Blog

  1. Charging to Visit Archives

    Few can disagree that, as a result of restricted budgets and cut backs, archives are in a state of crisis. Wherever I go in the country and overseas it would seem that archives and libraries are closing or severely reducing their opening hours. The number of trained archival staff has also been drastically cut in many places.

    In the light of the current economic climate, although this is extremely worrying, it is hardly surprising. In comparison to many other services county councils have to provide, one can understand that archives will not top the priority list. However, it still comes as a shock to read that Northamptonshire Archives have decided to significantly reduce the number of hours that the archives can be freely accessed by approximately half –  unless you can afford to pay a new  extortionate fee which will give you more extensive access. Under the new system, which appears to have been implemented without any public consultation, access will be free for four hours on each of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings, but anyone who wishes to continue their research into the afternoon or who is not available on these mornings will have to pay  £31.50 an hour. This payment must be received three days in advance so you will not be able to gauge how much research time you need as you go along.

    It will no doubt be argued that this is a better option than simply reducing the opening hours to 12 in any week but, in my opinion, it creates an unnerving precedent of making archives much more accessible to the very wealthy. It must have been a conscious decision to limit the free access to mornings only on three days a week,  rather than giving free access say, for one or two whole days a week. Perhaps this is to try and force those travelling long distances, or those carrying out in depth research, to pay up so they can continue their research into the afternoon?

    I do hope this is not an idea that other archives decide to copy. Although I  have no revolutionary ideas as to how to resolve the current archival budgeting crisis, surely requests for donations from archive users could be more actively encouraged and would I am sure many users would be wiling to give what they could afford?

    Access to original documents such as this may be limited in the future as archival budgets are strained

     

  2. How To Start Your Family History

    As you start out on your quest to trace your ancestors its easy to be sucked in by the advertising of the commercial genealogy companies such as Ancestry and Findmypast. Ancestry’s current strap line encourages you to ‘Jump right in and Explore’. That, it says, will make ‘A Great Start’.

    In fact this is absolutely the worst way to begin your family tree and will, in many cases, lead to incorrect family trees. Far from jumping in, you should first take time to sit and reflect about what you know about your family already. Write down everything you know about your immediate family, including full names, occupations, places and dates of birth, marriage, death and burial, addresses and any other anecdotes you can remember being told about them. If you are unsure of a certain piece of information put a question mark next to it. It will need to be verified by other close family members or by documentary evidence at a later stage. Don’t worry about drawing out a family tree; just get the information written down so you can see what you have got and the information that is missing. Perhaps you don’t know your maternal grandmother’s name, having only known her as ‘Nan’, or perhaps there are certain dates missing from your list. All these pieces of information are vital for getting off to a sure and accurate start as they will form the basis from which you later go out and buy birth, marriage and death certificates and access census returns and from their grow your family tree.

    Starting notes for family tree research

    Working from known facts is essential. Even if you think your name is fairly rare there are almost always other people with the same, or similar, names out there living at the same time. Its important you identify the correct people in the records as you begin, and then progress, your research.

    Once you have written down everything you know then consult with other family members, especially older generations . Ask them to check your work to see if they agree with it and also to add anything else they know. Is there any disagreement about any of the information? If so flag this up for checking later. Older family members often have precious information about relatives who died many years before you were born and this may include information about their personalities and other events which happened to them which will not be recorded in documentary evidence. Make sure you write down what they tell you or (if they are happy for you to do so) record what they have to say.

    Next investigate to see if there is any documentary evidence to be found within the family. This might be copies of death, marriage or birth certificates, newspaper cuttings, or army service papers.Each of these records, and documents you may find, will provide important facts ranging from dates of birth, details of relationships and occupations, through to accounts of events in your ancestors’ lives. If there are copies of birth, marriage or death certificates in your family this will also save you money as buying modern-day copies costs £9.25 each.

    RAF Service Book

    Once you have done all this, you can then move on to exploring online records. You now have a sound basis from which to work and will be able to more accurately assess the long lists of results you will get when you access sites such as Ancestry and Findmypast. I will look at the best ways to search these sites in future blogs and Heritage on Heritage You Tube videos.

    Finally, if you are in the situation where you have very limited information about your parents or earlier generations and where there is no-one to ask and no family documents, then you will need to start with yourself and your own birth certificate. I will deal with how to proceed in this case in a later blog.

    Get the special offer on my online Family History e-Course when you watch my accompanying You Tube Video ‘How to Start Your Family History’ . This gives further details about starting your family history research and documents you may find within your ‘family archive’. Go to  https://t.co/ruy1y3tn5F

  3. Help With Your Family History: You Tube Channel

    I have just launched a new Family History You Tube Channel called ‘Heritage on Heritage’. This will offer help with family history for beginners and, in due course, deal with more advanced discussion topics regarding genealogy, family history and other history-related matters.

    If you are new to family history then finding your way around the plethora of websites offering genealogical data can be bewildering. There are so many family history websites that it’s hard to know where to start and how to proceed. Large commercial companies such as Ancestry and Findmypast have the funds to target researchers via advertising and also the wherewithal to ensure their websites are the ones which head the page when it comes to search engine results. These commercial companies are, of course, primarily concerned with profit margins and, despite skilful advertising, a particular website may not actually be the best way forward for you. As you start out, and even when you have more experience, it’s important to know which sources you should be using and the best methods of accessing them.

    In my first video I offer help to buy copies of English and Welsh birth, marriage and death certificates online. You will need these to build a verified family tree, once you have found the relevant birth, marriage or death event in the General Register Office indexes. You should be careful when ordering certificates through a third party as you may end up paying much more than you need to. For example, Ancestry makes a charge of £22.99 per certificate, whereas you can buy the same thing for £9.25 using the government’s certificate ordering website at https://www.gro.gov.uk/. You can find my video ‘The Essential Guide to Buying Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates’ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiKbl7pqV5s. This takes you through each stage of what you need to do to order certificates. If you subscribe to the Heritage on Heritage Channel you will receive notifications when I release a new ‘Help with Family History’ video.

    Meanwhile my Family History e-Course offers the opportunity to build, hone and improve your research technique.

     

    Marriage certificates, such as this one, together with birth and death certificates are a vital tool in family history

     

  4. Old (& New) Family Photographs: Clues to Past and Future Family History

    I have been hooked on history, especially family history, since I was a child. For many years I concentrated on finding out more about my Mum’s side of the family, while my Heritage family history remained a mystery since my Dad never spoke about his family. All I knew was that he had a sister in New Zealand and had had an elder brother called Ron who was killed in WW11. His silence spurred me on to find out more.  One afternoon I secretly ventured into our attic to see what I could find. Among suitcases, Christmas decorations and old kitchen utensils, I found several boxes of old books, some of which had the name of Dad’s brother inscribed in the front. Even better, however, was the box stuffed full of memorial cards and old family photographs! Memorial cards were popular in the 19th and early 20th century, being sent to friends and family after someone had died. They usually provide vital information about the deceased including full name, date of death, age and burial place. The wodge of cards I found were later to provide many clues for building my family tree while the photographs were (like most old family photos!) all unlabelled and very frustrating.

    I sat for some time staring at the faces of the people in the pictures, wondering exactly how they were related to me and what their names were! Most of these were group photographs taken at weddings and a precious memory of each event, but also a record of so many of my relatives. When I was older I plucked up the courage to ask my Dad about his family and to my surprise he didn’t mind talking about it at all! (‘You never asked’, he said!) We spent an afternoon going through each of the photographs and he told me the name of all those relatives he remembered and I duly wrote them in pencil on the back. These days of course I use an acid free archival pen!

    Earlier this month I celebrated my 50th birthday! While on the one hand I wanted to celebrate successfully reaching such an advanced age, I was also determined to combine it with a family reunion, concentrating (due to space restrictions) on my maternal family. It seemed that the only time we all got together was at funerals. With all the invites sent, I waited impatiently to see who would be able to make it. A few people, sadly, could not make the chosen weekend, but twenty nine relatives could and, together with many friends and colleagues, we had a truly wonderful weekend blessed with ideal weather conditions for an outdoor party!

    Much interest was stimulated by the family tree chart, showing how we are all descended from James Postlethwaite Wilson and Mary Dickinson. Another success was my request that each relative bring a family photo of a common ancestor or relative. This revived many old memories as did a wonderful cine film of a 1957 family wedding. We spent hours re-running the five-minute film and identifying family members past and present! A few photographs remained tantalisingly unidentified or undated and for these I shall be engaging the services of Jayne Shrimpton to help identify them with her brilliant photo dating and analysis service. You can learn more about photo dating through Jayne’s many books, while she also writes a very informative column for Family Tree Magazine.

    Remembering future generations is just as important as looking back in time. Our ancestors often left a healthy paper trail for us to follow, but those who come after us may find it much more difficult as our trail becomes increasingly digitised. Will our digital photographs be passed on to later generations? Will they be labelled?

    My party was an excellent opportunity to make a photographic record of so many family members. Here I would like to thank Mia Bennett for spending much of the weekend snapping away in a series of informal but also formal group shots.  These are currently being printed out and labelled so that in times to come, everyone will know who we were and what we looked like! My favourite shot (below) was our attempt at a Victorian non-smiling pose. If you look closely you will see that not everyone managed not to smile but this picture, together with the other photos, are a great record of a wonderful day and will help provide a paper and digital record of our present-day family.

    Victorian Style Group Photo crop