How Easy is it to Trace Your Ancestors?

Family history research has certainly become more and more popular in the last decade, particularly with programmes like Who Do You Think You Are, which stimulate interest and show the excitement of finding out who your ancestors were, what they did, and where they came from.  However, these shows have a tendency to make it look easy – of course anything else would make terrible television! – but it does lead people to believe they can trace back generations quickly and easily.  Well, just how easy is it to trace your ancestors?

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.