— Research —

English Research

July 27, 2019

Over the years I have discovered some resources and methods I use to help augment FamilySearch and Ancestry for English Research. This is a method I use in researching my English ancestors:

  1. Select an ancestor that was born at a time when his birth, marriage and or death would have been recorded in the Civil Registration which began in 1837 and who would likely appear in the national censuses which began in 1841.
  2. Print a descendancy chart up to at least 4 generations for the head of the family from this band on your Fan Chart.
  3. Look for the missing spouse and children of  any descendant whose line stops short of 4 generations. You may have to print a descendancy chart for each of the 2nd generation children.  Then follow their descendants forward in time up to the 110-year cut off for ordinances.
  4. In your search for spouses and children,  you have two Civil Registrations options—
    • The National Free BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death) Index (https://www.freebmd.org.uk/ ) will list the marriage  with the year and quarter for an individual with three other people recorded on the same day for you to choose from as the spouse. You can narrow your choice by looking for each possible couple in the next census following the year of the marriage. (Also you can identify the county for the marriage by the Registration District.)
    • The Local BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death) Indexes (UKBMD) maintained by the County Registrar for each county. (https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd ). The UKBMD will list full names for both spouses, give the year of the marriage and will indicate what church they were married in if in a church or the Record Office where married and the place where the record is archived with an identifying number to locate the record. The church information is particularly helpful because it will lead you to the Parish Register that will often name the fathers of the spouses, their occupations and place of origin etc. If it is in a parish that other known family events took place, it is most likely the one you’re looking for.

5.    The Online Parish Clerk (OPC) for each county can be very helpful in identifying parentage for the spouses, the occupation information can help to sort out when there are many possibilities with the same names.  Some counties are a lot better than others for OPC.  (Google Online Parish Clerks/ county of your choice)

6.    Another site that lists many of the parish registers is Dusty Docs.  Of course, FamilySearch has the old IGI (International Genealogical Index) extractions from Parish Registers and should bring up most of the births and marriages.  Ancestry also shows the scans of many of the actual registers.  If you don’t find what you’re looking for in one, try the others.  They don’t all include the same coverage.  You want to see the actual record and not just the summary if you can access it because they often have information that serves as a clue that is not always included in the index form.

7.   Once you have found the marriage and identified a new family, look for that family in the first possible census and follow them all the way through to the last census (1911) and then in the 1939 register (which is not a census, but also helps to confirm birth dates and relationships).

8.  If possible look for spouses for the children and their families in the censuses.

For each new person that you add, attach all suggested sources that apply.  Also, check the sources for those already in the system to be sure that relationships are sourced correctly and for clues that will help you verify and add more relationships.

If you can’t find a spouse or children for someone, begin looking for Death Records, Obituaries, Find A Grave Records, and Wills. Also, check for Military Records for men if applicable.

Note: Alan Mann has two excellent videos on England Research Using FamilySearch.org  Part 1 and Part 2 . –Cindy Spencer