Module 3 - Sources and Information
The original sources which I have used in my resources include:
Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates.
Parish registers for Baptisms, Marriage and Burials.
Personal, first hand knowledge
Workhouse records
Hospital admission books
Census returns
Wills
Probate Register
Military documentation i.e. Pension Records / Service Records
The availability of digitized original records via the internet has made this much easier, although I must admit I still love going to the record office and viewing the original documents (like hospital admission books / workhouse records) or using the microfilm to view parish registers.
The derivative sources which I have used include:
Newspaper reports
Obituaries
Parish transcripts
Family tales
Websites dedicated to One Name or one branch of my family
A secondary piece of information would be the age of death on a death certificate or headstone. My great grandfather died in 1932 aged 31. I have his death certificate, which indicates as much. He was killed in a road traffic accident so I also have details about the accident in newspaper clippings and personal letters of my great grandmother regarding the resulting court case and associated costs. I digress. When he died all the family could afford to mark his grave was a rose bush. When his eldest son died a few years ago his ashes were put with his father, his wife and children decided to erect a stone which remembered both him and my great grandfather. The age of death they put on the gravestone was 36.
I verified his age at death using his birth certificate. I also have his baptism entry photographed from the microfilmed parish register and his original marriage certificate.
Module 4 - Confusing Situations
I have not (yet) come across any surname changes in my research on my maternal side, but on my paternal side I have PULESTON / DE PULESTON / DE PYVELSDON.
However the common changes that I have to deal with are the boundary changes of North Wales , especially Flintshire and Denbighshire which changed during my father’s lifetime (in 1974) and then again in my own (in 1996). In fact according to some mail I still live in Clwyd! It is made more confusing by the fact that Flintshire pre 1974 is different to the Flintshire post 1996!
