Explore Your Genealogy

Explore Your Genealogy is an educational website developed by the Family History Federation that relates to every aspect of tracing your family history, from the very first steps to more complex research.

The main objective of the website is to promote the study and interest in family history (and associated disciplines including local and social history) in a free-to-access, easy-to-navigate website.  New articles and topics are being added regularly. 

Explore Your Genealogy already covers a range of topics, beginning with a section on 'How do I start?"  Further topics include :

• Civil Registration
• Parish Registers
• Family Heirlooms
• Wills
• Graveyards
• Military
• Archives
• DNA
• Poor Law Records
•  Census Records
• And much more

Each topic heading can contain multiple articles containing a wealth of information useful to beginners and experienced researchers alike.  There is always something new to learn!

The Family History Federation also produces the Really Useful Bulletin, which is published monthly and free to all.  The Bulletin will provide information about updates on a regular basis, and past issues can also be viewed on the website.

The Genealogist's Internet available free online

Many genealogists worldwide made use of The Genealogist's Internet by Peter Christian.  This wonderful book was last published in June 2012 (the fifth edition) and provided a wealth of over 1600 links plus descriptions and commentary.

As time has passed much of the book has become out of date.  Links have changed, moved, updated or disappeared.  New data has come online, better search facilities created, and new websites have made recommendations inaccurate or redundant.  Still, much of the book's content remains relevant and useful to genealogists.

The good news is that Peter Christian has made his book available free via the Internet Archive.  While he cautions readers that this is not a new edition of the books, Peter has still checked and updated many of the old links.  Any links that Peter checked, found to be outdated and was unable to locate a current link have been greyed out in the text.  Current links - to the best of Peter's knowledge links which are accurate today but may not remain so in the future - are highlighted in blue.

The creative commons licence under which the book is currently available is Attribution ShareAlike, which means you may freely download and reuse this electronic version, and distribute it to others.

So take a look at The Genealogist's Internet and see what it has to offer.  A huge thank you to Peter for his work and his generosity in making his book available free online.

 

Thomas Farmer, Master Mariner

 Finding the details of an ancestor's life is always exciting, and lately I have been researching my 3xGreat Grandfather Thomas Farmer.

Thomas Farmer was born in London, baptised 2 September 1781 at St Ann Blackfriars, London, son of Thomas and Mary Farmer.  He died in Sidney Square, London and was buried 28 September 1850 at St Dunstan & All Saints, Tower Hamlets, London.

Baptism records of Thomas Farmer, 1781

 
Thomas and his wife Ann has 3 children that I have currently located.  Thomas, born 7 June 1812, Ann born 13 January 1820 and Margaret born 4 January 1822.

During my research, I discovered Thomas Farmer and wife Ann in the 1841 census, where Thomas is listed as a Master Mariner living in Jubilee Street, Tower Hamlets.  Daughters Ann and Margaret are both still living at home at the time of the census.

1841 census

I also discovered that Thomas was a Mason, listed as a member of the Dundee Arms Lodge in Nightingale Lane, Wapping.

Membership Register of the Dundee Arms Lodge, 1810

Thomas Farmer Junior was also a mariner - clearly sailing was in the family's blood as Thomas Jr followed in his father's footsteps.  Sadly, Thomas Senior would die only a month before his son gained his Master's certificate on 21 November 1850.

Thomas's youngest daughter Margaret is my great great grandmother.  She married Alexander Davis on 21 November 1843, and the couple would have five children born in Kent or London before the couple decided to emigrate to Australia.  Sadly, Margaret, daughter and sister of master mariners, would die at sea on the voyage to Australia on the ship 'President Perkouberen' giving birth two twins, neither of whom survived and were buried at sea with their mother.

Ancestry's Card Catalogue

When was the last time you looked at the Ancestry card catalogue?  If your answer is "Never" then you may be missing out on a great way to narrow down you searches on the website, and discovering specific sets of records that you may otherwise be missing.

To get to the card catalogue, log into Ancestry (or Ancestry Library Edition at your local public library or research centre if you don't have a subscription) and click on the Search tab at the top of the page, then select the "Card Catalogue".

 

The Card Catalogue is a searchable list of all the record collections available.  Because of the way their databases are titled you can use the title search box to narrow all the resources for a specific place, such as "Victoria, Australia".  You can then browse through the various data sets, click on one which interests you, and conduct a specific search of those records for anything relevant to your family.

 

Using this method, I discovered that Ancestry holds the Victorian Divorce Records 1860-1940.

I immediately did a search of this specific record set for James Clark and came up with a listing for his divorce, complete with a link to the original documents.

Viewing the record was the bonanza - some 55 pages of statements and court proceedings and other documents.  Full details of the circumstances of the marriage and its breakdown, dates and addresses, and the final Decree Nisi that dissolved the marriage.  

These documents fill in the detail of the marriage breakdown and subsequent divorce and are a wonderful find!

While you are looking at particular datasets on Ancestry, it's a good idea to read the "about" section for more detail. To do this scroll past the search box and you'll see information about where the data came from and more details about what is in that particular resource. 

  

For example, the Rate Books 1855-1963 for Victoria, Australia are by no means complete, and the detail makes this clear.  While the list below is not the complete list of Rate Books available, it gives you the general idea that different areas covered different year ranges.  For the complete list, please check the card catalogue yourself.

There is nothing more frustrating than spending your valuable researching time looking for information that is not covered by the database, even though the broad description implied that it was there.  So try checking the description of some of the datasets available on Ancestry to see exactly what they cover - it may explain why you cannot find a records you were expecting to be available.

Trove Tricks

Any long-term reader of this blog will know how much I love Trove.  Over the years I have spent a lot of time researching the site, the newspapers and gazettes especially, and found a great deal of information about various ancestors and their lives.  And all available free for anyone.

I had thought I was a fairly adept user of the Trove search facility and knew many of the tips and tricks for constructing searches : 

• Phrase searches  
• Enclose search terms in quotes, eg:  
• “James Clark"will find only articles with those words, together, in that order. 
  
• Wildcard searches 
• Specify wild cards or truncate word endings with an * , eg: 
• math*  will find math, maths, mathematics, mathematical etc
• Boolean searches 
• Use AND, OR and NOT and brackets to create boolean expressions. You can use a minus sign next to the word in place of NOT, eg: 
• "South Australia" AND (elections OR politics) NOT (Adelaide OR Kingston)  
• “Moreton Bay" -Brisbane

I use the phrase search especially frequently to find articles about my ancestors, but this search has a weakness.  Just searching James Clark will find any article with both words anywhere in the article.  The words can be several lines away from each other and thus returns a lot of irrelevant results.  Using the phrase search is much more exact, but it will miss out on a number of relevant articles as well.  My ancestor James Clark was often referred to using his middle name as well - James Nicholas Clark.  Researching all three names as a phrase returns different results, as does using initials, surname first, and so on.  So what phrase searches do I need to do to cover all the bases?  "James Clark", "James Nicholas Clark", "James N. Clark", "J T Clark", "Clark, James", "Clark, J T" - they all return different matches.

What I did not know until very recently, however, was the tilde symbol and how it could be used when searching Trove.

• Near searches
• Use the tilde symbol to find words close to each other
• "James Clark"~2 will find the words James and Clark within two words of each other in any order
  

So searching "James Clark"~2 will find "James Clark", "James Nicholas Clark", "James N. Clark", and "Clark, James" all in one search.  "J Clark"~2 will find "J Clark", "J T Clark", "Clark, J T".  

Using the various search methods certainly makes better use of my time and helps me be more efficient in my searching, and knowing about the tilde search is a wonderful addition to my skills.  It also makes me wonder what other search tricks I'm missing from my toolbox then I search Trove - and all the other databases out there that I use.

Transcription Errors

I've noted before that online trees need to be treated with a great deal of caution, as not everyone out there is a meticulous researcher and errors can be made.  It is worthwhile, however, to note that errors can also be made in original records themselves, and even more in transcribed records.

When official records are transcribed, generally there are several checks and safety protocols in place to minimise errors.  This does not mean that errors do not occur, and it is always wise to be alert for any anomalies.  Below is a screenshot of one such error I recently located.

This transcribed record for the baptism of Hannah May leapt out at me when I first located it.  Why??  Check the birth and baptism dates again.

Fairly high on my list of impossible things would be being baptised six weeks before you were born.  Something has been transcribed incorrectly in this record.  Possibly the dates are transposed and Hannah was born in July and baptised in August.  Possibly one of the months was transcribed incorrectly.  With no original image to check, I will need to dig further to find out.

So remember, never take any record you find as absolutely correct.  Human error is always a possibility, and finding corroborating evidence for any fact is a wise move.

The Hidden Branch

The Hidden Branch is a new generation of Genealogists who are growing up during the digital age.  They have just launched their website https://thehiddenbranch.com/ and are active on social media.  

On their website they state : "We advocate for Gen Z researchers (born from 1995 to 2010) in the field of genealogy.  We publish articles, podcasts, and videos on research skills, topics, and more in order to give a bigger voice to the Gen Z genealogists in the field, as well as help others further their education in genealogy."

For younger genealogists this is a wonderful resource that can put them in contact with people their own age who have also developed an interest in their family history young - something I wish had been around when I started my own research at 16 and was constantly met with astonishment that I was interested in such a topic.

I will be watching this group with interest and wish them success in sharing their interest with other Gen Zs.

A Rose by Another Name?

Many families have their own traditional names which are passed down generation by generation and occur frequently in the family tree.  In many countries there are naming traditions that are frequently followed, some of which might seem quite strange to us today.  There are names which go in and out of fashion, especially in response to Monarchs and other prominent people of the time.

In my own family, one naming tradition which took me aback when I first encountered it was the habit of reusing a name given to a dead child.   In my Green family a few generations back I have three Isaacs in one generation - the first two died young and the name was reused for the next-born son each time.  Eventually persistence paid off and the third Isaac Green in that family lived well into his 90's.  His father was named Isaac as well, and the name crops up in several other generations.  In my mother's Pummeroy family William and Alfred are popular, and recur several time across the generations.  This can create an additional challenge in making sure any information I find is linked to the correct person - I have a newspaper article from Trove that mentions William Pummeroy - and I have four of them alive at the time that the article could be referring to!

In my Irish family line, the tradition of naming the first son for the paternal grandfather (not a habit unique to Ireland by any means) also causes me headaches.  My ancestor James Mulholland had 5 sons, 4 of them living to adulthood.  These 4 adult sons - James, Patrick, David and Henry, ALL went and named their first son James!  As they all lived in fairly close proximity, this means I have 4 men named James Mulholland living within a few miles of each other, born within 5 years of each other - and two of them married women named Mary.

Abbreviations and nicknames also complicate my research - my father's second brother Ernest was always known as Squib, sometimes even on official documents.  In my mother's family, I have great- aunts Thelma, known as Lalla ; Elizabeth, known as Betty and Pricilla, known as Illa.  Another Elizabeth, in my father's family, was always known as Betsy, even in census records, on her children's baptism records and on her own death record.

All these various name usages can throw up roadblocks and cause mistakes in my research.  Recurring names make it difficult to ensure I am researching the correct person any time I locate new information, and nicknames, spelling changes and wholesale name changes can mean I completely miss relevant records because I don't know the name variation used at the time.

The Sins of a Genealogist

We are all guilty of the occasional genealogical sin (after all, we are none of us perfect).  Below are a few of the more common and damaging genealogical sins - how many have you been guilty of?

Sin 1: Assuming everything online is correct
The most common mistake around it to take everything published online as being true and correct.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  From transcription errors to uncorroborated trees to typos, there are mistakes aplenty online.
So never just “cut and paste” information into your tree. You need to confirm the information yourself, via various sources, before you include it in your research.  Never assume that everyone else out there has proper research skills and has made the effort to verify their data.  For many, near enough is good enough and if most of the names and dates match they will take the information as correct.  And pass it on to others.

Sin 2: Not noting every search
Keeping some kind of research log is essential.  Know where you have been, where you found each piece of information, and just as importantly, know where you failed to find anything.  Knowing where you searched and what search terms you used can help you avoid reworking your research and help develop your methodology.
If you have good research logs it is much easier when you return to a search several months or even years later as you have a clear understanding of what you have searched for, where you have looked and whether you have any uncorroborated leads to follow up. Without this, you can waste so much valuable time duplicating failed searches.

Sin 3: Not going beyond birth, marriage and death records
Family history isn't restricted only to lists of births, marriages and deaths – it is so much more. Enrich your tree by looking at the various ways in which you can go beyond the bare facts, using information such as newspaper archives, your ancestor’s career, where they lived, local maps etc. Look for the stories, the details, the minutae of the daily lives of ancestors.  Then look wider as well.  What local events in their suburb, town or village might they have attended?  What historical events did they live through?  It all helps built the greater picture of their lives.

Sin 4: Trying to do everything yourself
Don’t try to fly solo – you don’t have to do it all on your own. Do you have relatives out there who are also doing research?  Make contact and share – you may each have parts of the overall puzzle that the other lacks, and pooling your resources makes sense (just remember Sin 1 – trust but verify).  Consider joining a local family history society in the area that your ancestors lived – especially if it is somewhere distant you would have trouble visiting yourself.  Researching an area on the other side of the world can be especially difficult if you cannot travel there – local family history societies can allow you to tap into the local expertise of society members. Most family historians are extremely helpful, especially to a newcomer, and are only too pleased to help. So don’t be shy. If you need some help, ask for it!

Sin 5: Adopting the scattergun approach
Having a goal and sticking to a plan is the key to maintaining focus. Many people, when they first start to trace their family tree, dive in and cast their net far and wide, in the hope of catching as much information and finding as many ancestors as they can as quickly as possible. This might be tempting, but it can lead to you being swamped and overloaded with information, looking at a disorganised pile of papers and notes and wondering how it all fits together.  Being organised right from the start is so much easier and helps you keep order to your research.  The scattergun approach also leads to the cardinal sin number 1, taking things at face value.  Before you know it, you are several generations back on completely the wrong tree and have wasted hours of valuable research time. So have a key set of goals before you fire up the laptop and make sure you make notes on where you searched, what you found – and what you couldn’t find.

Sin 6: Not checking your previous work
As you become a more accomplished genealogist and your family history grows, make sure you go back over your previous work to check for errors and more importantly, to find out whether new information has become available since your original search. More and more documents are becoming available online, so keep going back and reusing those searches, to see if anything new has materialised. We often get caught in the trap of thinking that once we have searched somewhere it is a waste of time to go back – but this can lead to us missing important new information that has just been uncovered, digitised, or in some way made available to researchers.

Sin 7: Thinking you can find everything online
You can’t “do” your family tree solely from the comfort of your home. As wonderful as the internet has become for family historians, we can make the mistake of thinking that everything we need can be accessed from our living room via our laptop. What is available online is still only a drop in the ocean of records and information out there in repositories, archives, libraries and other places.  So get out there and explore!
Plan and organise trip to a local archive office or library. Remember to do your homework before you go, there are lots of great guides available online to help you plan a visit and maximise your research time. 

Sin 8: Inflexibility on names
What’s in a name? I have at least a couple of variations of every surname in my tree (who knew you could spell ‘Clark’ so many ways?) so think outside the box with names and spellings. Make use of the wildcard searches on the various websites and again look for alternatives ways in which you can corroborate what you find. Remember that often it was not our actual ancestors that recorded their name – it was the clerk, secretary, census taker, registrar, etc. and often they simply wrote the name how they heard it.

What "I Didn't Find Anything" Really Means

When you’re researching in any resource — a book, database, microfilm or whatever — remember that “I didn’t find anything” really means “I didn’t find what I was looking for in this resource.” It doesn’t mean that your person isn’t there, it just means you didn’t find them in that particular resource with the search strategy you were using.
It is entirely possible, of course, that your person really isn’t in those records. But before you write them off completely, ask yourself if there’s something else you should be considering or another way of searching for the records you are after.
Consider the source you’re using.  Was it a database or an index? Not finding someone in an index is different than not finding them in the records themselves.  Look at the source – is it complete, or are there gaps, missing pages or years that could cover the record you are looking for.  Some records haven’t survived in complete form.  Is it transcribed?  Could there be spelling errors in the transcription – or in the original records themselves?
For those times when the record you’re looking for doesn’t exist — either your ancestor isn’t in the record or the record was destroyed — think about other records that could give you the same information.
If you’re in a database, will it search variations in spelling or do you need to do multiple searches to find both “Smith” and “Smythe”? What about Mc and Mac?
Did you put too much into your search? Some databases will try to match everything that you enter, and if you search for William Ramsey, born 1870 in Kyabram, it won’t return a record that has William Ramsey, born 1869 in Kyabram. Play with your search terms – sometimes less is more.
Consider not searching at all.  Stop searching and start browsing. You never know what you might find hidden by a spelling error or some other small difference when you browse through a set of records.

What's in a Name?

From church records to birth, marriage and death registrations, census records to electoral rolls and passenger lists to immigration and naturalization records, many of our favourite sources for family information have captured a variety of spellings, handwritings, and abbreviations.  As those historical collections have been digitized and transcribed, modern day technicians have struggled to correctly interpret and preserve an entry from long ago, and subsequently we as researchers have struggled to find them.

If there is one thing I have learnt in my years of researching my family, it is that NO surname, however simple, will EVER be recorded with the same spelling all the time.  When researching, always consider how a name may have been misspelled or incorrectly recorded.  Remember that the clerk creating the record spelled the name the way he felt like spelling it - how it sounded to him at the time.  And frequently he got it wrong.  Sometimes he got it spectacularly wrong!

Abbreviations can also complicate research - William was often abbreviated as Wm, Thomas as Thos or Tom, Patrick as Pat or Patk or Patr, Daniel as Dan or Danl or Danny, Margaret as Maggie, Elizabeth as Beth or Eliza.  When searching for an ancestor, be mindful that an exact search for a given name may unintentionally hide an ancestor from view if the original record or transcription used an abbreviation.

In addition to alternate spellings and abbreviations, another source of name variations comes from errors made during the transcription process.  As people transcribe family history records, they seek to preserve content exactly as it appears in the historical original.  Despite best efforts, errors do occur and names can be unintentionally altered.  Consider how old handwriting may be misinterpreted - both by you and by earlier transcribers or indexers. 

Some databases are quite flexible in regards to spelling variations when searching, but they will never cover every possible error and sometimes several searches are necessary to locate an elusive record.  Remember to be creative and keep digging - you never know what you might find - or how it may be spelled!

Researching others

Our ancestors did not live in a vacuum. They had extended family members, neighbours, business contacts, colleagues, friends and aquaintances. This has implications for us in two ways:

• People tend to do things in groups.
• People tend to follow predictable patterns of who they associate with.

Both of these can benefit our research. In genealogy, researching one member of a group can lead to answers about another member of the group. We can piggyback onto these “other” people to find the ones we’re really looking for.
Look at the people mentioned in wills – who were the executors and administrators of the estate?  Who were the guardians of any minors?  Remember guardians were not necessarily appointed to take care of the children – their role was to protect their legal interests. Who were the beneficiaries?  Wills do not just list surviving children, they often also give the married names of adult daughters and other information. Who witnessed a will?  All these important roles were generally not given to strangers.  How does each person fit in?
Look at godparents at a christening or baptism, not just for your direct ancestor, 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 they 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 - or all - marriages.
The same applies for informants on a death certificate, even the neighbours in a census or electoral roll.  Often families lived close to one another.
What about immigration?  Many of us have a tale of migration in our family. (“Great-great-grandad came to Australia from Italy”) but great-great-grandad probably didn’t do so in isolation. Chances are he either came here with a group of people and/or he was moving to an area where he already knew people.
This doesn’t just apply to moving to a new country. Our ancestors’ migration within a country (or even within a state or county) is often part of a group migration (people moving together all at once) or a chain migration (a few people go out ahead and other people follow later). We can use this to our advantage.
In shipping records, look at where others on the same ship came from.  Look at others already settled in the place your family settled.  People from the same area may have migrated in a group or followed earlier settlers.

Misspeld Knames — A Commun Probblem for Reeserchors

During the classes held at Campaspe Regional Library during Family History Month, a common comment from those attending concerned the spelling of names, and how inconsistent they are.  This lead to quite a discussion about spelling variations and how they can complicate our research.  From church records to birth, marriage and death registrations, census records to electoral rolls and passenger lists to immigration and naturalization records, many of our favorite sources for family information have captured a variety of spellings, handwritings, and abbreviations.  As those historical collections have been digitized and transcribed, modern day technicians have struggled to correctly interpret and preserve an entry from long ago, and subsequently we as researchers have struggled to find them.

If there is one thing I have learnt in my years of researching my family, it is that NO surname, however simple, will EVER be recorded with the same spelling all the time.  When researching, always consider how a name may have been misspelled.  Your family may have always spelled their name a certain way, but you can bet that those who actually recorded their names - the census takers, clerks, tax collectors and so on - didn't.  The clerk creating the record spelled the name the way he felt like spelling it - how it sounded to him at the time.  And frequently he got it wrong.  Sometimes he got it spectacularly wrong!

For every surname in my family tree, there are at least 3 spelling variations that I have come across during my research, and the more exotic the surname, the more spelling variations I have encountered.  There really isn't that much you can do with Green (Greene, Greyne) or Clark (Clarke, Clerk) but my mother's maiden mane is Pummeroy.  Spellings - Pummeroy, Pumeroy, Pumroy, Pomeroy, Pomroy, Pomrey, Pumfrey, Pomfrey.

Try researching a German name like Beseler.  It can have one s, two s, change the s to z, one l, two l, drop the middle e, change any e into a, it changes into Sezler with all the variations as well.  Several family members also changed their Christian names around the time they emigrated to Australia as well, so Friedrich became Frederick, Johann = John, Susette =Susan, Elizabetha = Elizabeth, Margaretha = Margaret or Mary, and so on.  They certainly made my research challenging.

Abbreviations can also complicate research - William was often abbreviated as Wm, Thomas as Thos or Tom, Patrick as Pat or Patk or Patr, Daniel as Dan or Danl or Danny, Margaret as Maggie, Elizabeth as Beth or Eliza.  When searching for an ancestor, be mindful that an exact search for a given name may unintentionally hide an ancestor from view if the original record or transcription used an abbreviation.

In addition to alternate spellings and abbreviations, another source of name variations comes from errors made during the transcription process.  As people transcribe family history records, they seek to preserve content exactly as it appears in the historical original.  Despite best efforts, errors do occur and names can be unintentionally altered. 

Some databases are quite flexible in regards to spelling variations when searching, but they will never cover every possible error and sometimes several searches are necessary to localte an elusive record.  Remember to be creative and keep digging - you never know what you might find - or how it may be spelled!