Death certificates are also known to contain mistakes, especially if a young and distant relative, or doctor who was unsure of the facts, registered the death.
Our ancestors were prone to stretching the truth when asked about their age, or were themselves unsure of their own year of birth in times when paperwork and the process of filling out forms was far less common than it is today, which can explain discrepancies between a birth certificate and an age given on the same person’s marriage certificate. Any evidence of our ancestor’s existence is important, but you should be cautious when using this evidence.
Concentrate!
Simple mistakes are easy to avoid just by staying focused and alert. Keep checking the exact spelling of the names you are searching for so that you don’t waste half an hour looking for the birth of James John Clark, when it should have been John James Clarke. And it might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to confuse the marriage indexes for the birth indexes, so always double-check you are looking at the right set of documents.
HOW TO …
… avoid annoying mistakes
1. Double-check each fact; don’t assume it is right
2. Corroborate each source with another if possible
3. Beware! Primary documents contain mistakes
4. Double-check name spellings
Has Your Tree Been Researched Before?
Don’t be afraid to look for short cuts – they can save you enormous amounts of time and money! Here are a few places you can investigate to see if someone has done some work on your family tree already.
Society of Genealogists
Part of your initial research should include checking whether any part of your family tree has already been published or recorded. One of the best places to start looking is the Society of Genealogists (SoG), one of the country’s premium research institutions. The SoG is based in Clerkenwell, London, and for an annual fee you can access its impressive research library as well as copies of key datasets, attend lectures, seminars and workshops, and examine their extensive collection of manuscripts. Further information about the SoG can be found from their website, www.sog.org.uk.
Among the SoG’s records are pre-researched family trees, pedigrees and associated research notes left by family historians in the past who wanted to share their work with others. You check the SoG’s online catalogue at www.sog.org.uk/sogcat/access to see if your surname is listed. And don’t forget, it is also worth asking at your local studies centre or county record office to see whether they have copies of pedigrees deposited by other local researchers.
‘It’s worth asking at your local studies centre or county record office to see if they have copies of pedigrees deposited by other local researchers.’
Published Pedigrees
If you suspect – or even know – that you have blue-blooded relatives, then one of the volumes that publish pedigrees of the aristocracy will be of use. Surprisingly, this is more likely than it sounds, given that many aristocratic families can trace their lineage back hundreds of years, and as each new generation is born, the distribution of wealth and status thins out among the younger branches. You may not realize at the start of your journey that one branch has noble roots, in which case it will probably not become apparent until you have been investigating your genealogy for a while.
Alternatively, if there is a family story that a certain ancestor was descended from a specific duke or lord, then it is worth tracking down the pedigree of that family to see if it could link in with your own research at some point in time. Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage and Burke’s Landed Gentry have recorded the genealogies of titled and landed families throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland for over 175 years. Their content includes information on the extended family and deceased distant relatives of each noble name. Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage has been published since 1802, and is sometimes considered to be more dependable because it does not rely so heavily on information obtained from the family in the way Burke’s does. On the other hand, Debrett’s contains far less information about extended branches, preferring to concentrate on direct ancestors, descendants and living relatives.
Both publications are regularly updated and most libraries and archives have copies of these volumes, which include editions detailing the ancestry of extinct titles as well. Alternatively, you can purchase a subscription to browse the database of entries in Burke’s from the website www.burkespeerage.com. If you do manage to trace a line of your tree back to a titled family, then you can also look them up in The Complete Peerage by George Edward Cokayne, copies of which are held on open shelves at the National Archives in Kew and at other notable research centres. The Complete Peerage cites all of its sources and gives a bit of background about some of the more distinguished characters, such as their involvement in certain battles; however, it only follows the direct line of heirs.
In addition to the popular pedigree publications mentioned above, there are plenty of other editors who have printed pedigrees throughout the last few centuries, although these volumes are generally less well known because they are no longer in print. Check the shelves of your local library and archives for these. You may also find that a local historian has published genealogical records for families who lived in your local area.
There are some indexes to published pedigrees arranged by surname so that you can locate the relevant books that may contain information about your family tree. These are:
• The Genealogist’s Guide by G.W. Marshall of 1903; indexes a large number of pedigrees published between 1879 and 1903
• A Genealogical Guide by J.B. Whitmore, published in 1953; continues this cataloguing for pedigrees published between 1900 and 1950
• The Genealogist’s Guide by G.B. Barrow, published in 1977; for pedigrees published between 1950 and 1975
• A Catalogue of British Family Histories by T.R. Thomson; the most recent index for pedigrees, published between 1975 and 1980
It is highly worthwhile consulting these indexes for all of the surnames in your family tree, and continually referring to them as you find new names. Copies are held at most major libraries and archives.
College of Arms
The College of Arms, located in central London, has records of the visitations conducted by royal heralds in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were sent out by the Crown to review the claims of families whose status gave them rights to bear a coat of arms each time a new generation was born. (This need to check the family trees of the nobility became increasingly important after the English Civil War, 1642–46, at which time illegitimate claims were made to some titles.) Heraldry, or the system of displaying personal symbols on shields such as coats of arms, is of great use to family historians because of its hereditary nature. Heralds kept pedigrees of the families that were entitled to bear coats of arms so that they had a record of the line of descent the coat of arms could be passed down, which was usually to the male heir. Since the cessation of heraldic visitations, the College of
