My Time's My Own

“You should try it”, said Margaret. So I did.

No new family links came to light for me, but it did start me thinking about my ancestry and how I might go about tracing it beyond my grandparents.
I gathered together all the information I had to hand; birth, baptism, marriage, death certificates and "in memoriam" cards which had passed to me with my father's effects.
I also contacted as many living relatives as possible to find out if they had any records, to get copies and to pick their brains for any information they might have about my family history.
To my surprise I found that my cousin Roy was also attempting to trace our ancestors, but didn't currently have much more data than I.

It was fortunate that I had also inherited my maternal grandparents' Family Bible. I'd never paid much attention to it till then, but upon inspection I found that it contained pages recording details of births, marriages and deaths in the family between 1900 and 1935. Better still, it gave the marriage date, dates of birth of my maternal grandparents and the names of my four great grandparents.
Solid gold!

I shared the information with Roy and from then on it became something of a cooperative effort. When I got stuck Roy would often provide the anti-adhesive solvent.

For instance, he found a baptism certificate for our grandfather confirming his parents' names and solving a problem about his first name which had puzzled us for a while. You see, our memories, and the Family Bible, referred to him as 'Edward'(Ted) but according to the Baptism Certificate he was in fact christened 'Edmund'.
That helped a lot when it came to searching the Census Records – of which more later.

Lesson: Contact living relatives. They may save you a lot of time, effort and false leads.

Of my father's parents I knew very little apart from his mother's maiden name, her date of death and the fact that my grandfather had died about a year after my birth from wounds sustained in the Great War.   Then I came across this Post Card and photograph of his children, which they sent to him when he was with the British Expeditionary Force in France.
That gave me his Regiment, Company and Army number.

 

Having gathered all this information I drew up a rough family tree. Amazingly, even this preliminary investigation took me back to the 1870's.

I then created a form for each individual, on which I could record:-

I was now ready to fill in the details and to go back even further. That meant I had to start searching the Census Returns and BMD records available on the World Wide Web.

There are two main websites that I have found useful.

Both are subscription sites but, in my opinion, both provide good value for money.
Their User Interfaces differ but neither is particularly difficult to use.
However, I find that sometimes I have to turn my Ad Blocker off in order to access Ancestry.co.uk.
Why? - I haven't figured out.

Census Records
At 1837 Online you can search the census records for 1891, 1871, 1861 and 1841. Ancestry.co.uk provides similar facilities but provides a more comprehensive set of census records (1841-1901).
In either case you just have to provide some basic information – surname, initial, approximate age and, if available county, and birth place.
Start from what you know and work back in time. Even so, you may get a number of 'hits' and have to use your judgement and knowledge of the facts to pick the right individual.
Some discrimination is needed to make sure you don't follow the wrong track, so before searching it's best to make sure that you have some valid information against which to judge your finds.

BMD Records
To search the birth, marriage or death records you need to provide the surname and forename of the individual you're interested in and indicate the period to be searched in terms of the quarter and the year (useful, as you have only to have a rough idea of the date).
For each quarter searched a page of names is displayed, each with details of the District in which the event was registered, together with a Folio and Page number.
You may have to go through a number of pages before you find the entry that matches the person you're after.
In the case of a marriage registration it's a good idea to check the same quarter using the maiden name of the wife (if known) to make sure you have the right entry.
The District/Folio/Page information can then be used to obtain a copy of the certificate relating to that event.
The information on BMD certificates is invaluable. Details of fathers, mothers (and their maiden names), addresses, place of birth/marriage/death, fathers' occupations etc. are all revealed, providing valid data to aid further research.

Ordering Certificates
Certificates can be ordered online at www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates.
Payment can be made by credit/debit card. Before applying make sure that you have all the registration details i.e. the name of the person to whom the certificate relates, the District, the Folio/Volume number and Page number.

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