This chapter explains how you can make your first foray into the world of record offices, archives, museums, libraries and other research institutions in the hunt for information. You will learn what sort of information exists out there, and how to use it to extract more names and dates, and to flesh out historical information about your ancestors; what an archive is, and how you locate the most relevant one for your initial research; how to work in an archive; and how to organize your research notes.
One of the few drawbacks of making a show such as Who Do You Think You Are? is that there simply isn’t enough screen time to show all the work that takes place to put together the stories that you see. The actual research takes place behind the scenes over several months – exactly the same work you’ll be doing yourself, although you will be able to take as much time as you like.
Once you have read through this chapter, and the research tips and hints in Chapter 4, you should be fully prepared to tackle the next stage of your research with confidence – in which case you can then head to the chapters in Section Two to learn more about how you can trace your family tree further back in time. An introduction to some of the major national archives and institutions can be found in Section Five.
As outlined in the previous chapter, the route most beginners take is to verify their initial findings, and then take one branch of the family further back in time, generation by generation. To do this, you’ll need to use sources outside the family (although you may well have come across some of this material already in the form of certificates, wills and other paperwork tucked away in boxes, drawers and folders). Once these extensions to the family tree have been made, you will be able to put flesh on the bones, so to speak, by using more advanced research techniques to find evidence that puts the lives of your ancestors into an historical context.
Primary sources consist of:
• Contemporary documents, such as diaries, letters, photographs, wills and other legal and financial documents
• Birth, marriage and death certificates
• Oral accounts by people who were there
Secondary sources consist of:
• Accounts written by third parties after the event
• History books
• Stories passed down within families over the years
Locating this evidence to build a family tree, learn more about these relatives and support the stories that are passed down through generations are the core tasks of a genealogist, so it’s time to focus on what material you are going to use to achieve these goals, and where to find it. Roughly speaking, there are two main types of record you’ll encounter during your work – primary sources and secondary sources.
Primary sources come in many shapes and forms, such as contemporary documents that survive from the period, or even oral accounts that are told to you by people who were present at an event. Of most use are officially created sources, such as birth, marriage and death certificates, as their creation and content have been governed and directed by legally binding requirements. These can be more reliable as evidence than personal documents like diaries, which are open to artistic licence and subjective opinion. Official sources are only as reliable as the people filling them in, however, and it is not uncommon for ancestors to ‘forget’ important details, or deliberately provide misleading information. The lesson here is never to take anything at face value.
Secondary sources are accounts written retrospectively by people who were not present, but may have had access to primary material, and as such can be subject to errors. Examples are history books written about a major event, such as the Boer War or life in a workhouse. While secondary sources will play a part in your research, you should always endeavour to locate primary evidence to back up your suspicions and findings. Stories passed down through the generations also fall into the secondary source category, unless the story-teller was actually present at the event.
The archival pyramid:
National and specialist collections
Municipal or county archives (area administrative records)
Local studies centres (general material)
Your initial investigations within your family will have already generated both primary evidence, in the form of documents, photos and letters found around the house, and secondary material from relatives in the form of anecdotes told to them by their ancestors. The next task is to find additional primary and secondary material to extend your family tree. Once this is done, you can then proceed to a wider search for information that will place your relatives in their historical context. It is time to turn to record offices, libraries and museums.
The majority of primary material will be housed in record offices, libraries and museums, scattered across Britain – or, if your ancestors came from overseas, all around the world. Many people loosely refer to these institutions as ‘archives’. Although this isn’t the place for academic debate, in technical terms an archive is actually a collection of documents, manuscripts or other primary evidence, although the term is more often used to describe the building or institution in which the collection is housed. It is in this context that the word ‘archive’ will be used in this book.
For those of you who have never been to an archive before, it can be a daunting experience, but one well worth undertaking. Each archive is unique, will hold a different variety of records, and will have its own way of collecting, storing, cataloguing and indexing its records. Bearing in mind that information about your ancestors could turn up anywhere, the first step of your research strategy should be to work out which archives are going to be of most use to you first. The following notes should help you do this, but don’t forget that you will probably need to visit more than one archive over the course of your research, and will often have to return to the same archive many times.
There is a rough hierarchy to archives, ranging from general material held at local studies centres, via the administrative records of a municipal area or county, to national and specialist collections. It is advisable to start at the bottom of this archival pyramid first, and begin by looking for information at a local studies centre. These are often located in a local library, and hold records relating to the immediate area, which may cover a few towns and villages, or all the places situated within a borough. These records can include newspaper collections, rate books, electoral registers, trade directories, photographic material and private family papers deposited by local gentry, as well as maps and plans of the area. You will also find secondary sources here, such as histories of the local area, and if you are really lucky you may also find national collections – indexes to birth, marriage and death certificates, or census returns – on microfilm or microfiche.
The amount of material held varies greatly from one local studies centre to another. Some hold vast amounts of primary material while others are less well stocked. Therefore it is worthwhile contacting your local studies centre beforehand to enquire exactly what type of records they hold. If your ancestors did not live locally to where you now live, you will need to visit a local studies centre near the place they were from. Geography is very important to pinpoint the archives you need to visit.
‘If your ancestors did not live locally to where you now live, you will need to visit a local studies centre near the place they were from.’
If you do not have a local studies centre in your area, then you may want to see if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) have set up a Family History Centre in the vicinity. The LDS Church is an American organization founded by the Mormons in Utah. It has been collecting genealogical records from around the world for the last century, depositing them at its Family History Library in Salt Lake City. There are many Family History Centres around the British Isles and the rest of the world where duplicate copies of many of their central records are held, ranging from parish registers to ancestral files deposited by other researchers. You can find your local Family History Centre from the www.familysearch.org website by entering a country of interest in the Find a Family History Centre Near Your Home search box and then scrolling through the alphabetical list of places for that country.
In the hierarchical structure of archives, county record offices (CROs) are the next port of call. As the title suggests, a county record office is a central repository for administrative documents relating to the county, and each county has at least one. (Some have more than one, like Devon, which has three; the Devon Record Office in Exeter, the North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple and the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office in Plymouth.)
In general, most CROs hold census returns, rate books, electoral registers, trade directories, photos and prints, local government documents, maps, parish registers, civil registration indexes, private company and family papers and local history books for every place within the county (rather than just a few towns and villages covered by a local studies centre). In some cases a CRO will store duplicate copies of material held by local study centres, but in other areas the two types of repository will hold completely different sets of records on any given place within that county. It is always worth visiting the local studies centre and the CRO for the area in which you are researching, because there is bound to be at least something extra you will find in the CRO.
Of particular importance are the records deposited by locally important families, who historically would have owned much of the land within the county and therefore played an important part in your ancestors’ lives. Their estate records, rent books, employment accounts, correspondence and records as local justices of the peace will contain thousands of names, many of which may be relevant to you and your search. However, it’s worth remembering that especially wealthy families owned land in more than one county – so if you can’t find what you are looking for in one CRO, it might be worth checking to see if important family papers for principal landowners are deposited elsewhere, possibly in another county where they had their main residence.
If your ancestors lived on the border of a county you should investigate whether the county borders have changed at any time. For example, Bredon’s Hardwick, now in Gloucestershire, was for many centuries described as being in Worcestershire. As a result, some records for people who have lived in Bredon’s Hardwick are located in Worcestershire Record Office, while other records are held in the Gloucestershire Archives. Equally, if your ancestors lived on the border of one or more counties they may have moved around and spent time living on both sides of the boundary at various times, in which case there is probably material about them to be found in the record offices for both those counties.
It is also worth considering the collections of major cities, which are often stored in their own municipal record offices or archives. Many places have more than one institution for you to visit. For example, London is served by the London Metropolitan Archives, the Corporation of London Record Office and the Guildhall Library, each of which holds important historical and genealogical information.
Each country in the British Isles has its own national archive where documents concerning central government are deposited. These are:
• The National Archives (TNA) based in Kew in West London, covering England, Wales and the UK
• The National Archives of Scotland (NAS) at Edinburgh
• The National Archives of Ireland, based in Dublin
• The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast
There are also major collections relating to Wales at the National Library of Wales (NLW). Descriptions of each institution are provided in Section Five.
The holdings of each of these archives are not strictly determined by geography. If your ancestors lived outside England then you may still need to visit The National Archives at Kew as well as the particular country’s national archive, as the centralization of administrative records to London has affected all of the countries at some point in time. A change in the location of government does not always mean historic archives have moved to that new location. Each country also has a central General Register Office from which family historians order duplicate copies of birth, marriage and death certificates (see Section Two). The advice provided in Section Three relating to specific topics of family history will explain when you will need to visit each of the national archives, and what records you should use when you arrive.
There are other centralized archives that hold some documents that are not accessible at the above-mentioned national and regional archives, as well as duplicate copies of those that are. The Society of Genealogists based in central London has copies of many parish registers from county record offices around the UK, as well as indexes to records held in other archives, documents relating to people around the British Empire, and much more.
It is also worth visiting your local library as well as an archive. Not only will many libraries play host to your nearest local studies centre, many have now opened specialist family history services, given the popularity of the subject these days. Furthermore, many libraries hold important manuscript collections that are worth visiting in their own right, as well as important reference works that will play a crucial part in shaping your knowledge of how and where your ancestors lived. This is especially true at national level. The British Library in St Pancras, London, contains a copy of most books that have ever been published, but – as you will discover in Section Three – it also has a collection of genealogy records for people who lived in the British Empire, including records of baptism, marriage and burial in India. There are similar national libraries for Scotland (in Edinburgh), Wales (Aberystwyth), the Republic of Ireland (Dublin) and Northern Ireland (Belfast). Many academic libraries also hold important collections of primary evidence.
Finally, do not forget to visit museums, both specialist – such as the National Railway Museum or National Coal Mining Museum (both featured in Who Do You Think You Are? when Sue Johnston and Lesley Garrett went looking for their ancestors) – and local, such as the Rochdale Museum where much research into Bill Oddie’s ancestors took place. Museums will be full not only of documents, but objects, artefacts, clothes, engines, machinery, books, sporting memorabilia – anything from the past that shows what life was like for your ancestors. This is where you will finally begin to understand the era in which your relatives lived, to encounter history up close, and find out about some of the events they lived through.
Museums can also help you to identify some of the bits and pieces you’ve found during your own research within the family. Items of clothing or household objects can be taken to local museums or national ones such as the Victoria and Albert Museum (for clothing and textiles especially), where curators can help you date them. Military memorabilia such as medals can often be interpreted at places such as the Imperial War Museum.
There are various online databases to help you find libraries, archives, record offices, museums and repositories around the UK, and even around the world. Most of these allow you to enter the name of a place or use an interactive map to display a list of all the nearest archives to a particular area. The ARCHON Directory is perhaps one of the most useful databases to start with, and it’s available from The National Archives website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ archon. It contains addresses, telephone numbers, websites and street maps for local and major repositories all over the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, and you can search by region or by entering the name of the place in which you’re interested. Visit the Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) at www.scan.org.uk/directory/index. htm to find an additional alphabetical directory of Scottish archives.
If, as outlined earlier, you want to find out where the principal records of a particular landowning family are kept, the best way is to search the National Register of Archives, now part of The National Archives. You can view their paper indexes in person at their main search room at Kew, but a quicker route is to key the name of the landowning family into their online database at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra and click on ‘Family Name’. You will then be given a list of all archives holding relevant material. So if you were looking for a connection to the Marquess of Sligo, as actor John Hurt was, you could type in ‘Sligo’ and quickly learn that relevant records were stored in the National Library of Ireland.
To recap, your next step after building your family tree is to verify the information you’ve got. Then you can extend the tree further back in time and, by following a particular branch of the family or story, investigate the historical context. You can start the verification process and extend your family tree online by obtaining certificates, census returns, wills and parish registers, as described in Section Two; but you may find it easier to simply visit the local studies centre or county record office in the area your family comes from to look at paper or microfiche indexes for these certificates and records, many of which are not available on the Internet. In any case, you will certainly need to visit an archive sooner or later to add historical context, so here are some important points to know before you do venture inside.
If you are unfamiliar with working in an archive, here’s a checklist of things to do before you visit. Never just turn up unannounced – it’s a sure way to have a frustrating day.
The best thing you can do is to make contact with the archive you plan to visit. Call them, email them or write to them. The archivists there can tell you all about the place, demystify the process of registering as a user (or ‘reader’), explain how to search for records, both onsite and online, and – provided you ask simple, detailed and focused questions – may even be able to give specific advice to help you find what you’re looking for. If this is the case, you can always ask to talk to the person that helped you when you do eventually visit in person, if they are around and are not tied up with other duties. Don’t forget, you can find the archive nearest to you through ARCHON, mentioned above. If in doubt, contact the local studies centre for further advice.
Family history is big business these days, and unprecedented numbers are flocking into archives as never before. Many institutions are fairly small, with limitations on the amount of space available for researchers, particularly as many of the most popular records are only available on microfilm or microfiche. It is therefore important to check whether you need to book a seat before you visit, otherwise you may be disappointed if you simply turn up on the day.
Most archives require you to register as a user before you can view original material or use their search rooms. Usually, you are requested to produce at least one form of official identification, although these requirements will vary from archive to archive. The National Archives asks for one form of official ID, such as a bank card, driving licence, passport, or national ID card for overseas visitors, and then issues a three-year reader’s ticket which incorporates your photo, taken on the day you apply. Many county archives also need to see proof of address, and some request passport photos for their records. However, a large number of county record offices have grouped together to form CARN – the County Archive Research Network – and registration at one affiliated archive gives you access to all participating members.
It is not always evident where an archive is likely to be located. Many form part of council or municipal buildings; some are newly built, just out of town; others may have no parking facilities, or don’t have good links to public transport. Luckily, the majority of archives now maintain websites, and provide maps or necessary travel details.
… prepare for an archive visit
1. Make contact in advance
2. Book a seat
3. Check ID requirements for registration
4. Check location and travel details
5. Find out the opening hours
6. Make sure you can access the records you want
7. Check costs and facilities
There is no standard pattern to archival opening hours, so don’t assume that it will be open when you want to visit. Although many open 9–5, five days a week, some now close for at least one day midweek and offer either Saturday opening, or one late evening, or both. There is usually at least one period each year when an archive closes down for ‘stocktaking’, when checks are carried out to ensure none of the precious material they hold has gone missing.
It is also dangerous to assume you can simply turn up and expect to see the material you need. Since there are pressures on storage space, many of the less popular documents in large archives are often kept offsite, which means you may not always be able to view material on the day you plan to visit unless you’ve made prior arrangements. In addition to storage restrictions, there could be other complications. Privately deposited documents – family papers, legal archives or religious collections – often come with their own restrictions. For example, you may need to write to the depositor to secure permission to view material. It is therefore vital to check all these details before you visit to avoid disappointment.
There may be costs involved in visiting an archive. Some charge you an entry fee; others will ask you to leave your goods and belongings in a locker that requires change; and any photocopying you wish to take away with you will have to be paid for. Indeed, you may also want to buy food and drink for lunch and some archives provide snack machines, with larger institutions offering hot drinks, sandwiches or even restaurants.
Having established which archive you need to visit, and made contact to cover the points listed above, you are ready to search their collections in the hope of finding the key documents you need to supplement your family tree. You should already have set your research goals in advance, but it might be worth writing these out, so you can hand them to the staff at the archive if you need some help. For example, you may have heard that Great-uncle Jeremy fought in the First World War, but don’t know where he served. You may therefore decide to restrict your search to establishing his movements during the war. Try to keep this ‘wish list’ focused and manageable; it is important to be realistic about how much you can get done in a day, and allow time for unexpected discoveries that may lead you into new investigations. Remember, if you don’t have time to complete all you originally wanted to do, you can always resume on a later trip.
Each archive ‘catalogues’ its possessions – that is, it gives a unique reference to every item that it collects. Alongside this unique reference there is usually a description of the item that has been catalogued. These catalogues and document descriptions are the main way that researchers identify documents they need to look at, though you should be aware that archives are complicated places, and there is not one uniform system of cataloguing documents that applies to each institution – each archive will have its own catalogue system, developed over time. Many repositories still have paper indexes to their catalogues, which need to be trawled through in person to find document references even if some of their collections have been uploaded into digital catalogues, although these days many archive catalogues are available to search online.
One important project aims to bring all these disparate catalogues and document descriptions together in one place on the Internet. Known as Access to Archives (A2A), it is an online database containing descriptions of over 10 million documents held in around 400 local archives across England and Wales. It aims to increase awareness of these fantastic resources and facilitate easy access to them. You can search the database by keyword, area, date range and repository name by going to www.a2a.org.uk. Full document descriptions are provided along with references and a note as to where each document is held. Many local and county record offices have submitted their catalogues to the A2A database, but it cannot be stressed enough that if you can’t find anything related to your research using A2A you still need to visit the record office itself and consult the original indexes.
The National Register of Archives (NRA) is another treasure trove of catalogue descriptions, but is arranged in a different way to the A2A catalogue. Its database of record descriptions held for around 29,000 businesses, 75,000 organizations, 9,000 families, and 46,000 individuals can be searched using four types of search engine. The NRA database is accessed via The National Archives’ website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra, where you can search under a corporate name, personal name, family name or place name. This database is fantastic for finding out about the location of company archives and the records they hold, especially if your ancestor worked for a major corporate firm.
The Scottish Archive Network has compiled an online, unified index of documents held in many archives across Scotland, which can be searched by keyword from www.scan.org.uk/catalogue. It has descriptions of over 20,000 documents from 52 archives, including the NAS and NLS.
There is even a network allowing you to search the holdings of university archives and libraries, called Archives Hub. It is being added to over time, and can be found at www.archiveshub.ac.uk.
It is always worth finding out if the archive you intend to visit has its own online catalogue accessed via its website. If you have located an archive using the ARCHON database, this should have provided you with their website address. Most of the national archives have separate online catalogues containing descriptions of documents not found on A2A or the NRA.
• The National Archives’ Catalogue has descriptions of an impressive 10 million documents that you can search by keyword, date range or government departmental code from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue. The documents held at TNA are categorized according to the government department they originated from, and a departmental code forms the first part of any TNA document reference. For example, WO is the prefix of all document references for records from the War Office. Searching for document descriptions by government departmental code can help to narrow down the number of results you get if you know what type of record you are looking for.
• The National Archives of Scotland has a database known as OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) that can be found at www.nas.gov.uk/catalogues/default.asp. This searches their collections by keyword, place authority, name authority and date, and the NAS website has a list of documents that have not yet been uploaded to OPAC and require a search of the original indexes. You could also consult the National Register of Archives for Scotland (NRAS), which is only available in paper form at the National Archives of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. This is a survey of papers held by private archives in Scotland.
… search for documents
1. Write down your research goals in advance, and keep them focused and manageable
2. Every item in an archive will have a unique catalogue reference and description
3. Document references will be contained in the archive’s catalogue index
4. Many archive catalogues are available to search online, although some are still only in paper form
5. Online catalogues are available either via the particular repository’s website, or as amalgamated catalogues of documents from local and national archives
• In a similar vein, the National Library of Wales has a full catalogue which can be found on its website www.llgc.org.uk through the ‘Search the Catalogue’ heading. Here books, periodicals, newspapers, maps, graphics, electronic publications and digitized records can be searched by keyword.
• The National Archives of Ireland’s search engine is organized in a slightly different manner, allowing you to search in one go the 19 databases comprised mainly of government departmental records. This is accessed from www.nationalarchives.ie/search but does not cover the entirety of the repository’s collections.
• The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland does not have a complete online catalogue either. There is a limited online index available from www.proni.gov.uk by following the Search the Archives link, where a Geographical Index locates parishes, Poor Law Unions and counties on a map, a Prominent Persons Index finds references for documents relating to individuals, a Presbyterian Church Index and a Church of Ireland Index lists those church records that have been microfilmed, and a Subject Index describes the types of records held at the PRONI.
• The Society of Genealogists, which charges admission for non-members, has its own catalogue known as SOGCAT available from its website www.sog.org.uk/sogcat/access. Here you can search an alphabetical index by parish name, surname or subject to see if they hold copies of the parish registers you are looking for, or records of a particular pedigree you are hoping to find.
Once you have scoured the online catalogues and indexes for all the archives you plan to visit, and have made lists of all the documents that sound useful to your studies, why not see if it is possible to order those documents in advance of your visit? Most of the websites mentioned have clear instructions on how to do this either online or over the phone if they offer an advanced ordering facility. Your next step is to brave your first visit to the archives …
… work in an archive
1. Only use pencil and a spiral-bound note pad to make notes
2. Don’t eat or drink in the reading room
3. Handle documents as little as possible
4. Respect your fellow researchers: turn mobile phones off and work quietly
5. Laptops and digital cameras are usually allowed, but check with the archivist first
Because the material they hold is unique and irreplaceable, there are rules and regulations that you will have to follow during your visit. Actually, these rules are there to help you make the most of your research trip, as well as protect the documents for other users.
Document preservation and conservation is an important part of archival work, and to ensure that documents are not damaged you will find that archives impose strict rules on what you can bring into the reading rooms with you, plus guidelines on document handling techniques. In general, the golden rule of archives is that you must work with pencils only – biros and pens are forbidden due to the potential harm they can cause to original material. Similarly, erasers and pencil sharpeners should not be used or placed near documents, as they can cause damage. There is usually a no eating or drinking rule in place for similar reasons, and this extends to cough sweets and chewing gum.
If you are unsure about how you should be handling an item, or you feel it is delicate, please ask an archivist to assist you. Most archives have a store of foam wedges, supports and weights to help set the document out in a way that carries a minimum risk of harm. Try to limit your own contact with the item; for example, if reading a line of text, do not run your finger along the document, as grease from your skin can cause damage. Instead, place a piece of white paper under the line of text to help you keep your place. If you are having difficulty reading faded text, ultraviolet lamps can often help pick out lost words. Similarly, maps and plans are often covered under clear protective sheets, and you should always ask before you attempt to trace a document.
The amount of material you can bring into the reading rooms will also be limited. Apart from banning pens, erasers and pencil sharpeners, it is likely that you will be asked to leave the majority of your research notes in a locker outside the reading room area, and bring in only spiral-bound note pads or sheets of paper stapled together; and what you can bring in will be probably searched on the way in and the way out. This is to prevent document theft; sadly, many items ‘go missing’ each year.
Finally, you should, wherever possible, respect your fellow researchers and work in silence. If you do need to confer with a friend or colleague, try to talk quietly and leave the reading room to do so. Mobile phones should be turned off or left in silent mode – there’s nothing more annoying than having your concentration disturbed by someone’s phone ringing! Most archives allow you to bring your laptop into the reading room, but you should also set them up so that they are silent when turned on. Digital cameras are also largely welcomed these days, though you need to obtain clearance first from the archivist if you want to take photos, as there could be copyright implications and not all cameras are ‘document friendly’.
Here are a few tips to help you avoid common mistakes, and make the most of the material at your disposal.
Visiting archives can sometimes be more physically demanding than you might think. The increase in the amount of material that has been digitalized and made available online is gradually changing the process of archival research, but you may still need to spend a proportion of your time on your feet or lifting heavy books and large documents. If you are not very robust you might want to consider taking a friend or relative along to help you out. Many documents are also stored as duplicate copies on microfilm or microfiche, which some people find difficult to read for long periods of time if they have poor eyesight. Many archives are aware of the difficulties faced by elderly visitors or those with special needs to cater for, and have invested in specially designed computers for people with poor eyesight.
It might also be worth considering coming to an archive in old clothes. Many old documents are quite dirty, particularly ancient leather-bound tomes whose spines have decayed to an old, red powder that can make quite a mess on clean, white clothes! You should always wash your hands before and after visiting an archive, as you never know what old microbes you might have picked up from the documents during your visit.
‘It’s not unusual to find variant spellings of the same word, particularly personal and place names, in a single piece of text.’
If you are fortunate enough to be able to trace the history of your family back before 1733, you may well encounter difficulties interpreting relevant material, as the language of official documents was Latin. So material such as manorial court rolls – a highly important source for a family historian – will need translating, as will any official record of deeds or land transfers that were enrolled in the central courts. The exception to this is the Interregnum period (1649–60), when the Parliamentary regime decreed that all official documents should be written in English, and you will also find that some official documents were written in the English language before 1733.
Another potential problem will be that scribes tended to employ abbreviations when recording entries, so you will not necessarily be working from easily identifiable Latin words. Handwriting changed over the ages, and even if a document has been written in English it may be difficult to decipher. Official sources can be easier, as scribal technique – the way someone wrote a document – tended to change more slowly as writers adopted the handwriting of their predecessors. However, private hands varied widely, even within a relatively short period, often employing idiosyncratic shorthand techniques. Spellings also differed widely between authors, and it is not unusual to find variant spellings of the same word, particularly personal and place names, in a single piece of text. All of these problems can make interpreting documents difficult. However, there are ways to make documents seem less intimidating.
Most archives stock Latin dictionaries to help you translate key phrases, whilst there are similar publications to help you understand palaeography, which is the technical term used to describe the handwriting and abbreviations employed in the documents. Furthermore, there are specialist volumes written for family and local historians that provide translations and explanations of the formulae for the most commonly used documents that you will encounter. If you are still unsure, try selecting a similar document from the Interregnum period, which will be in English. Most documents follow standard patterns, with only the details of individuals and places altering. This will enable you to decide where you should be looking in the document for key phrases, and assist with translation. In addition, some local history societies provide transcriptions and translations of important document series, with the added advantage that they are usually indexed. These too can be used to aid interpretation of difficult original material.
Many archives and institutions have created resources online to help you to teach yourself Latin and palaeography. One of the best, since it’s linked to their own documents, is provided for free by The National Archives on their website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ palaeography, and there is a site where ancient Scottish handwriting can be demystified at www.scottishhandwriting.com.
Not everyone is familiar with the way documents are dated. Many dates are given in the form of a Regnal year – the year is described in relation to the date the monarch ascended the throne and the number of years for which they had reigned, rather than the familiar reference to the number of years since the birth of Christ. For example, 20 Henry VIII covers the period 22 April 1528 to 21 April 1529 – the twentieth year of his reign, which began on 22 April 1509. Similarly, a large proportion of legal documentation also incorporates a legal term date – Michaelmas, Hilary, Easter or Trinity – which signifies a particular part of the year in which business was conducted.
… be prepared for pitfalls
1. Be aware that searching archives can be physically demanding and dirty work
2. Older official records will be in Latin, and often abbreviated Latin at that
3. Handwritten records can be hard to read and spellings can be erratic, especially of names
4. Documents may be dated using Regnal years, legal terms and saints’ days
5. Before 1752, years started in March, not January
6. Always bear in mind a document’s original purpose and context
Furthermore, you may come across dates such as 28 February 1700/01, which refer to the old-style dating technique employed by the Church following the Julian calendar, which started the New Year on 25 March, rather than on 1 January as we do today. The practice was dropped in 1752, the same year that the Gregorian calendar was adopted. The best guide to the many and varied ways of writing dates is Cheney’s Handbook of Dates, which provides tables giving Regnal years, Easter days and saints’ days, which were also used as ways of giving a date.
When looking at the material you have selected, it is very tempting to jump straight in to identify references to your family hidden within the pages. Understandable though this is, given all the procedures you’ve had to go through to get to this stage, it would be a mistake to launch straight in without first checking what you are looking at, and why. Before you can usefully extract information from a document, you will need to understand why that document was created in the first place, how it would have been used, and what message it contained at the time it was written. If you do not do this, then you may be taking the information it contains out of its historical context and therefore run the risk of misinterpreting it. After all, documents were not initially created for the purpose of helping family detectives locate their ancestors in the twenty-first century. The records might not easily lend themselves to modern research techniques – for example, indexes may not survive, or you may need to identify the property where people lived rather than the person themselves. For example, electoral lists are a great way of tracing people’s movements, particularly in the twentieth century; however, they are rarely indexed by surname and so you need to work out their place of residence, for example from a certificate of birth, marriage or death.
Ask yourself why the document was created, and what information it was originally intended to provide. This will allow you to read it in its own context, and thereby understand why it is arranged the way it is. It may therefore be necessary to corroborate the source with one or more others before you can extract useful information from it. Most archives provide information leaflets about documents and why they were created, so set aside some time to read these useful articles so that you fully understand why you need to look at the documents. That way, you will come away with new names to add to your family tree, and a greater understanding of what they did to end up in an historical document.
‘Ask yourself why the document was created, and what information it was originally intended to provide.’
A good example is the search for a relevant death duty register (described in Chapter 8). Initially, they were created to provide information about the estate of a deceased person so that tax could be levied; but family historians now use them to track down the place where the will was registered, or to obtain further information about some of the beneficiaries in the will. At first glance, the notation used in the death duty register can be confusing or hard to read. Closer inspection, coupled with information contained in the accompanying research guide provided by The National Archives (where the records are stored) makes it easier to decipher the content of the document and allows you to extract the necessary data from the various sections of the register. This can then be used to find the will, and work out where some of the beneficiaries named in the will were living.
When you start working in an archive for the first time, you’ll need to be properly prepared. As well as following the above steps to locate an archive, locate documents within the archive, and ensure you interpret them correctly, you will also need to devote some time to the way you record and write up your findings. Here are some tips to help you.
Good note taking is an essential part of your research. If you spend a whole day in an archive, you could be wasting your time if you do not bother to record the exact searches you did, which indexes you looked at, the references of the documents you examined, what information these documents contained, and the names of any books you took copies from. You will find that the next time you go to the archives you will more than likely end up redoing searches you have already conducted simply because you cannot be sure whether you have done them or not.
‘Good note taking is an essential part of your research. Record the exact searches you did, which indexes you looked at, the document catalogue references and the information those documents contained.’
You should establish a way of recording the parish register, civil registration and probate searches you have completed so that you know exactly which parishes, years and quarters you have looked at in case you need to extend these searches at a later date. Decide on a note-taking system that works for you. Most people use abbreviations for the terms that are repeated often throughout their work. You will probably find the abbreviations used in many family trees (see Chapter 2) are handy to learn. However, consistency in the way you write your notes is important so as not to confuse yourself. For example, if you start using ‘b.’ to indicate ‘born’, you should then decide on another abbreviation for ‘baptized’ and ‘buried’ – don’t use ‘b.’ for all three as you will soon get confused!
Some people prefer to take a laptop with them to the archives so they can type their notes straight into electronic form. But there will be occasions when a laptop will not be allowed in certain areas of an archive, so be prepared for this. You should always have a set of notes, whether written or electronic, which you can take into the archives with you to work from. Keep hold of your research plans and ensure you record how much of it you achieved so that you know how much you need to do on your next visit. Date your notes so that you can keep a chronological track of your progress and can work from the most recent set of notes, and record the name of the archive you visited to avoid confusion, just in case two archives use a similar referencing system for their documents.
When you are taking notes it is important to record the source of absolutely everything, whether it is a person, an archive, a website or a book. When writing document references be sure to include the exact page and folio numbers where you found the correct entry so that you can find it again easily if you need to, even the line on which it was written. If you consult a document that turns out to be of no use, make a note of this so that you do not go back to it again.
Secondary sources also contain valuable information for family historians, so when you take a photocopy from a book or write out a paragraph from it, record its full title, the author’s name, the publisher and year of publication, which should be found on the inside cover, as well as the relevant page numbers. Recording the year of publication for books will be surprisingly useful to your research. You may find a fascinating paragraph in a local history book describing the house your ancestors used to live in, but if you don’t bother to look at when the book was published you won’t be able to put that description into its own historical context. Many history books were published in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a lot of which are still in our libraries today, and their descriptions of events and places will differ from those of more recent authors.
‘It is important to distinguish between evidence and analysis in your notes, otherwise mistakes will start to creep into your work.’
It is important that your notes distinguish between what is evidence and what is analysis. When you return to your notes at a later time, perhaps to type them up or to remind yourself what you found on your last visit to the archives, you need to be able to rely on them. Therefore, if you transcribe a passage from an original document, put that paragraph in speech marks so you know that was what was written word-for-word. If there are any phrases you are unsure of put them in square brackets, because assuming the meaning of a few words could alter the entire context of a piece of text. Anything you have scribbled down as presumption, analysis or ideas should be labelled clearly as being so, because these opinions may change as you find more documents. You want to avoid confusing fact with ideas, otherwise mistakes will start to creep into your work.
A genealogy project produces an enormous amount of paperwork, from your research notes and photocopied documents to the photographs you find and the family papers your relatives give you. Sooner rather than later you will undoubtedly find that you don’t know what to do with it all! It is very tempting to just pile it all into a big box and hide it under the bed, but that would be a huge shame after all your hard work, not to mention that it makes finding documents and notes you need to work from a bit of a nightmare.
There are various filing systems you can adapt to suit your own purposes. It is worth investing in a decent expandable file with plenty of dividers and labels. And you may prefer to showcase some key documents in a portfolio file to keep them pristine. There are many ways of organizing your paperwork. You might want to classify your notes alphabetically by surname, or perhaps keep all the notes from one archive visit together, but it does help to keep copies of original documents together with the relevant notes. It can be useful to separate your notes for each side of the family, and then by surname and branch, especially if the same surname appears in two different branches.
If you are looking after original documents on behalf of your family, it is important to keep them away from heat, damp and direct light to prevent them from deteriorating. Where possible original documents, particularly photographs, should be stored in strong, acid-free boxes, but if you do decide to keep them in a plastic folder with the rest of your notes, you should place each document inside two thin sheets of acid-free paper to prevent the plastic from damaging them. There are companies that advertise in family history magazines or that can be found online who specialize in products that preserve fragile documents for family historians. If you are unsure, have a chat with your nearest archivist for further advice.
If you have a computer, you may want to consider typing up your notes so that you can create a new folder for each surname. It does help to keep the paper copies of your notes, though, in case you need to take them with you on a future visit to an archive. If you do opt for keeping an electronic record of your research, it’s handy to have one central document that compiles all of your notes, with references to where each piece of information comes from.
There is a multitude of genealogy software packages on the market with the aim of making this easy to do. They also enable you to organize the data you enter into different styles of family trees, charts, reports and indexes, which is almost impossible to do if you are just using a word-processing package. If you choose the right type of genealogy software, you will find that you can not only use it to store all your research, including a fact file of each individual linked up with images of photos and documents, audio recordings of interviews with family members, family holiday videos, and notes about the sources you have found, but you can simultaneously do some of your research online by connecting to genealogy websites that are compatible with your chosen software and migrate the online records you find into your family file. Don’t be scared to invest in a package to play around with, and learn how to get the most out of it as you go along.