Researching
Family History Online
A
guide to useful resources and how to use
the internet to discover more about your family history
Adapted
from an article by Giles Turnbull for the BBC
Online 10/00
FAMILY
HISTORY
Anyone wanting to find out something about the history of
their family or their local area should be warned: it's going
to involve a lot of legwork. And that's even if you use the latest
tools available on the internet. There's a huge amount of historical
and genealogical data on the Net, and family tree research has
become one of the most popular pastimes for people with home computers
in the US and the UK. But that doesn't mean it's all going to
be easy, just because you have your PC and your modem. There's
still going to be a lot of work to do. Dr Christopher Currie is
consultant editor of the Victoria County History, a publication
of the Institute of Historical Research (IHR). The Institute is
no stranger to the benefits of using the internet, and first set
up its website way back in 1993, before even web browser standards
had been set. Following Dr Currie's transformation of the site
in 1994 into a standard HTML format, the site (www.ihr.sas.ac.uk)
became the world's first large online resource for historians,
and remains a very important one.
THE
LEG WORK
By far the commonest way the Net is used by family and local historians
is for catalogues. In other words, they tend to use the Web to
store data about data. You can search many different Web resources
to find when, and in which paper publication, the information
you want appeared. But then you have to switch off your computer
to go and actually read it. Dr Currie says: "There is a great
deal of historical and genealogical material on the Net. "But
people have to understand that they will need to be prepared to
put their boots on and do some legwork. "That said, the internet
can save serious researchers an awful lot of time and effort and
help them avoid wild goose chases in search of information that
won't help." Sometimes, adds Dr Currie, the simplest solution
is the best one to start with. "On the Web, one can do brute-force
searching for a name or a place, with appropriate qualifiers if
necessary." There's a simple way to test his theory. Go to Google
(www.google.com)
and type in your name. This kind of behaviour has been known as
"ego surfing" by some people, but it can bring up some interesting
results.
FAMILY
LINES
Another idea would be to type in your parents, or grandparents
names and birthplaces. Remember that you might not be the only
person in your family who is researching the family line - someone
else may have already placed a request for information about your
grandparents on the Web, and if you can get in touch with them
you will both be able to pool resources. Not to mention catch
up with a whole new set of relations. Dr Currie also recommends
a look at the Public Records Office website (www.pro.gov.uk).
This site has details of catalogues and web versions of many printed
leaflets handed out to family tree hunters. It's a very good place
to start and to work out what to put on your "to-do" list. Don't
forget that you are unlikely to find the actual data you need
on the internet. What you are most likely to find is information
on who has that data, or where it is likely to be found. That's
the case at the moment, but hopefully it will be different in
a few years. The internet will ultimately make a huge difference
to the way people research their family history, according to
Else Churchill of the Society of Genealogists (www.sog.org.uk).
She says: "Primary data like births, deaths and marriages records
remains in paper format in most places, but more and more catalogues
are being put online, and they can be an enormous help. "The vast
majority of primary sources are not available in electronic format.
The Familysearch database collated by the Mormons (www.familysearch.com)
is a useful one, and has a couple of hundred million names in
it. But it has not got records from all parishes or local areas.
"The way people use the internet for family history research will
change beyond recognition in a few years. "There's a thriving
community of family historians on the internet, which has changed
the way we can all communicate with each other. Since having a
website, our society has had many more enquiries from all over
the world, and we plan to put some of our own data indexes on
the Web later this year. "One day there will be the political
will and the money available to digitise the nation's records,
and that will completely revolutionise the process."
PLAN
YOUR RESEARCH
The Genuki site (www.genuki.org.uk)
is "the best gateway to genealogical information for the UK,"
says Ms Churchill. Cyndi's List (www.cyndislist.com)
is "an excellent US source that lists many useful websites," she
adds. Like Dr Currie, Ms Churchill has a warning for people planning
their own research: "There will come a time when you will have
to do some hard work. The Net will only really tell you where
the records are, then you will have to go and find them." Except,
perhaps, if you know or think that you had Scottish ancestors.
Scottish births, deaths and marriages index data has been put
online at the Origins site (www.origins.net).
One team of hard-working volunteers has begun the task of putting
English and Welsh births, deaths and marriages indexes on the
Net. The task before them is an immense one, and information about
how the project is progressing can be found at freebmd.rootsweb.com.
So far, about two million records have been put into the database,
and there is a total of 100 million records dated prior to 1900.
Another interesting website is that of the Historical Manuscripts
Commission (www.hmc.gov.uk)
which contains a useful database of where people might find various
archives and libraries around the country, and what will be contained
in each one.
GENEALOGY
Peter Christian, editor of Computers and Genealogy magazine
(www.sog.org.uk)
and author of "Finding Genealogy on the Internet" (www.spub.co.uk/fgi),
says that before anyone considers switching on their computer,
they need to talk to their living relatives. "The first step is
to talk to every living member of your family and find out as
much as you can," he says. "There is almost nothing available
in any records online of anyone living after the end of the 19th
Century, so try to trace your family back at least that far if
you can. Talk to grandparents and great-grandparents and write
down names. "You have to be able to connect what you find on the
Net to your family, so those names are important." Local history
is less well-served on the Net, adds Mr Christian. "There are
lots of local groups of volunteers beavering about to put bits
of local history online, but they are patchy and not always easy
to find. It's a case of doing some hard internet searching to
find what you want." "Sometimes there will be a lot of information
that has been collated for you. The Powys Digital History project
is a particularly good example of local history on the web, but
not all local authorities have the time, money or inclination
to make such a site. "Public records offices have a primary duty
to ensure the safe keeping of their records. Building websites
would probably help many of them in the long term because they
would reduce the number of calls coming in to enquiry desks, but
they tend to be low down on the priority lists."
CHECKLIST
Mr Christian's checklist for the budding family history researcher
is...
1. Talk to relatives first.
2. Search for British data sources at Genuki (www.genuki.org.uk)
3. If you have information that stretches back to the 19th century,
try Familysearch (www.familysearch.com)
4. If you are looking for global records, search at Cyndi's List
(www.cyndislist.com)
5. To progress to more websites, check out the list of our genealogy
links
RESEARCHING
FAMILY HISTORY |
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FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETIES
