Organised Support for your Ancestor Search

The following organizations provide help and support for ancestor research:

Society of Genealogists

www.sog.org.uk

This society has its own archives of records that can be accessed at their office in London and offers a unique combination of research material, guidance and support. It is a charity whose objects are to 'promote, encourage and foster the study, science and knowledge of genealogy'.

Federation of Family History Societies

www.ffhs.org.uk

This is the umbrella organisation of the local Family History Societies already referred to. It has affiliation with societies and organisations around the world, organises conferences and runs national family history projects. From the FFHS website you can find the contact details of your local Family History Society - see 'Contacting our Members'.

Guild of One Name Studies

www.one-name.org

A one-name study is a project researching all occurrences of a surname as opposed to a particular pedigree (the ancestors of one person) or descendency (the descendents of a person or couple). A true one name study covers the whole world, although some are limited perhaps to one or more countries. The Guild of One Name Studies invites membership from people doing worldwide research, and this is a good way to

register your interest in a name and share information. As you will imagine, most names are uncommon, or certainly not the most common, although any name is eligible provided a person can show they intend to research worldwide. A website name search will reveal whether your own name, or one you want to research, is currently being studied by a guild member.

The Journal of One Name Studies is published quarterly and includes information, ideas and articles for members. A register of one name studies is held and there is a Guild email forum offering a permanent email address with your name followed by @one-name.org. Many names are also associated with one name societies and produce a periodical newsletter. Doing your own family research may be lonely until you meet people covering similar territory, so in this way you can quickly establish like-minded people when researching present names world wide. The Guild holds meetings and arranges speakers around the country.

Finding a Professional Genealogy Researcher

Some readers may want to hire a professional researcher, perhaps for specific research or because they cannot spare the time personally. Specialised work, such as reading documents in Latin and Old English may be right outside your expertise, although you can add these to your family history aims if and when your research requires it.

You can get advice on most of the main genealogy sites such as GENUKI and the many UK links online. Various family history journals and newsletters also feature advertisements for a whole range of local searching and more specialised services. Bear in mind, however, that many enthusiasts carry out work free of charge on the basis of 'give and take'. This especially includes visiting a local record office to do a search or collect a certificate that can save a lot of time and expense and is an ideal form of reciprocation.

Overseas researchers, such as those from the USA, can benefit particularly, as well as novices who have not yet the expertise to be of much help reciprocally.

There is also scope for people in the UK to share work with someone who lives at a town someone else is researching, in return for reciprocal help. This is where the family history societies and mailing lists help in putting people in touch with each other. All this keeps the cost down, avoids the need for professionals, and adds to the social aspects of family history as a hobby. Many amateurs who have given many years to their research can provide more expert help than those making a charge. Only by giving as well as taking can such an invaluable network be maintained. Check out the society or email the secretary in your 'target' town to find out what voluntary services can be expected, and how best you can use these and economise on time and effort.

Common Mistakes when Tracing your Family Tree

We can be thankful that what is important has long since been identified by generations of genealogists who learned the hard way - by making mistakes galore and putting disproportionate effort into relatively fruitless activities.

When it comes to old records - or any aspect of your family history interests - a few carefully chosen bits of knowledge and core researching skills will suffice for most people most of the time. Mistakes are inevitable, but it is better to learn from one rather than six.

Not every word or event has equal importance to your overall research. Names, for example, have high priority, along with places and dates as they form a foundation for later research.

A 'trees and forest', or 'detail and big picture' approach applies across the board. There are some things that a detailed word by word study will not reveal, such as the context and comparisons in other parts of a document. Likewise, a fast skim read will miss important detail.

Much of the difficulty in reading old documents relates simply to the personal style of the handwriting, complete with flourishes and idiosyncratic embellishments. Some types of handwriting were not taught at school, but by notaries and other professionals to their clerks or students. For example the 'secretary hand', the 'italic hand', and the 'court hand' all had distinctive forms of character and abbreviations. All this is on top of the differences as taught by different teachers, and of course the individual's own style.

Remember that records were made by individuals, with their own ideas, feelings, talents and intentions. They even had their own grammar and spelling. In an age of universal illiteracy there was not much accountability nor standards to apply. Why shouldn't a clerk spell a name three different ways in the course of a single document if its owner couldn't spell at all, and it made no difference to the purpose of the record or the efficiency of the system it supported?

Much of the methodology of understanding archives boils down to comparison. For example, comparing unknown words and characters with known ones in the same document. Depending on the size of the document, start from the same page, then work forwards and backwards page by page in turn - you may not have to check far for a given word, and familiarity will help with other queries. The job is much easier if you know the context and what is probably being communicated or recorded. Thus by finding a difficult word or character whose meaning is clear, you can better understand it in a less obvious context.

Tracing your Recent Family History

Start with what you know. Draw a simple family tree showing your grandparents, parents, yourself and your children. Add birth, marriage and death dates. Ask older relatives for information until you have got as far into the past as possible. Target your oldest relatives. Write to or telephone those living at a distance. Get to those you don't usually hear from as there is more chance of finding something new (rather than Nan 's same old stories). Great aunts and uncles are a potential gold mine. Siblings of grandparents and great-grandparents usually provide more new information. Recollections of childhood and family intelligence can vary a lot, but it pays to get it all recorded anyway. Contemporary friends, neighbours and work colleagues of your oldest relatives can also usually contribute. They may have seen much more of them than the family.

Precious Stories

Whatever your eventual aims in tracking down your ancestors it usually helps if you start off in this way. Get as much readily available information as possible on both sides of your family even though your main objective is to research your father's side surname. Jot it all down in a bound notebook or diary so that nothing gets lost. You don't know what you may finish up doing in your FH exploits, and easily obtainable information may take on special value in the future - to others as well as yourself. Domestic investigation is good practice for the research skills you will need at an increasing level. If it involves a bit of detective work, even better. We will cover your specific aims shortly, but the idea is to make a hands-on start and gather all the information you can, which might well influence what you do thereafter. This is a standard, boring rule but it does pay dividends and you will probably have fun doing it. Make a start, anyway. All too soon older relatives die off and precious stories are lost forever.

Family Surname Searches

You may want to use surnames in one of two main ways. One name studies are popular, and these relate to a single surname usually on a worldwide or countrywide basis, regardless of individual family lines. If your name is uncommon, this can be an interesting kind of research and a fascinating hobby in its own right. The other use of surnames is in the course of genealogy and family history research when the surname is your prime focus of interest. This may be a single paternal or maternal name tracked as far back as you can, or one or more of the many names you can trace by following marriage lines.

Surnames on the Internet

Surname resources are at soc.genealogy.surnames.britain and soc.genealogysurnames.ireland. GenServ is a volunteer-operated collection of family history GEDCOM files, from which you can have a trial 60-day access if you submit your own files - a mutual, or reciprocal resource. Rootsweb comprises a community of thousands of web pages where you can search for names. There are links to information on getting started, family history centres, the ROOTS-L mailing lists and genealogy-related files you can request by email and lots more. For example an article entitled Computers: Changing the Face of Genealogy (relatively old [1989] but valid). Surname Helper lets you search for a surname linking you to its website source anywhere in the world, such as a UK county GenWeb project. The World GenWeb project is a non-profit, volunteer based project collecting genealogical data around the world. FreeREG provides details of baptisms, marriages and burial records. It is part of the FreeUKGEN project and companion to FreeBDM. These are just being developed at the time of writing. You can also browse or search for surnames on ancestralfindings.com, where you will get email addresses of the people doing the research.

Starting a Family Tree

The following rules, tips, principles and guidelines will help towards a painless start, whatever approach you want to take to family history. More important, they will provide the right foundation for a pleasurable, long-term interest in the subject that will more than reward your time and effort.

• Work backwards. You may well have a famous ancestor but you can never be sure until you have made the connection in a 'tree' that connects to your mum or dad. Add a 'great' to your great-grandparent and one more 'great' at a time. The more recent the records are, the more reliable and legible they will tend to be. You will therefore meet the joys of funny spelling and handwriting gradually as you work further back in time.
• Have a method. Any method is better than none when it comes to keeping records. Just bear in mind that ancestry records grow like Topsy, like twigs and leaves on a tree as compared with its single trunk and few main branches, so you will need spare capacity in every part of your recording system. Make these common sense principles more than good ideas, but part of your routine way of tracking, recording and filing information.
• Do as much as you can before you arrive at a record office, such as preparing separate sheets for different records or types of records. You will save valuable time you can spend instead on actual transcription during your limited time with the source documents.
• Transcribe data exactly as you find it. This rule applies also to layout, such as the order of columns of a census form. You will soon become familiar with layouts of registers and certificates, so a different, personal layout will be confusing later. Transcribe errors and all.
• Don't go off at tangents. Old records can be so intriguing that you are tempted to pursue anything of interest, even if it is not part of your family history aims. Suddenly the afternoon is gone and you realise you haven't got half of what you set out to get. Stay focused.

What is Genealogy?

'Family history research' is said to be the fastest growing hobby in the UK, as well as being the second most popular topic on the internet. Tracing ancestors seems to go deeper than your average hobby, fulfilling some sort of basic need to get to know our origins and, presumably, understand ourselves better in the process. It can certainly throw up some great stories, quotable even outside your own family circle, and provide no end of fun and pleasure.

Based on the number of generations we have clocked up in a few centuries, and the remarkable effect of compound growth, we all have recorded ancestors in plenty. It seems that statistically even the most anonymous of 21st century families are the progeny of a motley congregation of the good, great, sick, sad, strange, evil, infamous and interestingly mediocre. Like leaves on a summer tree, those early branches (we must come from somewhere) soon make big numbers, harbouring more Toms and Marys, let alone thieves and paupers, than you would have thought a respectable family tree could bear. Each Tom and Mary has a story. Some, because of our rich genealogical resources and the internet, can be tracked down across the centuries. In a sense that true family historians know well, these people can be made to live again.

Tracking down your ancestors can involve family history, genealogy or both. What's the distinction?

• Genealogy usually refers to recording your family tree, or pedigree, as far back as you can go, over one or more family names.
• Family history, on the other hand, puts the people you find into their historical context and the aim is to find out as much about them and their contemporary history as possible - their stories. The history or story part is what makes it addictively interesting.

The US leads the way in family history as a serious hobby. Americans are probably better represented in research into UK, 'old country' ancestry than UK residents themselves. So, although some of the top websites are US biased, they none the less have plenty of content about British ancestry, useful to British researchers. The UK is certainly blessed with a wealth of archived material housed in public records offices and libraries, stretching back to the Norman conquest.

Anyone prepared to delve into a little Latin and Old English and expand their school history can search these very early dates - if not there is no end of help available. This is attractive to many thousands of new world descendants of the islands - including Australians - who have no less affinity with their Anglo Saxon roots than natives and whose ranks have fuelled the growth of family history to its present popularity.

Given commitment and enthusiasm, that world, and its citizens that held your name, is within your reach, just waiting to be discovered.

Choosing a Care Home

How do you know which care home is the most suitable for your beloved relative or friend? How can you decide where they will be happy and well cared for?

Many hospitals complain there is a bed shortage. It is claimed elderly patients cause this because they have nowhere to go after leaving hospital as there is nobody to look after them at home and so they have to stay in hospital. They now need care and help with the activities of daily living such as washing and dressing etc. Some elderly patients are fit enough to be cared for in a residential care home, others need some or total nursing care. There are also elderly patients in the early or middle stages of Alzheimer's disease and others who suffer from a mental illness.

Hospital staff are anxious to free the beds as soon as possible to make way for new patients who need surgery or urgent medical treatment. This puts pressure on care managers and the patient's relatives to find somewhere where their loved one can be cared for on a temporary or permanent basis.

To help a new resident feel at home and as happy as they can be in the circumstances, they need to have the basic requirements for an elderly person. These are:

• privacy
• comfort
• warmth
• appropriate food
• kind, understanding staff
• company with people with whom they can make friends
• clean clothing
• toilet training, incontinence pads and pants if required
• help with washing/bathing and toilet
• occupational ploys - hobbies, crafts, etc
• somebody within the staff with whom they can relate
• hand rails along walls, in bathrooms, toilets, etc
• competent care when they are healthy
• competent care during sickness, i.e. headaches, migraines, colds, etc
• a good sized, nicely decorated bedroom with an adequate amount of serviceable furniture including a comfortable bed and chair, wardrobe, chest of drawers, a chair for visitors, commode (if required) curtains and bed linen, towels, etc, hand basin or en-suite facilities.

When all the hard work is done and your relative has settled down you will be able to relax and congratulate yourself on a job well done.