Wiltshire Regiment
Advice on family history research
Before you begin
Tracing your ancestors can be fascinating but it takes time and patience; much more time than you expect, as any family historian will tell you. Many people want to do as much as possible themselves, and the more preparation you do before visiting archives and searching the internet the more you’ll be able to achieve on your own. Good preparation also means you can make best use of your time when you start looking at documents, because you’ll know what they’re likely to contain and how to use them.
And if or when you get stuck, I’m here to help.
Making a start
- The place to start enquiring about your family history is at home. Ask your family if they have any recollections that may be useful, such as full names of grandparents, dates and places of birth, marriage and death, occupations, where people lived. But memories are not always reliable so make a careful note of this information for checking later, and don’t expect everything you’re told to be exactly right.
- Find the family bible if there is one. Ask about old diaries, copies of wills, newspaper cuttings, certificates and old letters which family members may have kept.
- Read one of the many guides to family history research available in bookshops and libraries. They explain how to start your search, the sources you're likely to use, what information you can expect to find in them and where to see them. This will be invaluable in the next stages of your search.
- Find out if anyone else has done work on your family by contacting the local Family History Society, which will usually have a register of members' interests. Also look at the Genes Reunited website where thousands of people have registered their surname interests.
When you’ve taken all this as far as you can, you’re ready to dip into documentary sources.
The next step
If, like most people, you start your search with birth, marriage and death certificates to confirm the information your family has given you, you'll be using civil registration records. To help you understand how to obtain a certificate, here’s how the system works.
Ever since civil registration was introduced in 1837, every birth, marriage or death is (or should be) registered with the registrar local to where the event happens. Every three months the registrar sends a copy of these records to the General Register Office (GRO). At the GRO the basic details are amalgamated into an index which covers events in the whole country, and you can search this national index. Microfilm or fiche copies of the index are held in most reference libraries, some archive offices, all Family History Centres and online. At the ancestry.co.uk website the indexes are free to view on what's called FreeBMD but note that so far the database contains few entries between 1911 and 1983. The original indexes used to be available to search at the Family Records Centre (FRC) in London but this facility was removed in October 2007 and now you can see only copies of the indexes at the places I've mentioned here. This index is your starting point.
Once you’ve searched the index and found the right entry, note the reference number and apply for a copy of the full certificate from the GRO either at the Family Records Centre in London in person, or by letter, phone or online. The certificate will give you the details as supplied to the registrar at the time and point you in the right direction for the next stage of your research.
And if the event you’re looking for doesn’t seem to be there? Be flexible about the spelling of names. Most people couldn’t read or write and many names are recorded phonetically. Also consider Polly may have been registered as Mary, Fred as Frederick or Alfred or Wilfred… Also, in the early days of civil registration there was some resistance to it and some events didn’t get recorded at all.
Marriage certificate
Other routes…
There are two variations on this which will probably not be relevant when you begin your search but may be useful later. If a marriage took place at a parish church it was also recorded in the parish register. This means that if you already know when and where a marriage took place you can get a copy of a marriage certificate from the place where the parish registers are held, usually the county archives. For this you don't need a GRO index reference number, and if you go to the archives yourself you can see the original entry at no cost.
You can also obtain a copy of a birth, marriage or death certificate from the local registrar’s office, but a word of warning. If you decide on this approach you will need details of exactly where and when the event took place. Knowing it within a few months or general area is not enough. Register offices hold information only about their own area, so the reference number from the national index is meaningless and most registrars don’t have time to undertake searches.
So if all you have is a reference taken from the national index, you must apply to the GRO. A certificate costs £7, plus service charges if applicable.
Censuses
A national census has been taken every ten years from 1801, but only those from 1841 are useful to the family historian. Before that names were not included.
In 1841 the enumerators recorded
- name
- address
- age to within 5 years
- gender
- occupation
- whether born in or out of the county
From 1851 they added
- name
- precise age
- relationship of each member of the household to the head of house
- marital status
- exact place of birth
- any medical disability
This continues until 1901 when a little more information is included. The latest census you can see is 1901 as the records are closed for 100 years. Bear in mind the enumerator recorded what he or she was told: people weren't always entirely honest, and sometimes they made up what they didn't know.
Where to see the census returns
The original census returns 1841-1901 are held at the National Archives at Kew and are not available to the public. However, microfilm and microfiche copies are available to view at the Family Records Centre at no charge.
Many census returns are also available at local record offices and libraries. These repositories usually have the returns only for their own area and don't always have a whole run of censuses, so check before you go.
Census returns are also available online, some free to search and some with a small charge. Generally, searching for a named person is free but to see a full copy of the entry you have to pay a small fee or become a subscriber.
Some online locations for censuses are
- http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ (1901 only) – pay per view
- http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ - pay-per-view or subscription
- http://freecen.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl - free but incomplete
- http://www.findmypast.com/CensusChooseSearchType.jsp - pay-per-view
- http://www.britishorigins.com/ (1841, 1861, 1871 only) – subscription
- http://www.familysearch.org (1881 only) - completely free
Original documents
The Archives: note-taking for the beginner
When you decide it’s time to visit the archives, always take with you notepaper, pencils and a pencil sharpener – you may have a lot to write down. To reduce the risk of damage to documents, archive offices do not allow visitors to use pens.
Before you start taking notes, write the date and your location at the top of the page. Next, write the name of the document you’re looking through, the dates it covers and the office’s document reference number. This will all seem something of a chore to start with but believe me you’ll be grateful in months and years to come when you flip back to look at what you saw in that document.
There is nothing more frustrating than having to return to an archive office to get details from a document you’ve already seen. And nothing more soul-destroying than finding you’d stumbled on a wonderful piece of information but you didn’t note down where you saw it, so you can’t follow it up. Or worse, you remember where the document was but don’t remember how to find it again. So keep careful notes of all this from the very beginning.
You may think you’ll remember everything you’ve seen – after all, this is your family history and it’s all important to you - but after weeks, months and probably years of research and several notebooks later, it’s impossible to recall where you saw what, and which pages of a document you did and didn’t look at.
So take a minute or two to make those headings at the top of the page. You’ll always be glad you did.
Parish Registers
When you’ve obtained the certificates you need you’ll probably want to look at the parish registers, but before you set out there is a very useful index you should look at first.
This is the International Genealogical Index (IGI), which is an index to most of the baptisms and marriages (but not burials) recorded in UK parish registers from the mid 1500s to the late 1800s (indeed, for a large part of the world too). It’s compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and is completely free to view.
This index is very easy to search as it’s broken down by county, then surname, then Christian name. The IGI is available on microfiche at most archive offices, many reference libraries, all Family History Centres, and is online free at the Family Search site. It’s a very good starting point, but if what you’re looking for isn’t there it may be because that parish isn’t included in the index. Not all are. Do remember to check anything you find there against original sources though. Copies are always liable to contain errors and omissions no matter how careful the compilers are.
Now you’re ready to turn to the original parish registers of baptism, marriage and burial. These are church, or ecclesiastical, records quite separate from civil registration described above, and are usually held at the local archives office.
- A baptism usually took place a few weeks after the birth although occasionally, if the child was poorly, it took place within a day or two. Sometimes a baptism didn't happen at all or only after several years, for instance among Baptists, and sometimes in a different parish from where the baby was born - perhaps the mother's parish of origin. So be prepared to search through several weeks and months. Baptism was not obligatory like birth registration, though most babies were baptised.
- Burials of course were obligatory and took place within days of the death, but bear in mind the place of death and the place of burial may not be the same.
Original parish registers are are free to view. Check with the archives office before you go in case you need to book a seat or a microfiche reader, as many parish registers are available only on microfiche in order to prevent wear and tear on the original documents.
1850
Wills
After January 1858
All wills and grants of administration made after this date are held centrally by the Court of Probate in London. You can view the detailed index to them, the National Probate Calendar, on microfiche at the National Archives at Kew, the Family Records Centre in London, District Probate Registries and many archive offices and libraries around the country. You can order a copy of the original will or administration from the Principal Probate Registry, London.
Before 1858
Responsiblity for proving wills and granting administrations lay with the ecclesiastical courts. Original wills and administrations are held locally, usually at the county archives office. There is no national index and each repository will have an index to its own wills collection, so the biggest problem is discovering where a will was proved. As a general guide:
- The will of someone of modest means was dealt with locally by the lowest permissable court, that of the archdeacon
- The will of someone with property or goods in more than one archdeaconry was proved in the diocesan court
- The will of someone with property or goods in more than one diocese was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) or the Prerogative Court of York
- If the testator held land in both Prerogative areas, the will was proved either in both courts or the PCC took preference.
Other sources
- Trade Directories - before the mid-1800s they cover mainly towns but it's always worth looking even if your family lived in a village
- Old newspapers
- Dictionary of National Biography - if your ancestor made a name for him or herself
- Monumental inscriptions - mainly from churchyards
- Marriage licences
- Muster Rolls
More advanced sources
Later on you're likely to want to search other sorts of documents. These are less frequently used by family historians but are very good for giving detail and background to the list of names and dates you've compiled. They are also excellent sources for local history. You'll find most at the local county archives.
Enclosure Award map
- Enclosure maps and awards – early to mid 19th century. Useful for families who owned property, however small, and for establishing boundaries
- Manorial records – all periods to 1927. Useful for tracing people who held copyhold land. If you’re lucky and the manor court rolls survive you may find details of inheritance, land transactions, deaths, marriages and occupations. Early ones are in Latin
- Rate books – around 1601 to 1927. For families that weren't paupers, these can be useful to confirm someone was in a certain parish during a certain period, and the value of the property
- Title deeds and conveyances – all periods. Extremely informative for tracing property-owners and in house histories
- Surveys – all periods. Same
- Quarter Sessions records – all periods to 1971. Very informative if your ancestor was on the wrong side of the law, but also useful if an ancestor was the victim of an assault or theft, the subject of a bastardy order (then as now, fathers were sought and made to pay towards the child's upkeep), if he was a gamekeeper or innkeeper and needed an annual licence, or if the family was legally forced to move to its previous or home parish because they had fallen on hard times
- Petty Sessions – all periods to 1971. These are where most lesser crimes were dealt with and have now been replaced by Magistrate's Courts.
- Prison records – all periods. Extremely informative. It’s easier to find details (even photographs) of a law-breaker rather than a law-abiding citizen
- Hospital, asylum, workhouse and charity records – all periods. Can be very detailed
- School log books and admission registers – all periods. But don’t raise your hopes too high as very many just don’t survive
- Parish records apart from parish registers, such as overseers accounts and vestry minutes – pre 20th century. These record families who needed financial support from the parish, payments to named tradesmen for, say, making a coffin or delivering a load of stones for road-mending, or for repairs to a church wall or fence, and such like.
