you can Pay as You Go, paying for just a few viewing credits at a time. This is very useful if you only want to look at one record, or you don’t have time to use the site regularly.

However, if you do want to subscribe, their monthly rate is extremely reasonable, currently at £7.50 per month.

If you are carrying out UK ancestry research, I highly recommend that you use Find My Past to get you started.

What are the parish registers?

In 1538, Thomas Cromwell ordered that every baptism, marriage and burial should be recorded by the incumbent of each parish. This was not always carried out in the early years, and many of these earlier registers have been lost or destroyed.

Image of a parish register from www.rotherham.gov.uk

The third problem with early (and sometimes later) parish registers is that the handwriting can be difficult to decipher, or the writing has faded or the script is so badly organised on the page that it is almost impossible to sort it out.

Before 1598, the registers were recorded on paper and therefore of poor quality. After 1598, it was required for them to be recorded on parchment. The order stated that earlier records should be copied onto parchment (though some of these were only copied from 1558, Queen Elizabeth’s accession). Thus, many registers seem to begin in 1558.

Many early registers are written in Latin, but this should not be a problem for the family historian. You only need to learn a few words to be able to understand each entry.

After 1812 the parish registers were written on specially formatted pages, so they are much easier to read.

The parish registers are one of the main sources of family history and can often help you to confirm and back up information that you find in civil registration and census records, as well as continue your searches well into the 18th, 17th and, if you are lucky, the 16th centuries.
How To Search the Registers

The county record offices have produced the vast majority of parish registers onto microfiche or microfilm in order to conserve the original registers.

In most archives, there is an open access system, where you can look up the parish register you need in an index, note the reference number and then take the relevant film or fiche from a drawer or cabinet. In some record offices you may need to fill in a withdrawal request slip.

You will find that at different periods the records look very different. By the late 19th century the baptism, marriage and burial registers were kept in separate books, making it easier for the researcher to find the right entry.

In earlier registers often the baptisms, marriages and burials were written up in the same books, usually on separate pages, but quite often all jumbled up together, and occasionally not even in chronological order, so you will need a lot of patience and a good set of eyes at times!

Because of these different ways of keeping the records, you may find that you have to change your researching tactics from time to time.

For example, it is much easier to search for specific ancestors in the later registers where the information is laid out neatly in separate books, but once the records get to a more disorganised stage, I find it best to note down every instance of your family surname that you can find and then go over your notes later to try and make sense of them.

This can save a lot of time because you do not want to have to go back over the same registers again just to look for a separate marriage or burial, parents or siblings.

If you have a lot of ancestors in the parish, it can be quite enjoyable to do this, putting together all the information you have noted like a jigsaw later.

Tracing ancestors in the UK parish registers can be a fascinating activity, though at times frustrating. Sometimes you will find extra information that the incumbent decided was important, such as whether a child was illegitimate (e.g. “base born” or “bastard”) or if the parents or a couple getting married had come from another parish. This kind of information is priceless for the family historian and can help you to establish further lines of research.

Need someone to search the registers for you?  See my research services HERE.

If you have tried to find your ancestors on the online census indexes or birth, marriage and death indexes, but have been unable to get any results, don’t give up.  Remember that these indexes have been copied from handwriting, which can often be very difficult to read.  Errors are far more common than you might think.

Sometimes, it is not even the transcribers fault!  To give you an example of this, I tried for a very long time to find my grandfather, Francis McEwen on the 1871 census.  As he was later known as Francis MANLEY, I had tried every possible spelling of both surnames on the Ancestry.co.uk indexes, using the phonetic search, and trying out every possible spelling of McEwen (which are many!).

Eventually,  in desperation, I tried taking out the Christian name.  In looking through the long list that followed I found this entry:

Fracis McEwen, born about 1865, Ardwick, Manchester.

Bingo!

All that was missing was that little “n” – and when I looked at the original census document, I found that it was the fault of the enumerator, not the transcriber!

This little discovery led to a whole new breakthrough in my Manley/McEwen ancestry and uncovered a mystery surrounding my grandfather’s parentage.

This all goes to show that if you are having difficulty finding your ancestor on these indexes, you really need to spend some time with different surname and Christian name spellings.  Of course, you can un-check the “exact spelling” box to enable a phonetic search – but do not rely on this.  There has been many a time when I have found an ancestor by trying a different spelling myself when it had not come up under a phonetic search.

On Ancestry.co.uk, you can search for a surname without a Christian name, or vice versa, and it is certainly worth doing this if you are getting no results – unless, of course, your ancestors surname is something like Smith or Brown, in which case you will get far too many results from the surname alone!

Equally, entering the Christian name without the surname is only really effective if you have a fairly unusual name or you are searching within a very small parish.

Using genealogy records online is not as straight forward as it may seem, and there is a real knack to using the online indexes.  The trick is to keep trying every possible spelling or mis-spelling of your family surnames, and don’t forget to try variations of all the other search criteria, such as location and relationship too.  Even male and female have been known to get muddled up!

Happy hunting!