Protect genealogy research as part of your overall disaster survival plan!
It’s 2020 and Australia is on fire. People all around the world have seen the horrible footage, and heard the horrific numbers being quoted – acres burnt, people killed, properties lost and wildlife decimated. Many of those of us here in Australia have witnessed some of this first hand. A few of those will tragically have lost everything they own. And the fires still burn.
Fire, floods, hurricanes, cyclones and earthquakes seem to be ever more prevalent in recent years. We cannot afford to be blase about our preparation or believe it could never happen to us. In times of disaster such as this, it is unlikely that a successful escape will include time to pick out which irreplaceable items to save. Planning and preparation is everything. As Australians, we are urged to have our own Bushfire Survival Plan in place as we head into every summer. I would recommend everyone take the time to think about how they would deal with the kind of natural disaster most likely to impact them and do some preparation.
Protect Your Genealogy Research
If you are the guardian of your family’s history, you have a duty to protect your genealogy research. This should feature in any broader survival plan. Imagine the loss of all your years of work, how long would it take to replace? Indeed, how much is actually replaceable?
Organise
Be organised – know where everything is and keep it together in a safe place.
Prioritise
Work out what is absolutely irreplaceable, what is inconvenient to lose and what is easily replaced. You do not know how much you will be able to take with you in the case of an evacuation.
Digitise
Ensure everything is preserved digitally. This includes documents, family photos, and photos of objects such as furniture passed down through the family (in case they cannot be saved).
Back it up
Regularly back up your research and your digitised items to an external hard drive kept somewhere else and/or the ‘cloud’. Preferably both. Mark your calendar to remind you to do this at least on a monthly basis. Then if you do lose it all locally, you will never be more than a month behind when you retrieve your back up!
Protect originals
Fire- and waterproof safes, bags and pouches are available at hardware stores for your most precious items. Bags and pouches are more transportable in a hurry – perhaps use them for the highest priority items. A safe deposit box could be utilised if regular access is not required for some precious items.
Smoke alarm battery
A small and simple but often forgotten chore. You won’t need a smoke alarm for a bushfire bearing down on you, but domestic fires are a much more likely cause of research loss statistically. Remember to change your smoke alarm batteries every six months for peace of mind.
Good luck!
I hope none of you is ever in a situation where you lose all that precious research (or anything else of value) in a disaster. If something good, however small can come out of the current tragedy unfolding here in Australia, perhaps it will be a prompt for people to check if they are doing enough to protect their genealogy research.
It often feels like all the world’s knowledge must be found somewhere on the internet, but you’d be surprised how much can only be accessed by visiting archives. For every amazing available on-demand item we download, there’s a hundred more sitting in boxes on shelves. Some of these boxes have not been opened in years. Some of these boxes contain the answers to our family mysteries. By visiting archives, we can demolish some of our brick walls.
Don’t be complacent and think that everything will be digitised and available online in the next couple of years. There is so much out there that the crucial documents you need might not be digitised in your lifetime!
Archives – what are they, and how do they differ from libraries?
An archive exists for the preservation and safe storage of the items within it. A library, on the other hand, exists to provide access to the public for its materials, most of which can be borrowed and removed.
Archives contain books, documents, manuscripts, scrolls etc which you can consult within the archive only. They may not leave the building, and they are not usually on open shelves for browsing.
Archives exist at national, regional and local levels, and as they contain the original items, there is little overlap between the contents. It is wise to search them all!
Searching archives
The first rule of searching archives is: you do not wait until you get there. The second rule of searching archives is: you DO NOT wait until you get there!
Although the documents themselves are mostly not yet online, most archives have websites with some level of catalogue search on them. The catalogue search functionality may be absolutely brilliant, such as Discovery at the UK National Archives, or it may just be an email address to write with an enquiry. Whichever end of the spectrum your target archive is at for searching sophistication, use it before you go there.
For anyone with ancestry in the UK, I mentioned the National Archives Discovery portal for a very good reason. Discovery does not just tell you what is in the National Archives, but also what is to be found in over 2500 archives across the whole of the UK with just one search. A marvellous time-saver, definitely check it out if you are planning any archive visits there. It also lets you know if any of the documents it uncovers for you can be downloaded. Hint: if they can, take that option. You’ll need every moment you can get in the archives for those items which have not yet been digitised. Lastly, it also provides access to details such as the opening hours and requirements (appointment? readers ticket?) of the other archives so you can factor these into your plans.
When you have decided the date of your trip to the archives and you know the documents you are going to consult, preorder them. Many items are stored offsite. If you do not preorder them, you could face a long wait while they are transported to the archive building.
Visiting archives
The day has come, you know what you’re going to be looking at, all items are ordered. Now you just need to show up and start researching.
Helpful hints:
Prioritise research lines – start with the ones most important to you, or where the documents you’ve ordered are most likely to open floodgates of information that lead to other items needing to be ordered. You can work your way through the other lines while you wait for further orders to arrive.
Do not take pens with you, they will not be allowed in. Take at least two pencils.
If allowed, take your research notes and/or laptop/tablet and a charger, as well as a phone or camera to capture images.
Be prepared to put your bag into a locker, you may not be able to take it in with you.
Take ID, they may require it.
Eat and drink before you go in. You are likely to be there for longer than you expect.
Take another layer of clothing, no matter what time of year. Archives are notoriously cool. If you are shivering you won’t concentrate well.
I wish you all the best of luck in making your way through your list of items and finding all sorts of information that you’d never have found anywhere else. Don’t forget to keep a record of the collection title and reference numbers etc for your citations. You might want to recheck it in the future for further detail, or someone else may want to consult it, so you need to know where the information came from!
Abandoning genealogy research seems at best a little counter-intuitive, at worst downright crazy. But giving yourself some distance from a frustrating brick wall line can help you to knock it down.
So here’s the situation. It’s 2am. You have been going round in circles all night with a tricky ancestral line. You’ve tried every source you can think of. You are now randomly googling every variation of the ancestor’s surname you can think of, and you’re getting nowhere. You are at an impasse and your eyes are dropping out of your head. Is this productive? Chances are, you’re not going to find this ancestor tonight, and if you find a clue, you’re now so tired and so close to the problem that you risk missing it. So it really is time to call it quits and go to bed.
Extrapolate this situation to one lasting for several weeks, months or even years. Some of our ancestors really do test the limits of our research skills with their ability to hide from all who wish to document their existence!
What to do when the ancestors aren’t cooperating
My advice – abandoning genealogy research for a while can be extremely effective. Even if it’s just that one pesky family line.
Science backs this up. There appear to be multiple reasons why a distraction, even a short one, can help with problem-solving. The brain unconsciously continues to work on the problem in the background. Having a quiet mind helps connections to be made, but the effects of even brief distractions can be remarkable. The problems appear to be restructured during the process, allowing for new solutions to present themselves as fresh insight. AHA!!!
This wonderful ‘Eureka’ moment has happened to me several times since I took up genealogy. I’ll tuck away my notes on a branch, go pursue another one and suddenly one day I will see the answer clearly. Occasionally, when I’ve had a few resistant lines at once, I’ve taken a complete break from genealogy for a couple of weeks. It’s worked wonders.
But the thought of doing this makes me twitchy…
Don’t worry, it’s quite safe to do this. The great thing about genealogy is that your ancestors aren’t going anywhere. They’ll still be there when you get back. There will be no missed opportunities.
So try it today. Close your notebooks on the mysterious great-great-grandmother Vaughan (yes, I’m talking about YOU, Nora!). Walk away. Go do some work on the Morris family instead. Or watch a movie. See what crops up when you abandon genealogy research.
Last week we talked about why you might want to consider hiring a genealogist. This week, let’s look at some of the things you should take into account when choosing a professional genealogist to work with.
Get the Right Person For You
There are several factors to take into consideration when choosing a professional genealogist.
First and foremost must be their ability to demonstrate a high standard of genealogical research skill. If you’re paying good money, you want the results to be accurate and reliable. Anyone can call themselves a professional genealogist, it is not a phrase restricted to people who have sat a special exam.
Look for some qualifications (such as a related degree or diploma) or credentials. Credentials are often specific to a particular area of the world, which means the genealogist has to be a super specialist in that area! Your genealogist should be familiar with the Genealogical Proof Standard and be willing and able to provide research that meets this standard.
Look for extensive experience, the more the better. A good proportion of that experience should be in the area/subject matter of your research question. Someone familiar with local geography, history, customs and culture will be much more efficient with their research. If your ancestors were pioneers of the early Port Philip district, it’s better to hire someone familiar with the place and the records than to hire someone in the US for example. If you come from a line of Birmingham gunmakers and you want to do an occupational history of your family, it would be great to find someone familiar with both the gunmaking trade and Birmingham to help you with your research.
Choose a professional genealogist with good reviews. Word of mouth is an excellent indicator of quality of work.
Find someone who is willing to meet with you before beginning the project to discuss your needs. No project should begin without a mutually agreed research plan based on your objectives. They should be upfront about their fees and any other potential associated costs. You should also feel comfortable with them. Sometimes they may uncover sensitive information about your family.
Prepare to share
The sure way to have your costs blow out is to just tell the genealogist to start from scratch. Reinventing the wheel takes time, especially with more recent generations where public records are less accessible. No matter how self-conscious you may feel about the quality or amount of work that has been done so far, share it with your genealogist. They will be able to assess it much more quickly than beginning from scratch, saving you a ton of money! The genealogist will love you for it, because there is nothing worse than slaving over hot documents and writing up copious research notes to be told, “Oh we already knew that”. And you don’t want to be charged for that scenario!
How big is your budget and how do you want to spend it? It’s important to remember that your family history is never finished. You need to have a very clear idea of what you need the professional genealogist to do for you. Otherwise, you could end up asking for a little more and a little more until you’ve way exceeded what you planned to spend. Set your budget before you begin and stick to it. Make sure your genealogist is aware of where the ceiling is. As that ceiling approaches, they should let you know what they have left to do, and ask what takes precedence if the well runs dry!
There are usually two things you pay for with genealogical research:
Their time, knowledge and experience
Costs, for example, documents and if required, travel
Remember the genealogist is a professional. Do not expect a good genealogist to work for minimum wage. Anyone can do the job badly for peanuts (just take a look at some of the family trees on Ancestry!). A good genealogist is worth paying a decent rate for quality work. They will work faster and more efficiently than you expect due to practice, knowledge of where to look, and the ability to use context to point them in the right direction.
If your genealogist charges an hourly rate, specify how many hours you want to pay for. They will let you know if this is likely to be adequate to meet your research objective. Also ask if they offer a discounted rate for pre-payment or partial pre-payment. Many genealogists will happily do so for the piece of mind of not having to chase people for payment after the job is handed over. For example, if someone prepays me, I will discount by 40% for full pre-payment, and 20% for half pre-payment (in blocks of 10 hours).
Your outcome…
By the end of this process:
you have chosen an experienced professional genealogist with relevant qualifications and/or credentials, good reviews, and who is knowledgeable about your research area
you’ve decided exactly what you want from them and prepare them accordingly
you have agreed on a research plan and how to allocate your budget together
they will provide you with their findings and evidence in a report, with regular progress reports/research logs provided along the way for larger projects or between payments.
May you find amazing and intriguing stories with the help of your professional genealogist that you could never have found alone!
Cluster research is a fantastic methodology to use when you’re stuck. You’ve sucked the well dry in terms of finding records for your direct ancestors. Or perhaps there are too many records for people of similar names and you can’t differentiate between which are your ancestor and which are not. Maybe a female ancestor has got ‘lost’ and you can’t find her maiden name. It’s time for some lateral thinking.
What is a FAN Club?
Cluster research in genealogy refers to utilising the FAN club (Family, Associates and Neighbours) of your direct ancestors to access information that you can’t find simply by researching them alone. The term ‘FAN club’ was coined by respected genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills many years ago. It’s a great way to remind yourself of what other sources of potential information to look for.
Your ancestors did not live in a bubble. They lived in a community, and probably several subgroups of that larger community such as their immediate neighbourhood, extended family, church, sporting or social clubs, workplaces, and political groups. Therefore they were coming into contact with other people every day and probably left their footprints across some of those peoples’ documents and stories in one way or another. Every cluster that they were a part of provides context about their life at the very least.
The FAN Club consists of Family, Associates and Neighbours.
When we research our family trees, we often stick to direct ancestors. Indeed, people can be very critical of those who go down the rabbit hole of researching collateral lines, calling them ‘name collectors’ and casting aspersions on the larger size of their family tree. Do not be put off by this. Those people don’t know what they are missing!
Family Cluster Research
Collateral lines (or ‘extended family’) can provide gold when you’ve hit a brick wall. Was your direct ancestor not registered at birth or baptised, did he have no knowledgeable informant of his death, you can’t find his marriage certificate and there was no obituary published? You could be up the proverbial creek. But wait! He had siblings! Suddenly you have several potential sources for his parents’ names via each sibling’s records. For males, military records often contained parents’ names too.
Collateral family members can also help confirm which similarly-named person in a community is yours. Is a known brother with a less common name following the same occupation as your ancestor? Is the naming pattern of their children similar?
Extended family often lived close by, especially when families migrated somewhere together, so check censuses for them. They often witnessed each other’s weddings, were sponsors at their children’s baptisms and mentioned in each other’s wills – their lives frequently intersected. They often appeared in each other’s family photos, especially of large events. If you ‘lose’ a child from your direct ancestor’s family in a census, check that they weren’t actually in the home of their grandparents or aunts and uncles for the night! It can be very helpful when this happens. Sometimes the aunt was a previously lost sister of the child’s father whose married name wasn’t known!
Associates Cluster Research
Associates include people who were part of the same school/university, church/religion, workplace, professional association/union, sporting clubs, political associations or military units. They may have been business partners, their lawyer, doctor or any other sub-unit of the community. These people’s or group’s stories can often give a broader background to, and understanding of your ancestor’s life. If you are lucky your ancestor may be directly mentioned in surviving records or newspaper reports of these groups or workplaces, or journals of an associate’s life.
Many young men in particular were involved in local sports clubs.
I was able to find an account of an ancestor’s funeral in the newspaper because the only photo I had of him showed some masonic-looking regalia. This regalia turned out to be of the Ancient Order of Foresters who had put a notice in the paper. There were no notices from family as he’d left the state alone after his wife died and moved 2000km west!
The masonic regalia on this ancestor helped to find a newspaper announcement of his funeral across the other side of the continent!
Neighbours Cluster Research
Find neighbours using resources such as directories, censuses and electoral rolls. These are the people that were often interacted with most frequently outside of the immediate family. The bonds could be very tight, especially among immigrant families. You will often find in these cases that the families immigrated together, either knowing each other before the journey or meeting aboard the ship. If you are looking for a town of origin and your family records aren’t providing it, you may possibly discover it via the neighbours they came into the country with!
Neighbours’ lives were closely intertwined.
Neighbouring families commonly intermarried. ‘Marrying the boy next door’ was not just a myth. Of course not every romance ended up as a marriage. It’s probably a good idea to check close to home for potential fathers of illegitimate ancestors. If there are bastardy bonds available check those. If there aren’t, all is not lost however…DNA is beginning to uncover these dalliances by matching descendants of both families as cousins!
Neighbours can also be useful for finding a commonly named ancestor in subsequent censuses. If they had more unusual names than your ancestor and were still living in the surrounding premises, you’ve found him! If journals, memoirs or group photos from neighbouring families survive, you may well find that your ancestors are mentioned, so keep an eye out for those!
FANning Out…
Now you know a little about cluster research, I hope you take advantage of using some of these connections to your ancestors. You may break down a brick wall completely. You may find supporting evidence for a hypothesis or a clue for another direction to go in. At the very least you will add context to your family’s story – a little more flesh on the bones. That’s always a good thing.
Remember, family, associates and neighbours weren’t mutually exclusive – some people may fit in all three categories. If they do, I advise focussing on these ones first. They overlap your ancestor in so many aspects of their life they stand a really good chance of bearing information you can utilise!
I often hear wails of frustration from family historians who are trying to decide which John or Mary is theirs from a long list of possible Johns and Marys living in the same place at the same time. “Why couldn’t their parents have used a bit more imagination?”, they cry. However, imagination is a privilege we have today that was not so commonly used in our ancestors’ times. Not for them were books containing thousands of weird and wonderful name choices for their babies. There was a relatively small pool of names that were used compared to today (especially for boys). These tended to be recycled through the family generation after generation. ‘What’s in a name?’ when it comes to sorting them all out?
What’s In a Name? – How to use naming patterns to your advantage
Names were often given, not to express individuality as is often the case today, but to honour previous generations. Once you are familiar with naming patterns, you can use them to help identify the likely parents and grandparents of the ancestor you are researching.
Common naming patterns in Britain
The most common naming pattern was as follows:
The first son was named after the father’s father
The second son was named after the mother’s father
The third son was named after the father
The fourth son was named after the father’s eldest brother
The fifth son was named after the mother’s eldest brother or the father’s next eldest brother
….and so on
The first daughter was named after the mother’s mother
The second daughter was named after the father’s mother
The third daughter was named after the mother
The fourth daughter was named after the mother’s eldest sister
The fifth daughter was named after the father’s eldest sister or the mother’s next eldest sister
…and so on
If a name was already in use with a previous child, they would simply move down the list and use the next name. If a child died, their name was once again available for use. So don’t presume a second William Anderson in the brood is a mistake or belonged to a different Anderson family, but look for the death or burial of the first one. It was common to repeat names in the days of high infant mortality. Of course, depending on the age of the first William’s death, this may throw out the order of names. Parents simply chose the highest available ‘slot’ when naming their children.
In Scotland, the naming pattern began similarly, but rather than move on to uncles and aunts, they often carried on back through the generations, working their way through great grandparents. If the family got big enough, they may even venture into great great grandparents!
Using naming patterns to identify your ancestors
So how can you use these naming patterns to your benefit? Let’s say you have a couple of Robert Newtons in the same village who are around the same age and one of them is your ancestor. One was the son of John and Mary, the other was the son of William and Susannah. But which is yours?
Firstly, go through the parish registers to find all the children baptised to Robert and his wife. If the wife was from another parish also check there, especially for older children, as the wife may have gone home to have her first child and baptised it there. Also check neighbouring parishes, as sometimes not all children were baptised in the same place. Do the same for both sets of theoretical parents.
Now put all the children in order and check what names crop up in Robert’s family, especially around the first son (John or William?) and second daughter (Mary or Susannah?). These may well be his parents’ names if you’ve captured all their children. Also, check for distinctive names appearing in their offspring. This may help further differentiate, or help you if somehow you’ve not found all the children. For example, if Robert has a son called Moses, and so do John and Mary but William and Susannah don’t, this may lend weight to John and Mary being Robert’s parents.
Of course, naming patterns weren’t written in stone, so you should always look at other evidence to support your theory. If Robert was a baker, and William was too, but John was a blacksmith, there’s a clue that William may be his father. Did John or William leave wills?
What’s In a Name? – Using middle names to identify ancestors
From the 19th Century on, middle names started to become more common. These can be very useful in identifying a parent’s parents, especially when they appear to be surnames. For example, I come from a long line of Fields with the middle name Palmer. My son’s Tully line has a family where every child had the middle name Morrall. Now these are not common forenames, especially in an age when forenames were quite limited.
The most common reason for this is that the middle name is honouring one of the female lines by using her maiden name. This is often the mother’s line, but may go back to one of the grandmothers or further if it is also found in previous generations.
Let’s go back to the example used earlier. Say Robert’s children all have the middle name ‘Parker’. Was his wife’s maiden name Parker? If not, do any of the children born to John and Mary or William and Susannah have the middle name Parker? Or can you find a marriage between a John Newton and Mary Parker or a William Newton and Susannah Parker that is likely to be that of one of the couples you suspect of being Robert’s parents? This can be a strong indicator of which family your Robert belongs to, and help you break down a brick wall, even in a small village where intermarriage between family lines may have occurred.
The parish registers are an invaluable resource for identifying your ancestors
Happy hunting!
I hope this post has provided a few ideas on the importance of paying attention to names and how they can help you move back through your family tree with confidence. Do you have any peculiar middle names in your family that you now plan on using as a clue? And are you ready to trawl through some parish records and find all the children?
