How to get going on your family history
Sorry if I’m turning into a genealogy bore, but if you have even the faintest interest in your ancestry, then ask your older relatives for as much info about the family as possible, even if it’s just a skeletal family tree with the names of everyone, who they married and the names of their children. It’s so bleeding obvious – so make some time to do it, and go through their photo albums with them as well. It’s not something you can leave until you retire, as they might be dead by then.
One of the recurrent moans in family history circles is, “If only I’d asked my grandparents/parents before they died”. They take all the interesting gossip with them to the grave/crematorium – how inconsiderate of them.
What have you got left – an address book, a few letters or some photos perhaps, with people in them that you don’t recognise? A vague memory of who came to Grandpa’s funeral?
How else are you going to fill in a huge gap in the public records for the last century, of the births, marriages and deaths, and the census information also? And who’s really interested in looking at just a few names and dates, without some interesting stories to tell of these people’s lives?
It’s very difficult to put together what happened in the last 100 years, otherwise. If you’re lucky, you might find a will of a relative in the Probate records, from the mid 1960s back to the early 1900s … a will with the names of beneficiaries on it. If you know the name, place and date of death of an individual, you can order a copy of the person’s will from your nearest Probate Office, even if they died a few years ago. That is if they made a will. School records can be helpful too.
Otherwise, you could slog through the marriage and obit columns of old newspapers, and old directories of personal and business addresses, old sports club magazines, and the like. It’s hard work and very time-consuming. The words, “Get a life (of your own)” spring to mind.
I’ve been working on my mum’s family history on and off for over 5 years now. Fortunately my mum gave me a lot of detail about her immediate family, mainly about her mum’s family. Her dad was one of 11 children, and died of cancer when she was 12 years old - a very sad loss for her, as they were very fond of each other. Unfortunately, he was an alcoholic, and was hated by her mum and sister. Her parents were anti-social as regards keeping up with his side of the family, so my mum lost contact with them all on his death. Only one of his brothers came to my granddad’s funeral – no-one else from his family, which is sad.
Finding out who all his brothers and sisters were has been very difficult, as his surname was Evans. I’ve tracked down only three of them so far, and know very little about them, apart from a few dates and what jobs they did. I’ve yet to check through all the censuses going back to 1851. Oh, … my mum told me about her cousin Albert Evans, who was a police sergeant in Liverpool (I got a little info about him from the retired police-persons association). That’s all I’ve got so far about her dad’s siblings – bugger all.
When I’m feeling more motivated, I’ll sign up for a year’s subscription to Ancestry dot com, and then do a blitz on all the censuses and other records for my family. This would save me loads of time, and might give me some inspiration to get going again on my family history.
One of the recurrent moans in family history circles is, “If only I’d asked my grandparents/parents before they died”. They take all the interesting gossip with them to the grave/crematorium – how inconsiderate of them.
What have you got left – an address book, a few letters or some photos perhaps, with people in them that you don’t recognise? A vague memory of who came to Grandpa’s funeral?
How else are you going to fill in a huge gap in the public records for the last century, of the births, marriages and deaths, and the census information also? And who’s really interested in looking at just a few names and dates, without some interesting stories to tell of these people’s lives?
It’s very difficult to put together what happened in the last 100 years, otherwise. If you’re lucky, you might find a will of a relative in the Probate records, from the mid 1960s back to the early 1900s … a will with the names of beneficiaries on it. If you know the name, place and date of death of an individual, you can order a copy of the person’s will from your nearest Probate Office, even if they died a few years ago. That is if they made a will. School records can be helpful too.
Otherwise, you could slog through the marriage and obit columns of old newspapers, and old directories of personal and business addresses, old sports club magazines, and the like. It’s hard work and very time-consuming. The words, “Get a life (of your own)” spring to mind.
I’ve been working on my mum’s family history on and off for over 5 years now. Fortunately my mum gave me a lot of detail about her immediate family, mainly about her mum’s family. Her dad was one of 11 children, and died of cancer when she was 12 years old - a very sad loss for her, as they were very fond of each other. Unfortunately, he was an alcoholic, and was hated by her mum and sister. Her parents were anti-social as regards keeping up with his side of the family, so my mum lost contact with them all on his death. Only one of his brothers came to my granddad’s funeral – no-one else from his family, which is sad.
Finding out who all his brothers and sisters were has been very difficult, as his surname was Evans. I’ve tracked down only three of them so far, and know very little about them, apart from a few dates and what jobs they did. I’ve yet to check through all the censuses going back to 1851. Oh, … my mum told me about her cousin Albert Evans, who was a police sergeant in Liverpool (I got a little info about him from the retired police-persons association). That’s all I’ve got so far about her dad’s siblings – bugger all.
When I’m feeling more motivated, I’ll sign up for a year’s subscription to Ancestry dot com, and then do a blitz on all the censuses and other records for my family. This would save me loads of time, and might give me some inspiration to get going again on my family history.
posted by justin at 8:42 am
.JPG)
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home