Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy: The definitive reference guide to tracing your family history

There is a small charge to join a society, but the talks they offer to members, the networking they provide between researchers, the regular journals that are issued and their access to indexes unique to their subject matter make it all worth while. You should join a history society local to the area your ancestors were from so that you can benefit from the expertise of others who have researched that area and are compiling indexes for records relevant to that location. The Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) is the umbrella organization that unites and represents all of the smaller societies around England, Wales and Ireland. You cannot join the FFHS itself, but you can consult their website at www.ffhs.org.uk to find a family history society local to you. The Scottish Association of Family History Societies (SAFHS) provides a similar network for family history societies in Scotland, and its membership list can be searched from www.safhs.org.uk. The GENUKI website also has a page for locating societies geographically, with links to each society’s website.

The range of history societies open to genealogists from around the world is staggering – take any topic you can think of and you are likely to find that a society has already been established to unite and aid researchers in that field of study. In addition to the hundreds of regional societies, there is a range of organizations that interest themselves in particular industries, professions and occupations. The Railway Ancestors Family History Society may be of benefit if you find an ancestor who worked in that profession; the Society for Army Historical Research could be worth joining if you have a long line of military ancestors in your tree. Societies dedicated to researching certain ethnic or religious groups also exist, such as the Romany and Traveller Family History Society, the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, and the Catholic Family History Society.

There is likely to be more than one society that can assist you with your investigation, and the more you join, the wider your network will be when you do need advice.

Lectures, Courses and Workshops

If you find you have a burgeoning passion for family history and want to immerse yourself from the very beginning in all the research skills you’ll need, it might be worth investing in an Adult Education programme or Workers’ Educational Association course. These range from full-time courses to evening classes and are advertised by local libraries, colleges and some universities. The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies (IHGS) promotes its own genealogy courses on its website at www.ihgs.org.uk. Obtaining a diploma or certificate in family history will not only help you to fully understand the more complex aspects of genealogy, but will be a good investment for the future if you decide to go on to teach the subject to others. Indeed, many universities now offer distance learning courses in the subject, as well as qualifications at degree level.

‘Archives run induction days, lectures or tutorials at both local and national level, often with a particular theme as the focus.’

Archives also run induction days, lectures or tutorials at both local and national level, often with a particular theme as the focus. Some archives publish details on their websites of the tutorials that are planned for the forthcoming year, as do other organizations.

The Society of Genealogists holds lectures on the documents that can be found for various types of occupation and circumstances, from researching ancestors in the brewery industry to finding out if your great-great-grandfather was sent to debtor’s prison. Lectures held at the SoG usually explain how to locate original documents from a few different archives if the relevant sources are not all held in one place. Booking your place at a lecture not only gives you the opportunity to ask the speaker specific questions they may not have covered in their talk, but you also get to meet other researchers who are interested in the same topic, so you can discuss ideas and problems with others after the talk.

Some professional genealogists and historians organize day-long workshops at archives using case studies to illustrate how to go about ordering and interpreting original documents at the archive. You should keep an eye out for advertisements for these workshops in family history magazines and local newspapers, and your family history society should be able to update you with the main events in the calendar. Although they usually cost quite a bit more than an hour’s seminar, these workshops are worth the money if you are having serious difficulties, because they offer a far more comprehensive lesson on researching the subject.

Many organizations, such as the Federation of Family History Societies, hold annual conferences which include keynote speeches, workshops and seminars where you can also learn a great deal about the subjects you are researching. There are also regular annual family and local history day events run by regional family history societies and groups, as well as the annual National History show in which family history features prominently, including the Society of Genealogists’ family history fair, and of course the Who Do You Think You Are? Live stage.

Professional Researchers

The last port of call if you really cannot overcome a research problem should be to turn to the professionals. It might also be worth paying somebody to research specific documents in an archive that is far away from where you live if it works out to be more costly to travel there yourself. There are many professional genealogists with years of experience working in archives who provide their services at a charge. Because very few archives offer their own research service, most will have a list of private researchers who have a thorough knowledge of their records. The National Archives has a list of independent researchers on its website where you can browse each person’s area of expertise and find contact details.

When approaching a professional researcher for a quote, you should always try to be as clear as possible about what you know already, what is fact and what is hearsay, and what you are hoping they will find out for you. It is better that you give too much information rather than too little to ensure they do not cover work you have already done yourself. However, you do not need to give them your entire family tree if you are only asking them to help you with one branch, especially as some researchers will charge you for the time it costs them to read through all your notes.

SUMMARY

Sources of offline help:

• Check out reference books at your local library

• Agony aunts in genealogical magazines and journals can help with research queries

• Family and topic-specific history societies provide local indexes, networking opportunities and expertise

• Courses, tutorials and workshops can give in-depth help and tips on particular subjects and archive collections

• Professional researchers

A lot of professional researchers charge by the hour, though some will have a daily fee. If you do want to go down this route, shop around to get some quotes before going with the first researcher you find, and make sure a set number of hours or a price is agreed before you commission them to go ahead with the work. While most researchers will advise an estimated quote for a job, it can be very difficult to judge exactly how long it will take to get to the bottom of a mystery or to conclude a job if you haven’t simply requested a set list of document searches, so your researcher may suggest they spend an initial few hours looking into the case so that they have more of an idea what documents survive. This way you pay a smaller amount, and will be updated about further avenues that could be explored.

SECTION TWO

Basic Sources

This section examines in detail the most important sources used to construct a family tree: civil registration or birth, marriage and death certificates, census returns, wills and probate material, and parish registers. These are used in combination. As a rough guide, civil registration certificates will be your first port of call. From the beginning of the twentieth century you can also use census returns. These will be available as far back as the early nineteenth century, before which time parish registers should be consulted. Prior to that you will only be able to rely on parish registers and probate documents.

CHAPTER 5

Civil Registration

Some of the most important sources for any family historian are the records generated by civil registration – birth, marriage and death certificates. They are, essentially, the ‘building blocks’ for any family tree and can be used to verify initial information gathered from your relatives, or extend your family tree further back in time. This chapter explains what these sources are, where you can find them, how you can order them and various ways you can extract relevant information to help with your research.

The journey from cradle to grave has been officially recorded by the state since the nineteenth century, when the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was first introduced. The government passed legislation making it mandatory to register the birth of every child, the marriage of each couple and the death of every person from 1 July 1837 in England and Wales, with the subsequent issue of paperwork – birth, marriage and death certificates. Similar legislation enforcing the same was enacted in Scotland from 1 January 1855 and in Ireland from 1864 onwards (although Protestant marriages in Ireland had been registered since 1845). These monumental changes to everyday life came about through the government’s desire to monitor population trends more effectively, following a Parliamentary Report in 1836. Previously, the established Church of England had collected some of this information through its parish registers – a subject tackled in Chapter 7. However, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, penalties against non-conformist religious bodies were relaxed, which led to a growth in these movements, and the number of people whose journey through life was not recorded by the Church of England increased dramatically. Therefore by the beginning of the nineteenth century the information held by the established Church could no longer be deemed accurate, and so a parliamentary committee was set up to investigate the problem.

The introduction of a centralized system whereby birth, marriage and death certificates were generated is crucially important for anyone wishing to research their family tree, as it is possible to obtain copies of every certificate issued going back to the earliest records in 1837. Each type of certificate will give different clues, depending on which one is viewed, and this chapter explains how the system worked; what each certificate contains, and how you can obtain copies for your ancestors; common problems in tracking down certificates; what material is available online; and a summary of civil registration in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

‘Birth, marriage and death certificates are crucially important for anyone wishing to research their ancestors.’

Civil Registration in England and Wales

In 1837, England and Wales were divided up into 27 registration districts, based upon the contemporary Poor Law Unions. Each district was administered by a Superintendent Registrar and was further subdivided into local districts staffed by local registrars. The original registration districts were reorganized in 1852 and their number increased to 33, with a further revision taking place in 1946. A Registrar General was appointed to be responsible for the entire system and was originally based in London.

The local registrar would record each birth or death and originally it was the responsibility of the official to collect this information. He would be expected to travel through his local district and record each birth within six weeks and each death within five days. As there was no onus placed on the family to report this information there may be some gaps in the early registers. The situation changed in 1874 with the passing of the Births and Deaths Registration Act. The burden of responsibility for reporting the information now lay with the family; fines were payable for late or non-registration from 1875 onwards.

Each event was recorded on a special form, with one copy retained by the registrar and one copy issued to the informant. The information compiled locally would then be sent to the superintendent registrar, who would in turn send a copy of all registrations in his district to the Registrar General in London on a quarterly basis.

The situation was slightly different for marriages. The clergy for churches that were officially authorized to record marriages were expected to send the quarterly returns straight to the Registrar General in London. Non-conformist churches had to have their buildings licensed to perform such ceremonies, with the local registrar being legally obliged to be present to record the details. However, from 1899 the situation changed thanks to the Marriage Act of 1898, and non-conformist clergy from these churches could also record and submit the information themselves.

Making the Most of Civil Registration Certificates

Every birth, marriage and death is recorded at a local Registry Office and a certificate is produced to confirm the details of each event, although the information on each type of certificate varies according to the country it was registered in. Each country has a centralized registration index arranged chronologically so you can research all of your ancestors from one place regardless of their geographic spread. It is essential to have evidence of at least each person’s birth and marriage on your tree. Even if you are starting with yourself, make sure you can locate your birth certificate and compare it with your parents’ marriage certificate to ensure all the names, occupations and dates match up.

This process should be repeated for every person on your tree. For example, if you have a birth certificate for Mary King, born in 1912 in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, which told you that her father was Herbert King, a railway fireman, and her mother was called Thirza King, formerly Payling, then you would expect her parents’ marriage certificate to be dated prior to 1912 and contain similar details. This marriage certificate would then tell you Thirza’s father’s name and that of Herbert’s and their occupations, giving you new information to work with. You would also expect Mary King’s own marriage certificate to confirm her year of birth, father’s name and occupation.

Death certificates are of less genealogical use than birth and marriage certificates because they tend to only really give information about the deceased individual. That is not to say it isn’t worthwhile ordering death certificates. They can tell us the deceased person’s age, which enables you to establish when they were born if you have nothing else to work from. Death certificates can be more helpful for ancestors who died shortly after the introduction of civil registration, because it will be more difficult to find information about them from other records. Apart from details about the cause of death, notes given on death certificates can lead you to other sources by giving details about a coroner’s inquest that might have taken place. If you know when and where an ancestor died (which will be recorded on the certificate) it also makes the hunt for a will and burial record easier.

Look out for the names of witnesses and informants on civil registration certificates. These people are often close family members and if you know their names, even if you are not yet sure exactly how they are related, you may be able to identify your ancestors in other documents, such as household census returns.

Research hints

There are general rules you can follow when searching for the births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials of ancestors you have never known even if you only have a rough idea of when they were alive:

1. If you start from the last known birth on your tree for which you have a birth certificate, say your grandmother’s birth certificate dated 1917 for example, this should give you her parents’ names. You can then search for a marriage under their names back from 1917. You may have to work back as much as twenty years to 1897 if your grandmother was the youngest of a large generation of children, but once you have found your great-grandparents’ marriage in the indexes you can order the certificate to find out their ages, which will enable you to then search for their birth certificates over a range of a few years.

2. Some marriage certificates do not give exact ages and will state ‘full age’ instead, meaning a person was over 21 years old, or will say ‘minor’ if they were less than 21 years old. Where this is the case you can search for that person’s birth date starting from around 16 years prior to the date on their marriage certificate and working back perhaps as many as 20 more years, if they married late in life. Starting a birth search 16 years prior to a marriage date also works well when searching parish registers, which rarely give ages.

3. If you are keen to find out when an ancestor died, the only way to do this from death and burial indexes is to establish the last known time they were alive and work forward from then. Perhaps your grandmother was a witness on her daughter’s marriage certificate in 1965, in which case you can conduct a search for your grandmother’s death from 1965 onwards. If you are looking for the death of a person who was born over 100 years ago, you would usually only need to search up until they would have been 100 years old. It is important to conduct a search for the longest period of time over which an event was likely to have occurred, particularly if you are looking for somebody with a common name.

4. When searching the birth, marriage and death indexes you will often come across more than one possible match, and the only way to find out which one is correct is to order the certificates for the most likely options and compare them against other information you have gathered for that person. If you are confident that you have conducted a thorough search of the indexes, then you will know that you have not missed anything.

As mentioned above, it was the duty of the local superintendent registrar to forward the information to the Registrar General in London. Therefore there are two sets of records: the original records held at the local registrar’s office and the copies held by the Registrar General. Once the records arrived at the Registrar General’s office in London, clerks would reorganize them. They made alphabetical indexes for the certificates, broken down on a quarterly basis. Currently, the general public has no legal right to view the original certificates held locally but only the copies held by the Registrar General, though you can order duplicate copies of the original records from local register offices. The records of the Registrar General for England and Wales are now in the General Register Office (GRO), which is a department of the Office of National Statistics, and duplicates can also be ordered online at www.gro.gov.uk. Separate arrangements exist for Scotland and Ireland, and are discussed later in this chapter.

What Do the Certificates Contain?

Birth Certificates

Birth certificates are the official record of the individual’s place and date of birth. As mentioned, each birth had to be recorded within six weeks of the event, although this would not always happen, particularly if the family were travelling at the time of the birth, and waited to register it until they returned home.

The GRO birth indexes include all of England and Wales. Each entry is entered in alphabetical order, annually and then in the relevant quarter – March, June, September, December. All births registered between 1 January and 31 March are included in the March quarter; between 1 April and 30 June in the June quarter; between 1 July and 30 September in the September quarter; and between 1 October and 31 December in the December quarter. After 1984 the registers are arranged annually and not on a quarterly basis. An appropriate index reference number is also provided, which is the key piece of information needed to order the certificate. From the September quarter of 1911 the maiden name of the mother was also included in the index entry.

The actual certificates provide the following information:

• Where and when born: The precise date and location of the birth; if the exact time is given it signifies that it was a multiple birth (possibly twins or triplets). In this case you may wish to search for the other sibling(s), who should have the same surname and registration reference.

• Name (if any): This should be the full name given, including any middle names (the index will only give the initials of any middle names given). Some parents would change the name (this was allowed up to one year following registration). In such a scenario both the original and the altered name should appear. Sometimes a birth would be registered even though no first name had been chosen. This explains the ‘if any’ in brackets on the certificate. In the indexes there are also entries at the end of surnames for ‘male’ or ‘female’, used when the first name had yet to be decided.

• Name and surname of the father: The full name of the father.

• Name and maiden surname of the mother: The full name of the mother, including her ‘former’ (maiden) name; this last piece of information is particularly useful when trying to trace the maternal line further back. You may also find evidence of a prior divorce in this section too.

• Rank and profession of father: This provides the occupation of the father. This is a good genealogical clue, determining the social status of your ancestor. You may also be able to use this piece of information to search for employment records for your ancestor. Bear in mind, however, it would not be that uncommon for people to ‘inflate’ the status of their occupation.

• Signature, description and residence of informant: This is the individual who registered the birth. In most cases it would be the father, but not always. Sometimes there is a mark instead of a signature, indicating the informant was illiterate.

• When registered: The date the birth was officially registered; don’t forget, this could be up to six weeks after the actual birth, so if you think your ancestor was born in late March, June, September or December and can’t find an entry in the relevant quarter, it might be worth checking the indexes for the following quarter too.

• Signature of registrar: The name and signature of the registrar.

CASE EXAMPLE

Birth certificates

Bill Oddie’s story was one of the most poignant told on Who Do You Think You Are? as he wished to investigate the background to his mother’s ill health and rumours that he had a sister. The story of his missing sister was quickly established by tracking down his parents’ marriage certificate of 1938, establishing Bill’s mother’s maiden name (Clegg) and looking in the national GRO indexes for the birth of any children with the surname Oddie, mother’s maiden name Clegg, in the Rochdale area, where the family lived at the time.