Racing Ahead - Online Genealogy Course

This week it has been very quiet in work, so quiet in fact that I managed to get through two modules. Below are the submissions:

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!

Module 2 - Family Records & Personal Documents

In our second week we have been asked to put some meat on the bones of the pedigree tree by filling out "Family Group Record" sheets and listing what documents we had to start with.


Family Group Records


I found that using the "Family Group Record" sheet did not record enough information for my liking. I found not being able to add second spouse information frustrating as it would mean duplicating sheets in order to record both spouses. Going forward I will be using the "Family Group Sheet" however I need to copy a lot more!


As I have been researching for a while I didn't find anything surprising going back to my great grandparents. 


List of Personal Documents

• Christening Certificates for my brother and I. 
• Short birth certificates for my brother and I; I had to order the full ones!!
• Birth and Marriage Certificates for my paternal great grandparents.
• Newspaper clippings detailing deaths / funerals of various family members on my paternal side.

From these documents I was able to get the various birth, christening, marriage, death and burial dates. See how people relate to each other. Go back a generation. Get information about occupations and locations. The newspapers also threw up a few names that were unfamiliar so they were put to one side until they could be put correctly into the family.

Module 1 Assignment 2 - Stuck in Pedigree Chart

Ok, my second assignment of the module was to complete a Pedigree Chart as far back as we could using only the records and information that was available to us when we started all this madness. It was five years ago; I have trouble remembering what I did last week but I gave it my best shot. Here it is for your enjoyment / amusement;

As I have mentioned previously I was lucky in having three my four great grandmother’s alive during my lifetime so going back four generations was pretty straight forward.

I started by speaking to my parents. I asked them for the key dates; birthdays, wedding anniversaries, years of funerals and how old people were when they died. When they couldn’t remember I’d ask if they were older or younger than they are. I asked them for the names of cousins, aunties, uncles, and any grandparents they remembered. I used simple questions to jog their memories and found this worked really well.

After I’d driven my parents nuts asking lots of questions I went and did the same to my grandparents. I encouraged them to tell me stories and anecdotes about when they were growing up as well as asking the nitty gritty who, where, when and why questions. However I get more information from the stories than asking about the “hard facts”.

Although I knew my great grandmother’s I didn’t get bitten by the genealogy bug until after they’d died so I was unable to ask them the same sorts of questions. However they did leave behind some documents relating to their lives; birth, marriage and death certificates; newspaper cuttings; letters to solicitors; birthday postcards and a few photographs.

The collective information I received from this I put into my Pedigree Tree. I managed to get back 5 generations thanks to the marriage certificates in my possession. All that was left was me to start using external resources to get even further back and to put some meat on the bones of my ancestors.

I remember being very surprised that I was able to get so far back (to the 1900s) in 4 generations and just that little bit further with the fifth. However I still felt as though I didn’t really "know" anything about them. They were still just names.

Module One: My Genealogical Experience

Ok so this was my first assignment. We were asked

• How long have you been researching?
• What kind of ancestors are we looking for?
• How far back have we got?
• What types of records have you used?
• What are your biggest frustrations?
• Have you ever used the internet? What do you like / dislike about the net?
• Have you researched at a Family History Centre?
• Have you been successful?

And here's my submission:

I've been researching my family for about five years, ever since I broke my wrist at the gym. I'd always had an interest but never seemed to be able to find the time, with six weeks off work and my arm in cast I started my journey. Initially I just wanted to know where I came from, how my family ended up where they are, doing what they do and why we don't speak Welsh. As my search backwards progressed I now want to know more about how they lived.

I was very lucky in that I knew three of my four Great Grandmothers and because they had lived to decent ages they had passed on what they remembered to their children; my Grandparents were a great starting point, even if now five years down the line, they are still coming up with new information they swore they had told me! The majority of my ancestors are Welsh, but there are also English ones in there too. 

The furthest my ancestry goes back at the moment is to c. 1150 and Hamo DE PULESTON (my 25 x Great Grandfather) who came over with the Conquests, however they married into my family (my 4 x Great Mother was a PULESTON) but this side doesn't really interest me. I'm not interested in connecting my family to Royalty or the Noble classes, I'm more interested in the Agricultural Labourers, Tin Plate Workers, Colliers, Blacksmiths and Cotton Spinners.

I use the Census returns; the GRO index for births, marriages and deaths; the certificates themselves to validate and prove my relationships; parish registers for baptisms, marriages and burials; grave stones; the probate index; military records; parish transcripts; newspapers and any other reliable sources I can get my hands on. Trips back to my parents often end in me spending days at the local library or the County Record Office. When I'm at home in London I get my lists together and go down to the LDS Centre in Hyde Park to view the microfilms or to use their free access to the 1911 Census and other subscription services. I myself have a sub with Ancestry but sometimes there are things they do not have that I need. I also use the internet extensively in my research and find the online forums especially helpful. What I don't like about the internet based genealogy is that you're information, that you have painstakingly researched and sourced is "stolen" from online trees, attached to others and the information is then changed to match their tree. It doesn't happen very often but when it does it is highly irritating.

My biggest frustration at the moment is trying to research such a common surname in Wales; DAVIES. It is extremely difficult to ensure that you have the correct family. I also find illegitimate children frustrating simply because it means I cannot go any further with my research and I feel like I'm missing part of the story. I don't like that!

So far I've been successful in establishing that my Welsh family has English blood in my great grandfather and that we were essentially miners who rolled down the hill from the village to the town following the coal. I'd like to think I have not moved far from these working class roots and that the dedication and work ethics of my ancestors are still alive in my approach to my life and my work.

Online Genealogy Course - Suprise!

At WDYTYA2010 I signed up for a free online course in Genealogy. Of course when I got home and never heard anything else about it I assumed I’d either misunderstood or had just put my email down onto a well disguised mailing list.

So imagine my surprise when this afternoon I got an email through asking me to log on to my “Student Briefcase” so that I could access the course materials for

Methodology - Part 1: Getting Started 

How very exciting. The website offering the course is www.genealogicalstudies.com and I’m sorry I ever doubted you.

So I’m going to do this course and see what it can tell me that I haven’t worked out through trial and error. It is a six week course that starts today (and has an exam at the end of it – yikes) so I’m going to try and remember what it’s like to be a student and go and get completely wasted……urm ah-hem….go and get started, that’s the word.

Week 1 covers:

Introduction

• What Genealogy Means
• Why Would You Want to Trace Your Ancestors
• How Far Back Can You Go

What To Do Before You Start Your Research

• But a Couple of Don'ts First
• Construct a Miniature Tree
• Whose Genealogy Do You Want to Trace?

Recording Your Information

• Pedigree Chart
• Coding System
• Abbreviations

I’ve printed the course documentation for week one and I’m ready to go.

I also have to submit pieces of work, the first being My Genealogical Experience. So I’m going to go off and read my course material and I’ll blog about “My Genealogical Experience” so you can keep up to date with how I’m managing this.

I’m rather looking forward to this really. If nothing else it should help my focus.