Your Family Tree on-Line: How to Trace Your Ancestry from Your Own Computer

by Graeme Davis

Overview

This is a step-by-step guide to using the wealth of online records to trace your family tree from your own computer, without the need to travel to national and regional record offices. Whether you are a novice or an experienced genealogist, and whether you plan to devote just a few hours of your time or embark on a life-time hobby, this book will guide you through the mass of records available - birth, marriage and death, the census, and much, much more - so that you can trace your line back hundreds of years. You will also learn how to upload your results to the internet, both to preserve your family's heritage and to connect with relatives, so that you can exchange photos and reminiscences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845283445
Publisher:	How To Books
Publication date:	11/15/2009
Pages:	163
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Graeme Davis is a university lecturer and a professional researcher with extensive experience of family tree research, both on-line and off. As materials developer for a university level genealogy course he is familiar with the records needed by on-line researchers. A writer for Your Family Tree magazine, he is also developing new tools to aid the genealogist.

Table of Contents

Welcome! 1

What you can achieve 1

Who is this book for? 3

What you can expect 4

How long will it take? 4

Activity-Getting started 4

1 What the Internet Offers the Genealogist 9

Value of the Internet 9

Activity-Have you Googled? 12

2 How to Start 14

First Principles 14

Activity-Do these first 15

Activity-What do you know about your family? 15

Activity-For each relative 17

3 Finding Records of Birth, Marriage and Death 18

Sources for birth, marriages and deaths 18

National and state registration offices 22

Activity-Find your country's BMD 23

Using national BMD records 24

Activity-Find your ancestors in BMD records 25

The International Genealogical Index 27

Activity-Discover the most important single website 30

Activity-Working with the IGI advanced search 31

4 Using Census records 33

What are census records? 33

Activity-Locate census records 35

Years censuses are available for 36

Information on censuses 37

Accuracy of censuses 37

The 1911 census 38

The 1881 census 40

Activity-Searching the census 40

5 Other Major Sources 42

Cyndi's List 42

Activity-Countries on Cyndi's List 43

Activity-Cyndi and solutions for problems 45

Religious collections 45

Activity-Nonconformist ancestors 46

Regional collections 46

Activity-Find local record offices 46

Look-up exchanges 47

Activity-Ask someone! 47

Finding relatives 48

Activity-Getting in touch 48

Pay sites 49

Activity-Pay sites 49

6 Military 50

Military records 50

Activity-Commonwealth War Graves Commission 52

Activity-Regimental histories 52

Activity-Battle of the Somme 54

7 Wills and Where to Find them Online 55

The problem with wills55

Activity-Thinking about wills 55

8 Migration 56

Immigration and emigration 56

Activity-Passenger arrival lists 57

9 Newspapers 58

What newspapers offer 58

Activity-Connecting through local newspapers 59

An example of a family story in a newspaper article 60

10 Occupations 61

Job titles 61

Activity-Understand your ancestor's job 62

11 The Poor and Workhouse Records 63

Records of the poor 63

Activity-Understanding nineteenth century poverty 63

12 Noble Ancestors 65

Finding noble ancestors 65

Titles and coats of arms 67

A warning! 67

Activity-Heraldry and genealogy 69

A note on titles 69

13 Directories 71

Working with directories 71

Activity-Directories 73

14 School and University Records 75

Schools 75

Activity-Schools 76

Universities 77

Activity-Finding ancestors at university 78

15 Working with the Wider Context 79

Local history 79

Activity-Accessing local history sources 80

Maps 80

General history 82

Activity-Finding context 82

Activity-Finding maps 83

Activity-View a timeline 83

16 Family Medical History 84

Activity-Focusing on close relatives 84

Activity-Identifying sources of medical information 85

Twins 86

Life expectancy 87

17 DNA 89

DNA and inherited disease 89

DNA and family medical history 89

The new frontier 90

Deep DNA 91

Ethnic DNA 92

Surname studies 94

Warning! 96

Activity-Testing services 96

DNA studies 96

18 Working with Names 99

Sources of British surnames 99

History of surnames 100

Changing your surname 102

Surname profiling 103

Activity-Estimating kinship 105

Clans 105

First names 106

Activity-Working with surnames 107

Activity-Do you belong to a clan? 108

Activity-Working with first names 108

19 Recording your Family Tree 109

Charts 109

Books 110

Activity-Charts 111

Activity-Books 111

Activity-Posting your family tree to the World Wide Web 112

What you can expect 112

How long will it take? 113

20 Online Recording Options 114

Activity-Data control 114

Option 1-Ancestry.com 115

Activity 1-Know your goals 118

Activity 2-Share your family tree 118

Option 2-GenesReunited.com 119

Option 3-Your own website 120

More about Ancestry.com 120

More about GenesReunited.com 123

Other companies 124

Avoiding re-entry of data 126

More about your own website 127

Activity 3-View examples 129

21 Problems of Online Trees 131

Online family trees and drawing family trees 131

GEDCOM problems 131

Libel 133

Confidential information 133

22 Finding Living Relatives 134

Contacting lost relatives 134

Site-moderated emails 135

Personal emails 135

Meeting relatives 136

23 Genealogical Miscellany 137

Photographs 137

Activity-Photographs 144

Family stories and oral history 144

Activity-Be willing to believe stories 145

Sharing research costs 145

Newspaper cuttings 146

Activity-The Times 147

Publications 147

Activity-Find an ancestor's book 148

Personal belongings and jewellery 148

Activity-Looking at personal possessions 149

Hair samples 149

24 Accent and Dialect 151

Activity-Collecting information 151

Activity-What does it mean? 152

25 Final 153

Key websites 154

Name sites 154

Sources for births, marriages and deaths 154

Census sites 154

Pedigree sites 155

National variants of Ancestry.com 155

Heraldry 155

Extensive list of genealogy links 156

Look-ups 156

Directories 156

Charts 156

Some other great sites 156

Index 158