Recording Names - some hints

When recording your family history, here are a few tips you might find useful to keep things clear.
1. Enter Names Consistently
Whether you record names in your family tree as you would read them: first name, middle name, surname (last name); or surname first, then first name, middle name - be consistent. Pick one and stick to it, or you will end up confusing yourself - and anyone else who looks at your research.
2. Record Surnames in Uppercase
I always record last names using uppercase letters. It allows me, and other researchers to find certain surnames more easily. It can also aid researchers in deciphering exactly what they’re looking at: a surname, as opposed to a first name or middle name. For example Peter GREEN; Rosa May PIKE.
3. Remember to Input Maiden Names for Female Ancestors
You may well discover that some of your ancestors were recorded using married names, names of prior husbands, AND maiden names.  Make sure you include her maiden name in your records - it can help you uncover who her parents were, too. How you do so is up to you - either by recording all female relatives by their maiden names ie Rosa May PIKE, or by including their maiden name in parentheses, and then the surname of her husband ie Rosa May (Pike) GREEN.  Again, it is vital to be consistent.
4. Don’t Forget Nicknames
If your ancestor went by a nickname, always include it in your documentation. Don’t replace a given name with a nickname, however, even if your ancestor went by this name more commonly than their actual first name. Instead, include nicknames in quotes. For example,  Richard “Dick” Pike.  Remember you may have to search under both given name and nickname - just in case.
5. Add Alternate Names
Sometimes you will find family members who have totally alternate names, rather than nicknames. This commonly occurs if someone was adopted or changed their name on their own accord (maybe to escape a shady past). Again you could include the alternate name in parentheses,  adding “a.k.a” (also known as) to make things clear. For example: Edward FORREST (a.k.a. Frederick BEST).
6. Variant Spellings
You are also bound to stumble upon alternate names due to variant spellings (they can sometimes change over time due to phonetic spellings or from immigration). My mother's maiden name was PUMMEROY - and our family in Australia are the only ones who spell it this way.  Others use POMMEROY, POMEROY, POMROY - at one stage it even morphs into PUMFREY.  This is not just relevant to surnames either - you also get anglicised first names as well - Friedrich/Frederick BESELER.  One female ancestor of mine was born Suatus KRESST in Germany, married in England as Susetta KRESST and died in Australia as Susan (Kresst) BESELER - it took years to track her down!

Find Your Ancestor by Researching Other People

It may seem like a waste of our valuable research time to research people who we don’t even know are related, but it can be time well spent.

Look at the people mentioned in wills – who were the executors and administrators of the estate?  Who witnessed the will?  Who were the guardians of any minors?   Remember guardians were not necessarily appointed to take care of the children personally – their role was to protect their legal interests. All these important roles were generally not given to strangers.  Who were the beneficiaries?  Wills do not just list surviving children, they often also give the married names of adult daughters. How does each person fit in?

Look at godparents at a christening or baptism, not just for your direct ancestors, but for all their siblings as well.  Each child may have different godparents – again, it is not a role given to strangers.  Who are they, and why were they chosen for the role?

Unless your couple eloped, look at the witnesses to a marriage.  Remember to look at both the civil and church marriage records if applicable, and if a person married more than once, check both marriages.  The same applies for informants on a death certificate, neighbours in a census or electoral roll. 

In shipping records, look at where others on the same ship came from.  Look at others already settled in the place your family settled.  Sometimes people from the same area migrated in a group, or followed others who had already made the journey.

Revisit your documents now and then.  With new information discovered since you obtained each document, new names connect to your family in new ways.  You never know what brick walls you might break through by researching someone who, at first glance, does not appear to be connected to your family at all.

Clean out the shed and share the stories

Over the Christmas / New Year break, my sister and I faced up to the daunting tast of clearing out the shed at our family home.  After the deaths of our father in 2013 and mother in May 2015, and having already sorted the contents of the house, if was time to face the shed.  And not just any shed, but a SHED!  3 car garage with a workshop the same size behind, with another smaller shed at the rear, our shed is bigger than many a house. 

Full to the brim with the accumulation of over 40 years in the same house, packed even further when I moved home to care for our aging parents, it was a substantial undertaking.  Amidst all the junk - unfinished knitting and sewing projects, chipped crockery, non-working electrical appliances, old light fittings, etc - we found treasures!  Baby cards received when each of us were born, old photos we had never seen, travel journals kept by our mother on long-ago trips, letters written by our father just before our parents' marriage, so many things!  An emotional journey, several times we found ourselves wishing so much that our parents were still with us so we could ask all the questions the items we found created for us.  Why had this china cup been kept?  Whose was it and how long had it been in the family?  There were so many bits and pieces put away that we had no idea of the history of, and so generally didn't keep.  If my sister and I didn't know, there was no one left to ask.

What items do you have tucked away in odd corners, rarely taken out and dusted off??  When was the last time you had a sort-through of that cupboard, closet or shed where you put all those things you never use but cannot part with??  Do your children or grandchildren know the stories behind those treasures you have stored away??  If they don't, chances are they will dismiss those items as junk and they will be lost.  If your children don't know the story behind Great Aunt Mary's tea set - or even that the tea set in the shed was Great Aunt Mary's and not something you picked up on a whim at a jumble sale - then they will have no reason to keep it, value it, and ultimately pass it on to another generation.

So over the next few weekends, I will be busy scanning and digitising photos, letters and journals, preserving them, and their story, for future generations.  I will also be having a look at some of the stuff I keep 'just because', and maybe having a little clean out of my own.

Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2015

Each year Jill Ball invites us to take part in this activity by responding to the following statements/questions in a blog post. You can write as much or as little as you want or just answer a few questions and once you have done so please share your post's link with Jill via email to Jillballau@gmail.com. I did this exercise last year and thoroughly enjoyed it - it is well worth doing.
Remember to accentuate the positive.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was - not as much progress here as I would like, as the year contained several distractions and major events.  My geneaprogress for 2015 was more finding out details about existing family members - which is all progress.

2.  A precious family photo I found was - Lots of them!!  Several bundles and some framed as well.  After my mother passed earlier in 2015 my sister and I have spent time clearing out the family home.  While coming to the conclusion that my parents were HOARDERS, we found quite a few treasures, many of which we had no idea existed or had been kept.  Many I'm sure my parents had no memory of keeping either!

3.  An ancestor's grave I found was - I found a few of these thanks to new content on Ancestry, although I am still working out why some of them highlighted as little green leaves in my tree and others didn't - and some that were missed were very obvious.  The key is to keep looking.

4.  An important vital record I found was - an article in Trove about the divorce of my great-grandfather James Nicholas Clark and his first wife Eliza (Hawley).  While I already knew they had divorced the article gave extra detail about the reasons their marriage broke down.  Perhaps not a vital record, but one I was very glad to find.

5.  A newly found family member shared - notes on common ancestors.  I keep basic trees on several sites - Ancestry, FamilySearch, My Heritage, etc mainly as 'cousin bait' to make contact with others researching in the same tree so we can share information - and every now and then I strike it lucky.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was - while clearing out an old tin trunk out in the shed I found a little bundle containing all the cards my parents received when I was born, along with my baby wrist band from hospital.  Inside the same trunk was my baby book - complete with notes and photos.  Treasure!

7.   My 2015 blog post that I was particularly proud of was - my tribute to my mother after she passed away in May.  It was quite sudden but followed a long illness, and she has been a huge influence on my life and the person that I am.

8.   My 2015 blog post that received a large number of hits or comments was - a link to a 17th century animation of London.  Six students from De Montfort University have created a three-minute 3D representation of 17th century London, as it existed before The Great Fire of 1666.

9.  A new piece of software I mastered was - my new laptop.  Windows 10 has been quite an adjustment and not always a happy one, especially when treasured and familiar old software decided that this upgrade it just couldn't cope with.

10. A social media tool I enjoyed using for genealogy was - google.  Never underestimate the power of doodling around on Google - you never know what you might find.

11. A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was - The 14th Australasian Congress on Genealogy and Heraldry in Canberra last March.  I attended the conference and had a few extra days looking around Canberra, and had a great time.  I learnt so much, caught up with geneafriends, visited the War Memorial and the National Library, wonderful!

12. I am proud of the presentation I gave at/to - Library patrons at Echuca during Family History Month in August.  I have done these for several years now and greatly enjoy them.

13. A journal/magazine article I had published was - not yet!

14. I taught a friend how to - download her family tree from Ancestry.

15. A genealogy book that taught me something new was - Pinning your family history by Thomas MacEntee.

16. A great repository/archive/library I visited was - the National Library in Canberra!  I spent a whole day there, looked around, did some research and chatted to the library staff - librarians on holiday always seem to find a new library to visit.

17. A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was - as above - Pinning your family history.

18. It was exciting to finally meet - everyone at the Canberra Congress, many of whom stayed in the same hotel a short walk from the convention centre - so there was always others to eat with, walk with, share notes with and chat to in passing.

19. A geneadventure I enjoyed was - did I mention the Canberra Congress?? 

20. Another positive I would like to share is ... Treasures hidden away in dark corners.  As mentioned above, I have been clearing out the family home - a work in progress throughout the year.  Hidden amongst the junk were treasures - photos, my grandmother's diaries, letters written by my father to my mother just before they married, travel notebooks kept by my mother, all my old school reports from my first year at primary school, my father's old income certificates back to 1955, show ribbons won by my father for his Merino sheep back in the 50's and 60's, family ornaments - all this stuff!!  I am SO glad my sister and I have them, but kept cursing our parents for not producing all this when they were alive and we could ask about them!
Also exciting is the upcoming Unlock the Past cruise from Auckland to Fremantle in February - I am booked, my packing list started, and the list of speakers looks great.  The countdown app on my phone tells me I have 42 days left until I fly out.

Twile - a new way to share your research

While Twile has been around since 2013, I have only recently heard about it and gone to have a look.  While I do sometimes sigh and wonder if I want ANOTHER online tree that I have to keep updating, this presents data in a somewhat different way and is well worth a look.  The more basic version is free, your data and photos are only available to the people you choose, so have a try and tell me what you think.

The following announcement comes from the Twile website:

"Twile allows family historians to create rich, visual timelines of their family history, made up of milestones and photos from their ancestors’ lives. Genealogy services, like MyHeritage and Ancestry, focus primarily on providing access to historical records. Twile, on the other hand, helps users get a visualization of the information and easily share it with their family.

The website is completely free to use, allowing users to build or import their family tree and create a timeline by uploading photos or adding milestones – such as birth, marriage and death – for anyone on the tree. Twile Plus is a premium subscription service and is available for £19.99 per year, giving access to a wider library of milestone types."

Anguline Research Archives

Dedicated to making old and rare books available to family and local historians, the Anguline Research Archives catalogue now includes more than 600 titles, including the new Historic Still Birth Register and a free downloads section.  The collection spans all English Counties, Wales, Scotland and now Canada, and titles are browsable by area and category, which include directories, maps, military, parish registers, church and non-conformist history, schools and more.  Titles are in PDF format so they can be viewed on computer, tablet, e-reader and other viewers, and the majority of titles can be bought either on CD or a digital downloads.  

Connected Histories

Connected Histories brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth century Britain with a single federated search that allows sophisticated searching of names, places and dates, as well as the ability to save, connect and share resources within a personal workspace.  Most resources can be accessed free, some require subscriber login, such as Origins.net.  Resources include British History Online, British Museum Images, Clergy of the VChurch of England database, the Charles Booth Archive, Convict Transportation Registers database, History of Parliament, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Lane's Masonic Records, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, and the Witches of Early Modern England.

Oral History Society

For more than 30 years the Oral History Society has played a leading role in the development of oral history, both in Britain and internationally.  It is dedicated to the collection and preservation of oral history, and making it accessible to everyone.  The Society offers advice, training and access to resources for individuals and a number of regional networks.  Thei website has a calendar of upcoming events, links to training courses, volunteer activities, links to their regional networks and an online journal.

English Heritage Archive

Search over 1 million catalogue entries describing photographs, plans and drawings of England's buildings and historic sites, held in the English Heritage Archive.

•Including photographs dating from the 1850s to the present day
•Ranging from architectural details to archaeological landscapes, from country houses to coal mines
•Covering counties from Cornwall to Northumberland

The Forgotten Times

Australia's first FREE digital-only online history magazine, The Forgotten Times is a history magazine with stories for those interested in all issues relating to genealogy, Australian history or researching a family tree.

The Forgotten Times is produced by a team of journalists keen to provide the very best history and family tree stories - ones that are really worth reading. If you ever asked What is History? well here it is in its most readable form.

Their list of expert writers continues to grow and includes : Christine Yeats, Australian History Society; Zoe D'Arcy, National Archives of Australia, Australian National Maritime Museum with more to come...

Mundia

Mundia is the new family history site from Ancestry.com, a global platform offering access to more than 13 million family trees from all parts of the world with more than 1.4 billion profiles, and is available in multiple languages.  Basic membership to Mundia is free.
With Mundia, you can:

• Build your family tree. Then grow it by sharing and collaborating with others.
• Receive hints about matching ancestors and relatives in other members' trees.
• Contact other members and find unknown living relatives.
• Keep up to date with your family through comments, stories, and photos posted within your family circle.

Genealogy In Time

GenealogyInTime Magazine has added 400 million new records to their two free search engines. The Genealogy Search Engine (which covers ancestral records) now searches an additional 100 million more records, while the Family Tree Search Engine (which covers genealogy forums and online family trees) searches approximately 300 million more records.

In total, the two search engines now cover 5.7 billion records across more than 1,000 different websites. The records are split between the Genealogy Search Engine (covering 1.9 billion records) and the Family Tree Search Engine (covering 3.8 billion records). There is no overlap of records between the two search engines.

GenealogyInTime Magazine now gets over 40,000 queries per month for the two search engines. This makes them one of the most popular alternatives to the FamilySearch website for people wanting to look for free ancestral records. Significant holdings exist for the United States, Canada, England/Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Europe, Australia and New Zealand with minor holdings for the Caribbean, South America and South Africa.

Some of the highlights of the latest addition to the Genealogy Search Engine include:

• 55 million new records for the United States and 6 million new records for Canada. These are primarily ancestral records held in digital archives of public libraries and universities across North America. Many of these new records are historic photographs.
• 23 million new records for England, Ireland and Scotland. These are primarily twentieth century obituaries.
• 14 million new records for Europe. These are primarily birth/marriage/death records from Central and Eastern Europe.
• 2 million more ship passenger records.

The underlying technology has also been improved:

• The search routines for both search engines have also been strengthened to provide better results.

• The number of returned records for a search query has been increased from 8 pages to 10 pages.

• Results are delivered even faster than before.

Access to both search engines is free and the underlying records are also free.

WorldGenWeb Project

The WorldGenWeb Project is a non-profit, volunteer based organization dedicated to providing genealogical and historical records and resources for world-wide access.  The Project provides researchers with a safe place where they can focus on valuable and useful resources to conduct their research. Click on the country of your choice and eventually you can drill down to the specific community, and related free genealogy websites where you can hunt for more ancestral information.

Shauna Hicks History Enterprises

Shauna Hicks History Enterprises is a small personal part time business specialising in local and family history research. Established in August 2009, it seeks to assist people in researching their own family and community histories.  I recently attended a seminar at which Shauna Hicks was a speaker, and thoroughly enjoyed her talk.  Shauna's website holds a wealth of information, links, notes from her various talks, and more. 

Dead Pubs

Was your ancestor a Pubican?  Dead Pubs is a historical street & pub history directory of London, Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Middlesex, Suffolk, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Sussex, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Devon, Somerset & Dorset.  Many listings even have photos of the pub.

Royal Society Historic Scientific Papers

The Royal Society has put online their historical journal archive. The archive consists of some 60,000 historical scientific papers dating back as far as 1665. This is a fun collection to browse through even if you have no ancestors who were scientists. Included in this collection is Benjamin Franklin’s famous paper on his electrical experiments with kites, geological papers written by Charles Darwin plus Sir Isaac Newton’s first published scientific paper. The archive can be searched by author, title of the paper and time period. Access is free.

Genealogy in Time

GenealogyInTime is one of the top online genealogy magazines in the world.  Their mission is to find new and innovative ways to help people connect with their ancestors, and everything on their website is free.  They regularly have articles on genealogy and news on new genealogy resources.  Go to http://www.genealogyintime.com/

German Research

Two sites I have discovered for German research are German Roots and the German GenealogyNet.  Both sites  have many links and tips on researching German ancestory, although a majority of records are transcribed in German only.

Connected Histories

Connected Histories brings together a range of digital resources for British History 1500-1900 in a single federated search.  Free registration allows resources to be saved and shared within a personal workspace.  Resources include British History Online, British Museum images, British Newspapers 1600-1900, Charles Booth archive, Church of England Clergy Database 1540-1835, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, London Lives 1690-1800 and the Procedings of the Old Bailey 1674-1913.

Sirius Genealogy 2.0

Sirius genealogy 2.0 is a free online community for genealogists, featuring regular news from the online genealogy world, online chat and message boards, links and much more.  Go to http://www.siriusgenealogy.com/index.cfm