Genealogy Chat

Good tip, Simon. You just never know when the slightest seemingly insignificant fact can be a great help! :-)

Maz said write down when you have searched for something and NOT found the answer, and where you have searched. Also, if you have searched and found something and then laboriously proved that it ISN'T your relation after all - Write that down too and with a full explanation. A year later when you spot the same record again, you don't want to have to go through the whole process for a second time!! Merry

Simon. You are so right. Remember the Arabic proverb. "Weak ink is better than strong memory"

'Don't get carried away' ~ Looks like i'm going to have to do some 'pruning', when I began looking for my family I started with the 1901 census. I knew my Grandmother was Winifred married to William Carter. They turned up mistranscribed under Caster, but on the image of the page they are clearly Carter. However Williams birthplace is given as Kingston Surrey - odd I thought considering that my father was always proud of the fact that his lot were all Sussex born and bred. Off I go to Free BMD and there he is William James, Kingston Surrey ~ got his birth cert: but just had an odd feeling when I looked at it that it was'nt MY William. However there he is in 1901 clearly Kingston Surrey as birthplace, occupation Gardener. Everything else fits too, Grans age all bar one year, birthplace and they were living just where I thought they should. I've been gaily tracking this family for months only to hear from a cousin that Grandpa was born Lewes Sussex and she gave me his parents names as well. I am sure that they are the 'right' couple in 1901 but how the birthplace is wrong I don't know. So, gather all info that you can from living family members first, if you can't do that then when you do find someone just be carefull not to 'adopt' the first likely looking person you come across. Sue

Andy You probably know this but christening dates do not always match birth dates. Sometimes christenings were done several years later probably with other bros. and sisters........ a sort of job lot. So she may be the right one?

I almost convinced myself a couple of weeks ago that I had found the christening details for my gt-grandfather's first wife. I initially found her on the IGI and a look at the parish records seemed to confirm my thoughts that I'd found her (right parish, father's name was correct, hell it even listed where they lived which seemed correct also). My only niggle was that date of birth/christening date was a couple of years out from all subsequent ages I had for her (and these ages were consistent, not all over the place). Now a couple of years may not seem worth worrying about, but I grew uneasy when I spotted someone with her name in the birth index and the year of birth matched with all her subsequent ages. I'm currently in a position where I've had to order the certificate (with the father's name as a checking point) to either prove or disprove that this person was my gt-grandfather's first wife. So, as others say, don't assume you've found the right person especially where the IGI is concerned.

Always make notes for every bit of research, just so you know where you have been. I use pencil as most record offices prefer this and it means you can rub out!!! Another tip I use is about every 2 to 3 weeks I read over my old notes. It's amazing how that little piece of info that you thought were useless at the time, suddenly fits in. Lots of you know the trouble I had finding my Ggrandad but after I did a lot of 'useless' notes suddenly fitted. John

Anybody read the latest Practical Family History? Taking notes might avoid the situation a writer found himself in there. The article is called 'Meet the relatives I used to have'. It tells how he inadvertently followed a line that wasn't his, just because it looked like it could be. that is what can happen if you get carried away by LDS and 'think' you have the right people. We have all done it, particularly easy because all the names are similar. Ann Glos

I use a box folder index cards and still use scraps of paper also folders with divisions for each family member, its no wonder I'm confused. Sue

And keep ALL information, even if it doesn't seem like it is regarding your family. I obtained a family tree from someone 25 years ago and found out fairly recently that it probably IS my ancestor's family. I'm so glad I didn't throw it away!

Ha! Now you tell me..... Bob

Also, don't forget to write down if you search somewhere and DON'T find anything - otherwise you'll only end up searching the same thing again sometime in the future - I know!!! Maz. XX

Hi Simon, Have been doing this for a long time now, but relatively new on this site. Its true what you say,always have that pen and paper at the ready. trish

I've only been doing this for a relatively (no pun intended) short time but there's one thing that I've come to learn quite quickly that I want to pass on - and I don't mean this to sound condescending or pedantic. And it's simply this - as you're going along TAKE NOTES. And then, take some more notes, and then perhaps even take some more notes. When you start out and things are going a bit slowly to begin with you might think you can keep a lot of stuff in your head, but you only need to get a little way in before it starts to get a bit more tricky. Take down where you find things, exactly what it said, reference numbers (you may not know what they mean at this stage - but later on when you start thinking about shelling out for certificates it'll start to become clear). I think this is particularly true with the wealth of resource that's on the internet. On your first outing to the LDS site it's quite possible (it happened with one branch of my tree) that you'll be lucky to stumble across a series of records that suddenly catupault you back two or three generations (or even centuries) and it's very easy to get caught up in the excitement and not take a measured approach to linking all that into your own tree. I was guilty of not taking enough notes to begin with (and lets face it, a lot of us now will be using family tree software, which all allows space for notes) and I'm now looking back on marriages I'd previously found, ready to start researching a bit more detail, and I can't for the life of me remember where I first got it from, and so am having to search again, and worse starting to doubt the validity of the find. Anyway, that's my lesson for today over with - I hope this was helpful and not teaching grandma (if only you could find out who her mother was, and what her maiden name was !) to suck eggs. Simon