Genealogy Em

 In addition to the main page of this blog I have created two additional pages which feature my favourite Canadian and British genealogy resources respectively. I recently updated the British resources to include links to some Scottish resources. 

During the Victorian era, having a child out of wedlock was considered a major sin yet despite this it happened quite frequently. The main challenge with researching illegitimate children is determining their parentage. It was not uncommon for the mother or the child to make up a story that legitimized the birth. This could be something as simple as borrowing the name of a male family member, using their father's first name paired with their surname, or making up a fake name entirely. Reading between these manufactured truths can be challenging and often send us hunting for the wrong person or someone that never existed. From performing research on illegitimate ancestors in my own family tree I have learned some strategies that can help sort through the confusion.  1. Pay attention to census records Census records can tell us quite a bit about a person, including their marital status and where they were born. It is not unusual to find a few errors in a census as they are considered

In my previous post I discussed two strategies that can be used to find a person in Canadian Immigration records and showed an example on how to apply them to find a Form 30A record. In this post I will explain how to find someone in the more complicated  Passenger Lists, 1865-1922 .    This collection is not organized by surname but rather by shipping information. Basic searches can be conducted using with any/all of the following parameters: Name of ship Year of arrival Port of arrival Shipping line Port of departure If you desire to perform an advanced search you can add any/all of the following parameters to the basic search: Date of departure Date of arrival The search results are displayed in a table which can be sorted using any of the headers: Item number Ship name Port of arrival Date of arrival Note: In some cases there are two ports of arrival listed but only one date of arrival. This does not mean that the ship arrived in both ports on the same day, but rather that that wa

Brick walls occur in every branch of our genealogical trees. They can stop our research all together and become a major time waster. I have had a handful of brick walls in my tree that I have been trying to breakdown for years now and only recently have began to get anywhere. While trying to break down these brick walls I uncovered several strategies that are helpful.  1. FAN Club research Sometimes referred to as 'cluster genealogy', this techniques requires you to build a social network surrounding your person of interest. The FAN club acronym was first introduced by Lisa Louise Cook as a way of dividing the social network into friends/family, associates, and neighbours. The conventional way of applying this technique is to use a table, however I have also found it helpful to create a diagram .  2. Create an evidence table An evidence table is a great way to analyze a large volume of information in a single table. The added bonus of this approach is that it can be performed f

I am always talking about collecting information that tells you personal information about a person's life. In particular, I am always talking about identifying relationships. This is formally referred to as FAN. (Friends, Associates, and Neighbours) Club research. It is a great technique to use when trying to break through brick walls or just expand your knowledge of an ancestor. Collecting the research is one thing, but finding ways to apply it is another.   FAN club members can be found on any document. The best places to start looking are at major types of records such as BMD and census records. See who the witnesses were to the baptism or marriage, who was the informant for the death? Who was living with the family during a given year? Then once you have checked out those sources consider expanding your search to include newspapers, immigration records, old pictures, etc. Collect the information in a table being sure to check for names which appear multiple times.  I like to b

When we think of genealogy we always think about the conventional types of records. Ones that are prepared by the government such as a census or a passenger list from an immigration. Inside our family homes we think of things such as old pictures and maybe stories that have been passed down for generations. Although all of these records are helpful they dont always answer all of our questions. Sometimes we need to think outside the box. Here are a list of some of the more unconventional records I have used over the years: 1. A Family Heirloom On their own the heirlooms are just another object that fills a home, but when we know the story behind them we get a better idea of who the former owner was. For example maybe they got it from a close friend or when they went on vacation. Both of these situations tell us something more about the person.  2. Old Letters Written to an Ancestor We often think that a letter received from someone wont tell us much about the recipients life, but my exp

When I first learned that many city's had made their old directories available online, I thought they were only useful if you knew your ancestor's exact address. Over time I have learned that they have far more uses than just that. I personally use Internet Archive when working with directories because it has a vast range of cities and years.  1. Family movement This is by far the most obvious use for a directory. Just as their name implies, they tell us where people lived which means we can use them to chart our ancestor's movement. What I find most fascinating is when these addresses are plotted on both a timeline and a map. Together this dual plotting approach gives us an idea of how frequently they moved and how major each move was. It also can tell us if they ever returned to an address.  I have taken the mapping a step further and added the people in an ancestor's FAN club. This can give a better idea of where and when an ancestor may have met that person. The cl

Library and Archives Canada has a large collection of immigration records which can be found here . Despite having such a vast collection, the passenger lists are not fully indexed. Unlike many of their other databases, you cant search for a specific person. The search method varies with collection, however the most common options are by shipping information or by browsing through alphabetically organized immigration forms. So how do you find someone when you can't search for them by name? There are a few techniques that you can use: 1. Check the Census Information When you pay attention to the entire family unit on a census it can help you establish a timeframe for when the immigration might have occurred, especially if they didnt come over all at the same time. First check if the immigration year is given on the census. This column was first introduced on the 1851 census in response to the large influx of Irish famine immigrants. This year is not always accurate but can provide a

In Part III of this series I talked about how occupational codes can tell us more information about someone's occupation. Specifically I used the example of how the term 'farmer' had been used as broad terms to describe anybody who lived off the land or cultivated something. The farm and goods census (1851 and 1861 only) served as a pre-cursor of sorts to occupational codes.  The farm and goods census record provided information such as: total lot size number of farm hands (male and female) how the acreage was divided between crops, pasture, residential, and bush land acres occupied by each crop and how many bushels were produced of each number of livestock income from the production of commercial goods (candles, shoes, leather, etc.) The above information was to be provided by the owner of the farm with production values given for the previous year of operation.  Before finding the person in the farm and goods census be sure to find them in the general population census. T

Over the years my research practices have changed. Each revision I make is to shift my research towards becoming a more efficient and streamlined process. Maybe this is because of my professional background in process design, or maybe it is my inner desire to have everything as organized as it can be. Regardless it has caused me to develop ways of organizing my research that I have not seen anywhere else. Efficient research is not necessarily about having your research expertly organized in one form, but rather in many. Its about knowing which way of looking at the information will make it the easiest to understand for a particular research question.  Tip #1: Handwritten notes are not outdated To many the concept of using a pen and paper to take notes is a thing of yester-year, but to me it is one the easiest ways to capture an abundance of information in a concise space. When I was going through university I was one of the few students that still used a pen and paper for notetaking -

They say that 1 in 10 people with British ancestry can trace their family back to the workhouse. For my family this statement is true. The process of filing for relief from the Board of Guardians was long and required the individual to provide detailed information about themselves.  In two of my previous posts I spoke of a woman named Bessie. After her father died in 1889, her mother mad no choice but to turn to the workhouse. She had six children between the ages of one month and 15 to support. The Poor Law records I found on this family contained a wealth of information - much of which I had never seen before.  Settlement Examination   The process began by with a settlement examination. The main purpose of this record was to determine what Poor Law Union was responsible for the pauper's upkeep (otherwise known as residency). The head of the family would be asked to provide the following information: where each member of the family was born if they are married and if so where and

What is an Occupational Code? If you have been researching your family in Canadian census records for a while you have probably noticed the numbers that are written over the transcribed information. As much as I wish that they didn't obstruct my ability to read the original writing they do offer some valuable information. The meaning behind every numerical code written over the census is not known, however the ones next to/covering the employment column relate to the industry that someone was employed in. Occupational codes were introduced to make it easier for the government and social scientists to identify the number of people working in each industry for a given census year. In some of the older census records, generic terms such as 'labourer', 'farmer' or 'servant' were recorded when really this didn't provide a complete nor accurate description of what the person did for a living. The occupational codes broke down these broad job descriptions thus

When I first started genealogy I disregarded birth, marriage, and death (BMD) index records because I thought that they didn't provide enough information for me to positively identify who I was looking for. Don't get me wrong, I DID try to learn how to use them - I just didn't find any useful information about how to do this. Hopefully this post helps clear up some of the confusion surrounding indexes.  What is information is in a BMD Index? The majority of England's BMD index records only supply the yearly quarter that the event occurred, the first and last name, and the place that the event was registered. The months belonging to each quarter have been summarized in the infographic. If the person you are searching for has a common name then this presents a major challenge, especially if there are many individuals that are close in age. So how do you make a BMD index useful without having to order the actual record? How to use BMD Indexes? The first post I wrote for t

When I first started my Scottish research I was caught off guard by the structure of the names. Some had long lists of names held in brackets after the first name, while others had reoccurring Gaelic words as a middle name of sorts. I have come to learn that these are referred to as patronymics and bynames respectively. This topic right here is one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog. It belongs to the lesser known parts of history - especially bynames. Researching this topic is difficult as few available sources of information have been indexed by Google. The ones that have, offer little more than a few sentences and maybe an example or two. I have compiled the information from these sources below.  Patronymics  Patronymics are commonly used in families which use a naming tradition because they help to differentiate two individuals which share the same name. More simply, a patronymic is a list of names which descend the paternal generations of the family. The names are placed i

Battersea: The Sinkhole of Surrey During the Victorian Era, Battersea had gained the reputation as being “the sinkhole of Surrey” due to its widespread poverty and slum-like conditions. Many of the poor in Battersea were subject to irregular income from the building trades. For a family to scrape by in the winter they would have to apply thrift spending during the summer. This was often complicated by the reliance on alcohol which was used as a means of escape from the depression of living in such widespread poverty. The irregular income caused many of Battersea’s poor to frequently be on the move. On average a family lived in one place for less than two years before moving no more than a few streets away. After hopping from neighbourhood to neighbourhood the family would eventually return to where they were once exiled from, moving in only a few doors away from their former address. Ford’s Folly and the slum of Little Hell In Keith Bailey’s report Orville Road, Battersea: a Victor