Genealogy Terms
When starting your genealogy you will no doubt come across terms that you are unfamiliar with.
I have prepared a PDF document which you can download to have by your side as you are researching your Family History. Please feel free to download your copy.
Genealogy Census
So, what is the census all about and how can it help in our search for our Ancestors? I always like to think of the census as filling in the blanks. What I mean here is that once you get the basic information together like the birth, marriage and death records there is a big gap if you are doing family history. You want to know, what they did, how they lived and the census provides this information which helps build up the picture of their lives.
Below you will find out the key dates that the census’ were taken so that you will at least be familiar with where they were (or weren’t) on a given date.
US Federal Census
The US Federal Census was compiled every 10 years from 1790 onwards and the table below shows the dates that these were completed:
1790 – 2nd August
1800 – 6th August
1810 – 6th August
1820 – 7th August
1830 – 1st June
1840 – 1st June
1850 – 1st June
1860 – June
1870 – 1st June
1880 – 1st June
1890 – 1st June
1900 – 1st June
1910 – 15th April
1920 – 1st January
1930 – 1st April Not yet available
England, Wales and Scotland
The census in England, Wales and Scotland was also done every 10 years from 1801 until the current day. There is however, one exception to this rule and that was the 1941 census which didn’t take place due to World War II.
Although the census was taken in 1801 – 1831 it is believed that these were destroyed and very little information is accessible for these years.
Access to the census records is restricted under the 100 year rule.
Please see below for a list of dates of the census:
1801 – 10th March
1811 – 27th May
1821 – 28th May
1831 – 30th May
1841 – 7th June
1851 – 30th June
1861 – 7th April
1871 – 2nd April
1881 – 3rd April
1891 – 5th April
1901 – 31st March
1911 – 2nd April
I hope you find this information of use – I know when I have been looking at the census records it really helps to know when the census was taken so that if someone is missing, you know that you could check for a death record or a marriage record.
Using the census is a key element to your research – I have found so many new family members from the census which I didn’t know existed. I will provide more information on the details contained in the census in a new post as there is just too much to discuss in one post.
British Family History
OK, so you have found that you have traced your family back to the UK – now what? British Family History has come a long way during the last 10 + years and there is now a wealth of information out there – you just need to know where to look.
Getting Started
You now need to determine where in the UK your family are from. As a bare minimum it would help to know which country they were from.
The reason I say this is because there are different places to check depending on whether they come from England or Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
This post will concentrate on online sources that you can check immediately.
England and Wales
There are many websites that you can use to do your online searches in England and Wales and I thought I would share with you the ones I have used the most. Naturally, it does depend on where you are up to in your research but for now I will focus on those that cover the birth, marriage and death records.
One important thing to note here is that most of the information you will find will be the indexes which will lead you to the actual record rather than the record itself. You will need to get all the references which will allow you t order the certificate from
FreeBMD – The aim of this site is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriage and deaths and deals only with England and Wales. It contains 223,662,340 records and was last updated on Fri 9th October 2009.
As the name suggests, this site will provide you with a search facility where you simply type in the name of the person you are looking for. Don’t worry if you don’t know the county – I just put in a simple search for one of my relatives and it brought him up straight away although I must add that he had an unusual middle name – I also knew where he lived so I was able to validate very easily that he was the correct person.
Click on the Search tab and start entering in your details.
Here is an example of what I used:
Type: All Types (meaning all birth, marriages and death)
Surname: Howard
First Names(s): Arthur Molyneux
I then left all the other fields blank. I was then presented with two records, a birth and a marriage.
N.B There are times when it is a good idea to put all of the known information in to a search engine like this one as it will limit the results you get, having said that though, you may want to do a wider search so that you can sift through all the names if you are unsure or get too few results.
At the side of his name it tells me the information I need to order the certificate, the District, Volume and Page. It is always worth checking on the scanned version that these details are correct – the site encourages you to do this in case of errors. You can download a copy of the scanned image (which I always do for my records) or view it on screen to verify that the references are as displayed on screen.
If I wanted to order the certificate for this record, I now have two choices:
1. I can order it from the General Register Office or
2. From the local Registry Office i.e the district.
General Register Office
Ordering from the GRO can be done online using your credit card. When ordering a certificate for the first time, you will need to register but once you have done this once you can come back and order more certificates as and when you find them. The link above will take you directly to the ordering page.
At the current time Certificates cost £7 for a Full Certificate which will show some or all of the following information:
Birth
District, Date & Place of Birth, Child’s Forenames & Surname, Child’s Sex,
Father’s Name, Father’s Place of Birth, Father’s Occupation.
Mother’s Name including Maiden Name, Mother’s Occupation, Mother’s Place of Birth, Mother’s Usual Address.
Informant’s Name, Informant’s Qualification, Informant’s Address, Informant’s signature.
Date of registration, Registrar’s Name & signature.
Child’s Revised Name (if any, after registration).
Marriage
District, Church, Parish, Location,
Date of Marriage, Forenames and Surnames, Ages, Marital Conditions, Professions, Addresses.
Father’s Forenames & Surname, Father’s Occupation.
Witness Names, Priest/Vicar’s Name & Signature.
Death
District, Location, Date & Place of Death,
Forenames & Surname, Sex, Maiden Name, Date and Place of Birth, Occupation, Usual Address.
Informant’s Qualification, Informant’s Address
Cause of Death, Signature of Informant
Registration Date, Registrar’s Signature.
Ordering from a local Registry Office
To do this you will need to find the Registry Office that is relevant to the certificate you are ordering. In my case it would be Runcorn. This can be a little more tricky as the County and boundaries changed over time. My suggestion would be to check which is the correct office using the information on FreeBMD. The difficulty with ordering your certificates from a local office is that the references provided by FreeBMD are not valid for the local level – they are the Nation level reference. Also, you can’t order these online – you need to complete a form then print it off and enclose a check. It is much easier to order from the GRO as described above.
As with any website, it is important that you familiarise yourself with their terms of service. You will find that both of the sites mentioned above have a lot of information for you to read – I strongly suggest doing so as this will help you to better understand this wonderful hobby. I will discuss Scottish and Northern Irish Family History in another post.
Genealogy Supplies
You will be pleasantly surprised to hear that the type of materials that you need for your genealogy research are quite different from those that are needed with other hobbies. Because this hobby is all about collecting information and storing it safely the supplies needed are very few and inexpensive to start off with.
Initially, Family History or Genealogy really starts by capturing information about yourself so a computer is helpful although not essential. If you intend to go this route, then a good word processing software package like Microsoft Word would be beneficial.
The next step is to capture the information you obtain from talking to other family members. By chatting to you relations, you can draw together an immense amount of information and it is crucial that this data is captured as accurately as possible. You wouldn’t automatically think that there is a need for any equipment whilst talking to your ‘nearest and dearest’ about their lives but, having certain equipment with you can be really advantageous.
Notepad and Pencil
For this process you should keep accurate comments of what you discover. So a very fundamental requirement here is a notebook and pencil. Better still, use one that has a number of sections in it so that you can separate your comments into the relevant families lines or generations. As an alternative, you may choose to use a digital recorder as I do. These have many benefits if you are not too good at taking notes. You can concentrate on keeping the conversation flowing without having to stop and jot something down. It should be noted here though that not everyone feels comfortable once they know they are being recorded so always ask permission.
Another part important part of talking to your family members is accumulating information like old photo’s and any documents they may have. A simple ring folder is ideal as it allows you to easily add new sections when necessary. Or you could buy a portable expanding file. This way you can keep your photo’s and documents separate and well organized.
Whilst you are collecting thes photographs, make sure to record the folks in the pictures and which papers relate to whom. So, remember to have spare paper along with paperclips on hand. A word of caution here though, never use paperclips on an original photo or document as over time they could rust and destroy your important papers. I would always recommend that you take copies of the info you collect – this is a good habit to get into as the documents that family members may share with you will be precious to them and they will want them back. Even if they don’t, it still is a good idea to get copies and return the originals back to the owner. This, if nothing else, will show them that you value their memories and they will be happy to share more documents with you in future.
Another important thing to bear in mind is you should always record where you got the information from for your records. If there are a number of relatives giving you information – you can soon loose track of who gave you what. This will be useful later when you want to record the source information. Alternatively, you might like to consider using a digital camera – you could then photograph any documents and old photo’s without having to remove them from the individuals possession which may make them feel better about sharing things with you.
Over time, I have found that a computer scanner is an essential resource. I bought a ‘all in one’ printer which includes a scanner for just this purpose. By scanning all of your photo’s and papers you then have a permanently record to keep on your computer which can be printed out whenever you want a hard copy of the document. I would also use a printed copy of my documents to use in my family tree scrapbook this way the originals don’t get ruined.
All of the materials and equipment needed for the initial stages of your research are all easy things to acquire – you will probably already have most of them.
After interviewing your family, you will want to find other sources of information. This is where a computer is comes into it’s own as one of the best places to search is the Internet. There are literally thousands of websites all dealing specifically with family history or genealogy research. You may be surprised that I have chosen to include websites as a supply but with family history, it certainly is. Many of the sites are easy to use and the bigger one’s require you to pay a subscription for the data that they hold. I have found that by investing in these sites it has made my research much easier and so much more convenient.
Before long, you will have compiled an immense amount of information that could well be difficult to see a clear picture of where you are up to. There are many good software packages that can help with this problem. Most of the packages will not only allow you to record all the names, dates and places but also all of the scanned papers and photo’s you have amassed.
You will find I have covered this in another post if you would like to learn more about it click here.
For those of you who don’t have a computer and even those of you that do, you may find it helpful to have a template of a family tree to enter your data into. It can be time consuming trying to construct a family tree on your own and you will undoubtedly want to share your findings with friends and family.
If this is something that you would be interesting in, I have written another post covering this topic in more detail so click here to read .
So to re-cap, the main genealogy supplies that I use are as follows:
- A notepad
- A Pencil
- Paperclips
- A Ring Folder
- A digital recorder
- A digital camera
- A computer
- A Word Processing program
- Family History software
- Scanner
- Internet Connection
As you can see – researching your family history does not need to cost a lot of money, but as you progress you will want to start investing in supplies and equipment that will make your search for your ancestors easier and therefore fun and so rewarding to do.
Family Tree Scrapbooking
Once you make the decision to invest your precious time and energy into researching your family history and take the trouble to collect important documents, I am sure you would like a way to present it to friends and family. Generally people tend to turn to scrapbooking. This is indeed a great way to show off your labour of love!
By putting those valuable aspects of your history into a personal family scrapbook you are providing those who are into Genealogy a safe and effective way to view it. You will by now have invested what seems like every spare minute you could and worked really hard so you don’t want this to be ruined or worse still, lost!
Starting a scrapbook on your family is similar to starting one on any hobby. You need to choose a hard-wearing book which is big enough to hold the large amount of info that you are thinking of putting into it. You can add pages to certain sorts of scrapbooks. I would highly recommend this as its a great attribute with a family history scrapbook since you and your children can insert pages into the book as and when necessary. In addition, if you are anything like me, you are forever finding new information that goes back further than the data you have already compiled, with removable pages, you can insert your data to your scrapbook whenever you like.
Just like with any other books of this kind, it is best to start with your documents or pictures which come first – in other words, the oldest.
Before starting in earnest, you need to think through the layout of these pages. Collect the documents, pictures, and everything else you are thinking of including in your project. The first page should show the oldest papers you have that hold the data of your oldest generation. A word of caution here though – please make sure you have copies of all the information you are going to use stored safely on your computer or in paper files (you never know when you will need them).
If for example you were thinking of starting with your great grandparents – create a design that includes any photo’s, birth, marriage and/or death certificates that you may have together with military records, etc. Do make sure to label every piece of info that you have. Also, make sure to incorporate all full names, maiden names, dates, and all places that they may once have lived at the different stages in their lives.
What is so great about investigating your family history is getting the chance to chat to various relations and find out fascinating details and stories about them. You will be amazed how much you can find out by merely talking to people. Even if there aren’t any documents around as evidence it doesn’t neccesarily mean that you can’t add these stories into your scrapbook.
Using your preferred method, write or print out these stories and add them to you layout. Note: If at all possible, take with you a recorder when interviewing relatives so that you can refer to it later or just a pencil and paper if you are good at making notes.
The order of the pages from now on is entirely your choice and will depend on the side of the family you are investigating. If as discussed above, if you have chosen to do your great grandparents following your maternal side for example, you may want to continue along this side of the family down to your mum. You could then start on your paternal side. As an alternative, you may like to design a layout that is more chronologically accurate following both family lines at the same time.
There are a some important points you need to follow when designing your family tree scrapbook. Be sure to assign each individual a page of their own or at the very least, base each page on a couple. This makes it easier if you need to add additional pages in when you find out more information about a family. Make sure also all that the dates and names are prominent throughout the scrapbook. Above all, take your time to complete this project. It will be a keepsake that will last for generations and remember above all else, enjoy the experience!
Genealogy Software
Now that you have collected details about your immediate family, you will soon realize that you need somewhere to store the information. Indeed, it can be quite difficult to keep it all neat and tidy and well organized. There will be times when you are inundated with information from a number of sources and having put so much effort in, you want to ensure that everything stays organized and accurate. This is where the assistance of genealogy software programs can make a world of difference to your research.
When thinking about buying software to store your family information, you’ll need to invest in a program that will provide you with the best value for money and display all of your information in a logical way. You’ll want software that is capable of showing you a high level view for those times that you get too ‘bogged down’ in the detail that you ‘just can’t see the wood for the trees’.
Over the years I have spent quite a lot on software for my hobby. So far I have purchased Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, The Master Genealogist, Personal Historian, Legacy Family Tree and My Heritage Family Tree for the Windows environment and iFamily for LeopardV2 for the Mac.
With that said, I feel quite comfortable chatting to you about what the different programs have to offer and in this post I intend to look at just a few of these packages.
As a basic requirement you need to be able to have the flexibility to enter a limitless number of individuals, sources, photo’s etc.
Without doubt Family Tree Maker is one of ‘the’ most well-liked programs on the market and is available from Ancestory.Com.
According to Amazon.Com, this is the number one best selling software for Genealogy and it can be found here if would like more information on it or to purchase your own copy. The latest version is 2010 which has recently been released.
So what does it offer you, I here you say? Well, there are a number of terrific features that are delivered with this package. It will allow the user to upload their own photos, audio’s as well as video’s. In addition it will allow you to create reports, charts, timelines and, of course, your family tree, keeping your data well organized.
As you would expect you can simply keep adding in any information that you discover whether this is from other websites or family members. As a user of Ancestory.Com, one of the main benefits is that I can use this software along with the website and synchronize the two together which is great and saves me a lot of time. It will allow me to download all of the data I have stored on Ancestry.com including any images I have saved to my tree.
You can also use it add links to many other genealogy sites like FamilySearch or Rootsweb and assemble and capture vital information. One more feature with this program is that you can print keepsakes by making use of the online printing service offered by Ancestory.Com although I tend to do my own printing.
Family Tree Maker will (like a lot of other programs) provide you with the ability to print out your family history books which you can compile within the program as well as posters of the tree you have created. You can then elaborate on the individual’s history by adding their parents, their brothers and sisters, their husband or wife, as well as their kids.
You can also input crucial dates to the individual’s profile e.g. when they were born, married and what year they died. You can add all the data on where they grew up and resided. Once this info is entered, FTM will display it all on a map to show you where that location is, this includes places outside of the States as well – how brilliant is that? This is a really great feature to see their migration patterns over time – this in itself can aid in your search as you can see how close they are to a different place which may house an elusive records.
Another great feature is that this software empowers you to distribute your family tree online for your family to view. Again this works seamlessly with Ancestry.Com where you can build a tree on their site. I have been contacted by a number of people researching the same lines and we have been able to share information on our families which is fantastic.
Having the ability to share your research is without doubt one of the most exciting not to mention rewarding things that this wonderful hobby brings. This product is not too costly (depending on your circumstances and which version you go for, of course), the newest version costs around $59.99 for the Deluxe version but there are other cheaper versions available if this is a little bit more than you wanted to pay.
You may be interested to know that there are also free software packages that you can download and try out that will offer similar functionality, the main difference will be that they don’t work as seamlessly with Ancestry.com as this one does.
To find these free packages try going to www.myheritage.com where you will find one such software package called ‘Family Tree Builder‘. As I’m sure you will appreciate, the functionality offered will not be as comprehensive as Family Tree Maker but if you are new to Family History you may prefer to try something like this until you know for sure that you want to invest in this hobby. In a nutshell, you are able to do all the basics as you would expect and it will also allows you to upload documents and photos just as you can with Family Tree Maker. With Family Tree Builder you are also able to publish your tree on the internet and invite your friends and family members to view it.
A great feature with Family Tree Builder is that you can tag the individual you recognize in a photo and this makes that information readily available for you in the future.
Another of my favorite free package has to be Legacy Family Tree – this caters for everything you need when starting out. It can be downloaded at www.Legacyfamilytree.Com, it is well worth a visit and I highly recommend it. I liked it so much I bought their “paid” version which offers the more experienced researcher a few additional features.
