Professional UK Genealogist Will Trace Your British Ancestry

Posted on January 30, 2009 by admin

I have been a uk genealogist since 1993, and have helped many American, Canadian and Australian people find their British ancestry.

Although previously based in Northamptonshire and offering mainly Northamptonshire searches, I am now offering a full British ancestry research service for a flat rate.

What are the benefits of my service?

If you have discovered British ancestry dating back from the 20th or 19th centuries, you may be able to partially trace these ancestors using online census records.  However once you are past 1841, the main resources are parish registers, and the vast majority of these are only accessible via personal visits to local record offices.

You therefore have 2 choices:  either travel to Britain and tour all the record offices where you ancestors might show up, or spend lots of time contacting different local genealogists, depending on where your ancestors lived.

Both of these choices can be extremely expensive and/or time-consuming.

With my service, you only ever need to deal with one person.  I will carry out any further online research necessary and then hire any local genealogists that are needed.  In some cases I may be able to do this at a discounted rate because I am a fellow genealogist – meaning that you get more research done for your money!

What Searches Do I Carry Out?

Once I have received your full details, including information about what searches you have already done yourself (I don’t want to waste your money by doing what you have already done!), I will decide what the next course of action should be, carry out any searches I can do myself, and contact the relevant genealogists in the areas where your ancestors lived (if they lived in Warwickshire, I will carry out these local searches myself).

The package will include some or all of the following:

  • Birth, marriage and/or death certificates researched online and ordered online.
  • All relevant census information researched online
  • International Genealogical Index researched online as a preliminary to researching local sources.
  • For all lines outside of Warwickshire, I will hire other genealogists to research local archives for parish register and other relevant sources.
  • Any Warwickshire lines will be researched personally by me at the Warwickshire Record Office
  • Full report typed up including all the work carried out and suggestions for further lines of research. * Photocopies and/or printouts of all relevant documents.

My flat fee for this service is £350

If for any reason it is not possible to continue researches due to lack of informaton or availability of resources, etc, the balance of the fee after the initial searches will be refunded.

To order this service I will need the following information:

  • Your name, email address and postal address
  • Where known, information about the line(s) you are tracing including, names, dates and places of birth, marriage and death, names of spouses, children and siblings.
  • What searches you have already carried out, if any.
  • Any specific information you wish to find out. Send this information (by an email attachment if preferred) to ros@writer-ros.co.uk.

Payment can be made via Paypal (there is a Paypal button on this website page) or bank transfer.

If you only need local searches in Warwickshire, I will carry this out at a fee of £15 per hour.

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Genealogical Problems: Surname Spellings

Posted on January 26, 2009 by admin

One of the most common problems when tracing ancestors is the variations you will come across in surname spellings.

There are several reasons why this happens.

1.  Up until the 19th century there were no standardized spellings for surnames.  Also, many people rarely wrote their own name and many of the documents that we use in family history have been written by someone who has been given the name orally.  For example, when one of my Reid ancestors got married, he would give his name to the presiding vicar (or in this case, priest, as they were Catholics!), who would write it down as he heard it.  Therefore, this line of my family can be found under REID, REED or READ – and possibly even REDE.

2.  Foreign immigrants often anglicized their names because the local people found their name difficult to pronounce, or because they wanted to fit in with the local community, or because of discrimination.  The German name, ALBRECHT could therefore become ALLBRIGHT, and the Jewish name COHEN could become KAHN.

3.  Heavy accents could result in surnames being mis-heard when given to someone from a different area.  This could be the case if your ancestors have moved from place to place.

4.  Where surnames have been indexed in more recent times, the indexers have had to decipher some difficult handwriting, and very often names have therefore been mis-spelt.

This means that when you are researching your family, you will often need to check out various spellings before you find the right entry.

In some cases, this can be quite tedious, as I have found with my maternal grandfather, whose actual birth name (he was adopted) was MCEWEN.  I have found the following possibilies for this surname and there are many more: MCKOWAN, MCEWEN, MCEWAN, MAGOWEN, MCKEON, MCKEOWN, MCKEWEN, MCKEWAN, MCCUNE and so on.

This problem is solved to a large extent by the fact that most indexes search phonetically (though you can opt to search for an exact spelling if you wish).  However, these do not always cover every possibility, and it may sometimes be necessary to use your imagination and try a few different spellings in the search box.

For example, in parts of Northamptonshire, I once discoverd that the name PETTIFER had evolved from the 17th century name of PECKOVER.

Try saying the name out loud with the dialect of the region and seeing how the vowel sounds flatten or widen.  And what about if the person saying the name had a cold!?

Also, think about common mis-spellings.  For example, the “S” at the end of some names, such as SIMMONS, could be dropped, or a double letter shortened to one.  Modern typing errors often involve a key that is next to the correct on, so NUNN could become MUNN.

Think about letters that could easily look like another when viewing old handwriting.  One one of the census indexes I found that my BOTT ancestors had been indexed as BATT.

Genealogy, and in particular surname spellings, is never a straight-forward activity!  But this is what makes it so interesting – and also so rewarding when you finally discover your ancestor after doing some imaginative detective work.


Ancestry 14 day free trial

Posted in Indexes, Surnames | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Searching The British Census Online

Posted on January 23, 2009 by admin

When you have information about your ancestors which takes you back at least one hundred years, you can start using census records, and in this article I will discuss using the British census online.

Since the arrival of the internet has been much easier to look at census details. All of the census reports from 1841 to 1911 are digitally indexed and published online.

Searching the Census Records

There are various ways of searching online. If you have a subscription to www.ancestry.co.uk, this is probably the best place to use (they offer a two week free trial if you are not already a member). Or you can use  www.findmypast.com. They also have a free trial period.

As always in family history, you should start with the most recent records and work backwards. Therefore, if you know your ancestor died in about 1903, you would start with the 1901 census, and after noting the details from that, you would go to the 1891 census and so on.

You can search online census records in two ways, either by using a name search, or by searching a single parish. The name search is the most useful because you do not need to know where they were resident at the time – but in this case you do need to have some idea of age. If your ancestor has a very common name, it can be very difficult if you only have a small amount of information to enter into the search engine, and you may find there are hundreds of results for that name. Try to get as much information as possible about your ancestor before doing a search.

Always give at least two years either way for a person’s age, as these details can often be inaccurate.

If you do not find your ancestor on the census straight away, try searching with the “exact spelling” switched off, but don’t rely on this. Try as many different spellings as you can. Name spellings were not always standardized, and there were also many errors made when transcribing the information to the indexes. I eventually found my grandfather, Francis Manley’s details in the 1881 census listed as “Fracis”!

What’s in the census?

1851 Census - John W Bott pg1

1851 Census

There is much exciting information to be found in the census records. As well as giving you information about your personal ancestors, they are a great social history resource and reveal fascinating information about how our ancestors lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The census started in 1801, but it is only since 1841 that the details became useful for family historians because that is the first time they used names. However, this particular census is limited in its information, and subsequent censuses gave more detailed information.

From 1851 the censuses gave the following information:

• Place (and sometimes the address) of individuals
• Their ages at the time of the census
• Who was living in the household
• How each person is related to the head of the household
• Place of birth of each individual
• Occupation

From this information, you can understand much about how your ancestor lived, what size of house they lived in and how many servants they had (if any). All these things can give clues to their income and status.

The 1841 census does not give information about relationships within the household, and the place of birth is only whether an individual was born within the county or not.  It is also important to remember that the ages given are to the nearest five, so if your ancestor was 23, his/her age would be given as 20.

By searching all the censuses that an individual was involved in during their lifetime, you can build up an idea of their life story, and also get information about spouses, children and any other relatives that were living with them. If the ancestor you are searching was a child during the census, you will usually be able to find details of their parents and thus go back another generation in your family tree.

You can also get an idea of how much ancestors have moved around the country by looking the places of birth of their children.

Being able to study the British Census online has been a major boon to genealogists in the past few years.  However, do be aware that there are many errors in the transcriptions, so keep trying if you do not find your ancestors straight away, and always try and back up the information through other sources.


Access the 1901 UK Census

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Finding Records for Birth, Deaths and Marriages

Posted on January 19, 2009 by admin

One of the first things you need to do after you have noted all your own immediate family information, is to find records for birth, deaths and marriages in the civil registration records.

First make a note of any information that you do not have, such as your grandparents’ marriage, their dates of birth etc. Then you need to decide which certificates you will want to order.

To help you decide, you need to know what information is on the birth, death and marriage certificates so you only order what you absolutely need.

Birth Certificates will give you the following information:

• Date and place of birth
• Name of child
• Sex of child
• Name and surname of father
• Name, surname and maiden name of mother
• Occupation of father

As you can see, this can be a very useful certificate to have as you will find out the mother’s maiden name, which takes you to another branch of your family.

Death Certificates give you the following information:

• Age at death
• Residence at death
• Cause of death
• Name of person registering the death

This is fairly limited information, but can be useful if you want to establish an approximate date of birth (though age in death certificates can often be inaccurate), or if you are interested in the cause of death. The name of the person registering can also give a clue to family members.

Marriage Certificates will give you the following information:

• Place of marriage, including name of church
• Date of marriage
• Ages of bride and groom
• Status (i.e. whether bachelor/spinster or widower/widow)
• Occupation of both
• Place of residence at time of marriage
• Names of both fathers
• Occupations of both fathers
• Names of witnesses

This is very useful information, particularly the names of the fathers. This may sometimes be the first time you see the next generation back and so is always an exciting moment!

Names of witnesses should not be overlooked as they can be clues to other family members – often siblings or cousins.

Where to find the Indexes

There are several places online where you can search the indexes. The two main places I use are Ancestry.co.uk and FindMyPast.com.   You will need a subscription for both sites – but both have a free 14 day trial if you want to try them out first.

Searching the Indexes

The indexes are divided into quarters for each year (Jan-Mar; Apr-Jun, July-Sept and Oct to Dec). In the past, you had to trawl through all the indexes for each quarter, and if you were not sure of the date of the event, this meant a lot of time spent searching! Name search indexes such as the one at Ancestry.co.uk have now made this much easier. However, do be careful – these indexes have been transcribed by human beings and are subject to error. If you still cannot find your ancestor, even after trying several name variations, it is advisable to go to the main indexes.  Remember that the results will be listed under the registration district, which will not necessarily be the same as the town your ancestor was in – so make sure you find out which district covered your area.

When you find your entry, you will find the district name and the volume and page number of the relevant certificate, like this for my grandfather’s marriage:

Manley, Francis    Reid Prestwich 8d 755

The surname Reid in this case is the maiden name of the spouse.  In the searches indexes from 1913 you can also see the mother’s maiden name for births, and the specific spouse name for marriages, which makes things a lot easier.

You must make a note of all these details for when you order your certificates.

Ordering Certificates

Certificates can be ordered online at a cost of £9.25 each (accurate at 2/3/15) from The General Record Office.   Unfortunately, if you find the certificate is not the right one, the GRO no longer make any refunds, so unless you are sure of the certificate you are ordering, you could end up spending a lot of money to find your ancestor.

Certificates should arrive within a week within the UK, and a little longer for elsewhere.

Once you have obtained all the birth, deaths and marriages certificates you need, the next step is to look at census records, which I will discuss in a separate article.


Birth, Marriage and Death 468x60

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How to Draw A Family Tree

Posted on January 9, 2009 by admin

Once you have started to gather a little bit of information you will need to start putting it into the proper format so you can see at a glance the people on your tree, and any information that is still missing. Learning how to draw a family tree is quite simple, and it is a good idea to do this yourself before you use any instant chart creating software because it will be useful when making notes in future.

Below is a very simple example of how a family tree chart is laid out:

Sample of part of a family tree

Sample of part of a family tree from www.cradleylinks.com

How much information you include is up to you, but generally, the basic details are usually put underneath each name.

For example, here is what I would put on my own tree for my paternal grandfather:

Walter Bott
brn. 17/10/1884, Manchester
m. 6/10/1914, Isle of Man
d. 8/6/1949, Isle of Man

You will need to use abbreviations when setting out your information. There are no hard and fast rules about this, but you will need a basic understanding of them, and a consistent system for your own use. Here are a few basic examples to get you started:

Born – brn.
Baptised – bapt. or c. (christened)
Married – m. (it is common practice to put a =
between husband and wife on the family tree)
Died – d.
Buried – bur.

Another way of laying out information about your direct ancestry is the Pedigree Chart. This clearly shows your direct ancestors (parents, grand-parents etc) but does not show any siblings. Each generation is shown vertically, instead of horizontally.  Here’s a blank example:

As I mentioned before, there are software programs you can buy for organizing and laying out your family tree.  The one I use is Family Tree Maker, but you can find many others by searching online, or finding reviews in family tree magazines.

You can buy blank family tree charts at MyHistory.co.uk

Once you know how to draw a family tree, you can use the format for making notes when you are in archives and for working out family relationships.  You could also get really creative and draw your own big tree with illustrations!

Would you like to learn how to trace your ancestors?  Try my step-by-step beginner’s course HERE (includes a whole section on creating charts).



My History

Posted in Organizing records | 1 Comment

How To Trace Your Family Tree – Getting Started

Posted on January 7, 2009 by admin

In any genealogical research, we ALWAYS start with what we already know and work backwards.  So the first step in tracing your family tree is to make some notes on everything that you already know.

That means writing down all you know about your immediate family – names, dates and places of birth, marriage and deaths.  Once you’ve exhausted your own knowledge, start asking members of your family, particularly elderly relatives such as your parents and aunts.  If your grandparents are still alive, they may have lots of information about their own grandparents, which will take you back several generations already!

Elderly relatives love to talk about the past – but do be careful about the information they give you.  Memory can play tricks and all information needs to be backed up by evidence, which you can research later.  For now, you are gathering leads – clues and stories about your family that you can start to piece together like a jigsaw.

Women During WWIAnother first step will be to find out if there are any photographs of your ancestors that might be held by members of your family.  Photography became popular from the 1840s.  If you are lucky enough to find these, they are a fascinating resource.  There is nothing like the thrill of looking into the eyes of a great-grandparent for the first time and seeing your own eyes looking back!

This happened to me the first time I saw this photograph of my maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Reid, taken when she was a very young woman in about 1910!

Wedding photographs are particularly interesting because they usually show lots of family members and can give clues to members of your family that you did not know about.

Often the main drawback of photographs is that there is no information given.  If you are very lucky someone may have written something on the back, but this is quite rare, so they can be quiet frustrating, while fascinating at the same time.  Dating a photograph can also be tricky unless you know a lot about fashions of the time.  There are plenty of books on the history of fashion, which can help, and there may be other clues in the photograph that you could research, such as buildings.  I have also given a list of books below that can be ordered from Amazon.co.uk.

Once you have some initial information, and have found some photographs, you will be even more hungry to find more information about these people.  Your next step is to use Civil Registration indexes to find birth, marriage and death certificates.  You will find more information about these on this website.

Ros Bott

Dating Old Photographs (Genealogy)

Dating Old Photographs 1840-1929

A guide to dating old family photographs

Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th Century (Taschen 25th Anniversary)

Posted in Getting Started, Photographs | Leave a comment

WELCOME TO TRACE ANCESTRY UK

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Rosamunde Bott

Hello and welcome to my UK genealogy website.

My maternal grandmother

My maternal grandmother

The purpose of this site is to provide you with all the information, resources and services that you need for tracing ancestors in the UK, particularly if you live outside the UK and do not have access to the necessary records.

My name is Ros Bott, and I have been a professional genealogist for many years. I have been working on my own family tree for 25 years, and with the help of my late uncle, have traced many lines of our family back to the 17th century.

As well as free advice, which I will provide with regular blog posts, you will find information about my own services, links to useful resources and links to other service providers.

I provide two kinds of service for people who wish to trace ancestors in the UK:

1. My main service is to research all of your UK ancestors, using the internet and other genealogist’s services for a flat fee of £350. This service is a “one-stop-shop” for tracing ancestors in the UK, and will save you a great deal of time as I contact all the necessary local genealogists for you. For more information, CLICK HERE.

2. Warwickshire Searches. If you have known ancestors in the county of Warwickshire, I will search these for an hourly rate of £15. For more information CLICK HERE.

I will be adding lots of articles and blogs with advice on many aspects of tracing ancestors in the UK, particularly if you are a beginner. My aim is to provide a friendly and personal service here, so do come back often as I am sure there will be lots of information that you will find useful, no matter how far you are along the line of tracing your UK ancestry.

A1 Family Tree Wall Chart by Godridges of Coventry

Posted in Getting Started | Tagged , | 1 Comment