Family Historian User Group

Hi
I have just purchased Historian 6, looked at most of the tutorials and guides and entered what info I already have. The package is great and so far no problems.
I now need to start my research but was somewhat surprised at costs. i.e. FindMyPast at £120pa, My Heritage at £75pa and Ancestry.co.uk at £70 for 6 months.
What is a sensible path for me to take? If I have to join one of those sites ok but am I missing a trick?
Obviously I will need to get copies of Birth, Marriage & Death certificates but am not sure if membership to any of the above sites actually has copies of these that I can dowload? if so is there extra costs?
Any suggestions on how best to proceed.
Thanks
Chris Hewett

Welcome to the FHUG Chris.

As a newcomer I advise you study how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers and follow its links into our extensive Knowledge Base.

Look at research:index|> Genealogy Research and explore all its advice.

To answer your specific questions, you do not need to subscribe to any of those online sites initially.
There are many free research sites, and your library may have a subscription to Ancestry or FindMyPast.
Nevertheless, the search features are mostly free on most sites, but the document details often need a subscription.
BMD Certificates are NOT available via those subscription sites, but must be purchased from the GRO.
See research:useful_research_web_sites|> Useful Research Web Sites and in particular check under England & Wales ~ Civil Registration.
The first thing you need to understand is the distinction between the GRO BMD Index and the GRO BMD Certificates.

Checkout the discussion in Find my Past... or Ancestry ? (15275).

Thanks very much, great advice and directs me where to go for full understanding.
Regards
Chris

The GRO website has a useful and free search facility for birth and death registrations (Births: 1837 –1916, Deaths: 1837 –1957). You have to register to access the site, but I've not had any spam email as a result of registering. Also they have introduced an option whereby having found a birth or death registration you can purchased a download of an image (as a PDF file) of the certificate for £6, as opposed to buying a printed copy for £9.50.
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/cert ... efault.asp
One advantage of this site over many others is that for births they show the mothers maiden surname (where recorded) for records right back to 1837, and for deaths the age at death, again back to that date.

Thanks David, that's a good one.

Yes, that is the one in research:useful_research_web_sites|> Useful Research Web Sites under England & Wales ~ Civil Registration listed as fhugdownloads:contents:service_uk_gro_online_index_search|> Service ~ UK GRO Online Index Search.

When you start to go further you will need to look up such things as census records and parish records. If you live near where all your ancestors came from you will be able to do this for free at your County Archive (Record Office, not the same thing as the Register Office!)
However if, like me, you live far away from access to your ancestors' records you will start to see that an annual subscription to one or more of the big websites is good value for money. For me to visit the Archive where all my father's family came from would involve a 300 mile journey and at least 2 nights accommodation and meals. You can see that I would spend more than an annual sub to Findmypast in just ONE visit, let alone access every day for a full year.

Anne

However if, like me, you live far away from access to your ancestors' records you will start to see that an annual subscription to one or more of the big websites is good value for money.

One of the little used resources nowadays are the LDS Family History Centres which I used quite a lot for those far away places before records came online. If you live close to one and finance is an issue, their resources cover the world but you will need to learn how to use a film reader and/or a microfiche reader

If you want to know where your local Centre is you can find it at https://www.familysearch.org/locations/

And don't be too concerned that you might be encouraged into the Mormon church as in my experience this never happens.

Brian

Chris -- I'll give my standard advice for newcomers, but first, here's a preamble.

What I call the genealogy 'industry' (i.e. the big subscription sites) are keen to lock users into their own ecosystems. Most allow you to create a tree online and attempt to make it easy for you to attach records from their site onto your tree there, so that you have to visit the site again and again (and keep an active subscription). They encourage users to search for people by name, in the guise of making it 'easier'. Because of this, I believe they encourage people in bad habits.

During an online presentation I viewed from the US National Archives, one of the archivists was giving advice to listeners who wanted to find their people in the records she was talking about. I think her advice is useful for anyone looking for people in any set of records. She invited us to think about a three-legged stool. If you have only one or two legs of the stool, you can't stand on it or it will tip over. If you have three legs, you have a stable place to stand.

The three legs of the stool are name, a timeframe or date range, and a location.

Taking a wider view, if you goal is broader than "can I find my person in this specific record set", it also helps to ask a specific research question -- in particular, what Dr. Thomas W. Jones has called a productive research question -- as well as a knowledge of what records might hold the answer to those questions.

So my standard advice to newcomers is to learn about the websites before you decide to sign up for them. If they have free videos to watch that show you how to use the website, watch them before you pay. If they have free collections you can search, practice searching with those records to understand how the search engine works and how it displays data to you. Sign up for any free e-newsletters so you can get tips, promotions, and news about free access periods. Familiarize yourself with the site, so that you know how to use Ancestry's Card Catalog or findmypast's A-Z list instead of just leaping in to search for a name. If you don't know how to browse digital images which aren't indexed yet, take classes or get someone with more experience to learn how.

Then start keeping some kind of research notebook. Make note of new record collections which are coming online and make a 'wishlist' of what you'd like to look at, based on your time+location evaluation from the 'three-legged stool' exercise.

Pretty soon you'll know which sites, if any, you want to get a subscription for (or use at your local library / family history center) because your wishlist will tell you.

What you don't want to do is what I did, when I was first starting out. I purchased a copy of Family Tree Maker (ugh) which came with a subscription to Ancestry. (I am in the US, so this was one of the US subscriptions.) I wasted most of the period of the free trial just learning how Ancestry worked. (I quickly came to my senses and after looking at several other programs, chose Family Historian).

One of my husband's lines came through Canada. Ancestry sent me a promotion telling me I could see all these exciting records from Canada if I got a World Subscription. I bit on the offer and signed up for the World Sub. I discovered pretty quickly that I couldn't find any records about the family I was looking for. Why? Because they were in Canada for a very short time, between 1841 and 1845, which is before Confederation. There was no nationwide or province-wide civil registration at that time, so there were no birth registrations to look for, and there were no border crossing records, because the US didn't start keeping them until about 50 years later. If I had thought about any of these things in advance, I would have known doing research to find my research subjects would take more work than simply searching Ancestry databases by name. I did have some UK research to do, mostly in England, but I had already found most of the England Census records I needed on another website, so apart from collecting some BT passenger lists, I quickly ran out of records to look for.

You needn't keep an ultra-detailed research log with spreadsheets or specialized logs if that's not your thing, but simply writing down a list of possible questions and a 'wishlist' of records and research tasks you want to do (and why you wanted to look for them) is a HUGE help. Writing down notes about your research process gives you an 'audit trail' you can go back to later and see your progress as a researcher.

For example: Perhaps as a new researcher you search with only one spelling of your surname. Eventually you discover that spelling used to be much more fluid than it is now, and you need to repeat your older searches with variants. Maybe you take a class and learn how to use wildcards. If you've kept notes about what you searched for the first time around, it's much easier to repeat those searches with the variants or to put your new search skills to use.

P.S. for a productive research question, consider the difference between asking "What is John Smith's birthdate?" and "When was John Smith born?" The latter question is more likely to yield *some* answer, which you can refine as your skills get better.

If you haven't used the FamilySearch Wiki, take a look at their articles on the Research Process. If you're doing research in England. the Strategic Research Logs for England have tips on how to search. Record finders can also help you think about what you want to search for.

If you can get access at a local family history center, also consider trying The Genealogist -- they have some clever tools that help the new user correlate information on the census with BMD indexes. They're a bit pricey, but sign up for their newsletter to get their feature articles. I used The Genealogist as my sample site in a demonstration of how to evaluate a site's contents without a subscription here: Catch 22: how do you know if a data provider's sub will be valuable to you — before you subscribe?

Another site which gets overlooked is GenGuide. This site doesn't have records -- it has guides which explain different record types and has links showing you where you can see the records.

Chris

Genealogy is like any other hobby you have to pay to take part.

Research is now far cheaper than it used to be, before sites such as Ancestry were available you had to visit the local record office, church, library etc in the area that you wanted to do your research. The cost of travelling around the country was far in excess of what these subscriptions now are.

You don't need access to all of the sites you mentioned just one will do for your first year and if you look at the cost it is only about £2.50 a week for one of those sites, less than a cup of coffee from Starbucks or a pint of beer.

brianlummis wrote:

However if, like me, you live far away from access to your ancestors' records you will start to see that an annual subscription to one or more of the big websites is good value for money.

One of the little used resources nowadays are the LDS Family History Centres which I used quite a lot for those far away places before records came online. If you live close to one and finance is an issue, their resources cover the world but you will need to learn how to use a film reader and/or a microfiche reader

If you want to know where your local Centre is you can find it at https://www.familysearch.org/locations/

And don't be too concerned that you might be encouraged into the Mormon church as in my experience this never happens.

Brian

And don't forget a lot, if not all, their records are now also online at https://www.familysearch.org

jmurphy has some good advice that I plan to plagiarise and add to research:getting_started|> Getting Started with Genealogy Research.

[ EDIT: I have captured much of the advice from this thread in research:getting_started#research_ancestral_records|> Research Ancestral Records and would welcome any feedback on its content. ]

I would also suggest contacting your nearest Family History Society, and see if they have a Research Centre you can visit. I believe that most do.
Most would have access to at least FMP and Ancestry and also you can talk to the Volunteers and they would guide you in what records you need to view and how to do it. You shouldn't need to be a member of that Society to access the Research Centre although you may need to pay a nominal fee for the day.

Certainly Devon Family History Society has subs to Ancestry, FMP, The Genealogist and we also have a copy of all the PR's for Devon that are on Microfiche, so any PR's that are not on line can be looked at in the Research Centre.

Also with regards to paying for subscription sites it does all depend on where your Ancestors are mainly from. If London then Ancestry is probably best. If Devon then it would be FMP. Other counties you would need to check what each site has. Also if you know where to look and when you can get good deals. As have just paid £89.99 for 12 Months Ancestry World Wide

tatewise wrote:jmurphy has some good advice that I plan to plagiarise and add to research:getting_started|> Getting Started with Genealogy Research.

[ EDIT: I have captured much of the advice from this thread in research:getting_started#research_ancestral_records|> Research Ancestral Records and would welcome any feedback on its content. ]

Thanks for the kind words! I really need to learn how to edit wikis and contribute more to the KB.

The one bit of info I didn't mention in my previous notes is a concept that took me a long time to understand. I can't remember which professional genealogist said it -- but it was probably Michael Hait, in his presentation on how to look up the laws that were in effect at the time a record was made. He said that clerks don't keep records for fun.

Most if not all of the original records that we use for genealogy were created for another purpose, and were kept because some law mandated that the records needed to be kept. These laws (whether ecclesiastical or civil) establish the framework for when we can find records.

A law is passed, sometimes with a provision that record keeping needs to start by a certain date. At first everyone may not comply all at once, so it will take a while to reach general compliance. For vital records in the USA, i.e. civil registration (what UK calls BMD and Australia calls BDM), these are kept statewide (US states are roughly equivalent to UK counties) and each jurisdiction will be different. The FamilySearch Wiki can tell us when statewide registration began and how long it took to reach general compliance. Before statewide registration, records may (or may not) have been kept at a local level, and the researcher needs to learn about each locality in order to find records.

So the newcomer to genealogy and family history, unaware of all this, and encouraged by Ancestry and everyone else to search by name, doesn't understand why everything isn't online and searchable by name, and makes bad assumptions about the contents of the databases they are searching. They might assume that when a database is marked as going from 1616 - 1815 that the records within it are complete, when the intent of the database creators is to indicate that records *might be* there from that time.

A genealogist friend of mine from Twitter recently offered to look for a marriage for me in Sheffield City Archives during one of her research trips. I had the GRO certificate and a newspaper notice, and the Archives held records from the Non-Conformist church the couple had married in from that time. (I was hoping to get that record to get another recording of the names of the witnesses, plus I was curious about what form the records would be in, and what they might say.) The archivists pulled the records, but there was nothing for my couple. Why? we don't know, but there was a gap in the records.

Sometimes you can spot gaps in the records or changes in population by making use of census reports, or by counting the baptisms, marriages, or burials in the parish registers for a given parish. But long-distance genealogists can't have the same insight into the condition of the originals as the archivists who take care of them. Don't be afraid to make use of research guides and finding aids, or to use aids which were not created for genealogy to give those records context.

The other advice I would give to beginning genealogists is this: if you are not living in the area you are doing research about, always start work in any location by getting maps of the area, both modern and historical. Learn which jurisdictions your place is in, and be aware you have to search for records in all jurisdictions. Also, especially for the USA, records themselves can move from place to place, so records created in a location or about a location may not stay there.

These are some of the things I've learned over the past decade, that I didn't know when I was just starting out.

Hi,
Hopefully this will appear today!
My ideas for starting out:
Commercial sites; they allow you to post your tree and to view some others. Beware, because they are on line they are not necessarily correct. Carefully check their sources, they are often other member's trees (this just perpetuates mistakes, my great grand mother is linked, on several trees, to a man who died in 1883, same name as her husband, but I have proved that he is not the one0 .Some have indexes and these are only possibilities, not set in stone. If you contact people don't be surprized if you don't get a reply or they just take your information and disappear. Conversely I have met a couple of good researchers but the most of my experience has been negative. Also I have read, but do not know for certain, that the newspaper element of FMP is being dropped from the Britain package.
Family history societies; they have member's interests who may be researching your name. Some have shops, Midland Ancestors have cds of transcripts of many parishes done by the Staffordshire Parish Register's Society. Midland Ancestor, when I renewed in Dec, still had 25% off FMP, still a saving after the sub is taken into account.
County Archives; they are a fount of help. They do research but at a charge, but they are extremely helpful and will point you in the right direction. Staffs has an online chat facility. They often have an online catalogue.
Magazines; some may disagree but I have learned a great deal from them over the years. They give updates of what is new in various places. They have problem pages. If you have a large newsagents locally which carries a selection, go each month and see which has the best info for you until you get one you like.
Web sites; as has been suggested, Freebmd, Freecen. GRO. Some counties have their own indexes for birth, marriage and death. These contain similar info to Freebmd but have the county registration references and often the info is a little more local as the church for marriage and the town instead of registration district for births. This coverage is not everywhere, but Staffs is excellent, Shropshire has only births. Some areas have useful local sites eg thepotteries.org the West Midlands also has a good site. Some counties have online parish clerks, I believe Lancs is good for this. There is a site called wishful thinking, on the potteries there are memorial inscriptions.
Courses; there are some good online courses, they cost, but the National Archives has free videos.
Certificates; Ask relatives initially they may have some you could copy - free! Extract every ounce of info from them. Look up the addresses, put the dates on a time line, do not ignore informants and witnesses, these can be married relatives. This can lead you to other roads. The informant on my great grandmother's death was her son, but he had her maiden name he was illigitimate but in early censuses he had her married name and I had lost track of him until then. If the informant is the Coroner there may be an inquest leading to a newspaper report. If you can't find under the ancestor's name it could come under coroner's name. Check the cause of death, it isn't always as it seems, "general paralysis" is not a stroke. Causes can indicate life style or occupational disease. Don't dismiss death certs as having least informtion they can often be the best. I had 2 newspaper reports for my husband's ancestor for bing drunk and disorderly "what a lad" I thought, this changed when his death cert said died of chronic alcholism, poor family. His wife died in the workhouse, "wife of Charles Simcock, well sinker". In no other record was he recorded as a "well sinker". I followed that trail, filling out the lives of that famaily. Ages on death are not set in stone, they are only as good as the knowledge of the informant. On births if there is a baptism for a child on the day or next day of birth or, on earlier ones, mid week, the child may be sickly, look for a death. Marriages have witnesses, if you are able to look at surrounding marriages see if the witnesses appear with other people they could be a church official. Check if siblings are married on same day, they would save money on the "do".
Census; don't only look for your target, search the surrounding streets, 10 to 1 you will find relatives
Lastly ask relatives but always check the info memory can be selective. Always check info you are given. Try to get several sources for your facts.
Sorry if I have gone on. Hope you have great success.
Very best Ann
Fingers crossed ot posts!

brianlummis wrote:

However if, like me, you live far away from access to your ancestors' records you will start to see that an annual subscription to one or more of the big websites is good value for money.

One of the little used resources nowadays are the LDS Family History Centres which I used quite a lot for those far away places before records came online. If you live close to one and finance is an issue, their resources cover the world but you will need to learn how to use a film reader and/or a microfiche reader

Using film or microfiche readers isn't so much of an issue now since its not been possible to order in copies to LDS FHCs since last September when they stopped the facility. Some FHCs do hold a number on long term loan (which vary from centre to centre) but most "films" are accessed through familysearch.org. While some are available to view from home, a large number (at least for the UK) are restricted to the FHCs for contractual reasons. That said, there seems to be a fair delay at present with digital microfilms being digitised (ie. a DGS number appears against he microfilm in the Familysearch catalogue) and becoming viewable through the website. Hopefully this will be resolved in due course as many are within collections that already have digitised films available with consecutive microfilm numbers (therefore most likely filmed at the same time as those not available) so is less likely to be due to contractual restrictions, although this is the default response if you contact their support.

jmurphy wrote:...
A genealogist friend of mine from Twitter recently offered to look for a marriage for me in Sheffield City Archives during one of her research trips. I had the GRO certificate and a newspaper notice, and the Archives held records from the Non-Conformist church the couple had married in from that time. (I was hoping to get that record to get another recording of the names of the witnesses, plus I was curious about what form the records would be in, and what they might say.) The archivists pulled the records, but there was nothing for my couple. Why? we don't know, but there was a gap in the records.
...

Just to make a suggestion on that - who "signed" the GRO certificate? See the preamble on http://www.cheshirebmd.org.uk/marrcov.php but prior to 1898, marriages in non-conformist chapels were documented in the Superintendent Registrar's own civil marriage registers. Whether the chapel kept its own records, I'd no idea before but your experience suggests that at least one chapel didn't! I suspect that even after 1898, not every chapel would have applied for the appropriate licence to keep their own marriage registers.