What's in your past?

[Slighty batty]

15 minutes ago, DUFFEMS said:

I had a similar situation when trying to determine my 3x great grandfather, two William Aspinall chaps born the same year, one a scissorsmith, the other a shoemaker. As his grandson was a scissorsmith it seemed obvious, wrong, further research revealed that it was the shoemaker. 

Unfortunately, the shoemaker's father was transported to Australia for petty theft to serve 7 years in 1834, obviously he didn't come back. I'm descended from the William Aspinall he left behind who became a shoemaker in Sheffield.

Sometimes occupations are a mystery, a cordwainer is a shoemaker who is serving his apprenticeship, I'd never heard of it. 

Regards 

Duffems 

 

One of my ancestors was a cordwainer. I don’t think it meant an apprentice, because he was still a cordwainer when he died aged 61. As I understand it, the word comes from the French “cordonnier” and it means someone who makes boots or shoes out of a particular type of rather luxurious leather. 

[hackey lad]

It's all cobblers .

[DUFFEMS]

You're right slightly batty. 

When  I found my 2x great grandfather William Aspinall he was a cordwainer (a shoe maker who had served his 7 years apprenticeship and working in cordovan leather). When I found him years later he was just a humble shoemaker/cobbler. 

Regards 

Duffems 

[sadbrewer]

5 hours ago, Mkapaka said:

Yes please - thank you.

If anyone has useful tips or other sources I'd be pleased to add them...feel free.

 

1) To get anywhere you need to pay subscription fees to a genealogy website, you can’t get far FOC.

The main two I use are Ancestry at £13.99 per month and Findmypast...which is a bit cheaper, but
better in some ways for UK genealogy.They both have pluses and minuses, but to be honest you need
both.
    Annual subscriptions are much cheaper and both sites have some good offers on occasionally.
There are others, but I’ve never paid for them. It can be worth creating a free account on Geni.com or MyHeritage (plus others) sometimes they will send notification that someone on your tree matches one of their subscribers.

  Before you start, ask family for everything they know, find out who keeps the shoebox with the family BMD certificates in, that will be a great help. Write it all down and draw out the draft tree on paper. Try and copy any photos they have, including what may be written on the back.

  Once you have surnames for married couples, use Freebmd.org (free as the name suggests) input the names and it will give you all their children (that were born after 1911 but before 1983)..much easier if one party at least has an unusual surname.
Https://www.freereg.org.uk/open/...also has similar, very useful records.

Pay for a month on one genealogy site and cancel the subscription straight away or they will automatically rebill you at the month end.. Unless you’re happy to have another month of course.
   Do as much as you can in the month and then try a month on the other....as a new customer to the genealogy sites they often offer a free trial period that gives you chance to get an idea of things.

   Don't trust birth dates shown in census records, they are often out by several years....Birth, Marriage and Death certificates are far more reliable.
Don't order Birth or death certs through the genealogy sites as they stick a hefty premium on...order them to come as Pdf's from the GRO at £8.00.,,,postal copies at £12-50...sometimes you can view the certificate entry for as little as £3.
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/Login.asp

Don't take the census transcription from Ancestry/Findmpast etc  as fact, sometimes the compilers get it wrong...look at the actual census return image and double check.

If you hit brick walls, try mis-spelling names and places as they often change over time...bear in mind that in Victorian times people were mostly illiterate, so the name or place written would be the Curate's take on your ancestors pronunciation...e.g. my Grandmother was called Jewsbury...in the records it comes up as Joesbury, Jewsbery, Jewsbury, Goosberry, Dewsbury, Dewsberry etc. My G Grandfather  was from Greenwick In the East Riding of Yorkshire, the census return says Greenwich, London.

If you find a record always screenshot or note It...just occasionally they can be hard to find again.

   When you’ve made progress on your paper tree... transfer it to a publisher type program on the PC, I use Coreldraw,....start off with A4 page setup, when it starts to get full save it and copy the info to a new file with A3 setup....and so on.

If you do the above, you'll really get somewhere in just two months subs...for free sites Freebmd is great, Wikitree sometimes pays off and try Google...you never know what you'll find....if your ancestors are from West Yorks, Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion is good. If you are looking at Scottish ancestors the Census returns are on a site called Scotland’s People...which I think is subscription only. If your interest is in Sheffield, the Sheffield Indexers site and the two Sheffield History forums are excellent. Other towns and cities have similar forums...google them to check, they can be very helpful.

 

2)

   Findmypast can also give you access to The British Newspaper Archive ( If you pay for the extra subscription)...no Kings or Queens, but I've found thieves, body snatchers, wife deserters...all sorts of things, through this Archive.
    This is one real score for FMP...I found much crucial info in the papers that doesn't come up in the usual records...We had a 1908 photo of a family wedding, only a few people were named and no otherclues...FMP's Newspapers carried a report that told us where it was held...who hosted it, the Best man and Matron of Honour,...plus many other guests...wedding presents...description of the dresses etc...wonderful stuff you could find nowhere else. It also carries Irish newspapers and Welsh language newspapers. The BNA can be accessed as a standalone service at £14.99 for a 1 month subscription, £8.34 per month  if you sign up for a year.

America has Newspapers.com....not as good as the BNA in my opinion, but they do occasionally have free access offers for limited periods.

If your relatives are Australian, Trove is a free Australian newspaper archive, New Zealand also has one,the name of which I can’t just recall.
  If your relative may have been a WW1 Anzac Soldier , their records are free from the Australian Govt websites.

    Ancestry can be awesome at times as it's been established longer, although it leans heavily towards US  subscribers and throws up connections to people of the same name that you're searching for in US records  which can be a pain. It has an excellent feature that allows you too look at the trees of other people who  you share ancestors with...from that it has a 'hints' system that allows you effectively to copy and paste  their work into yours....if someone else is researching your line it can be a very fast way of building a tree... the snag is that often they are wrong, sometimes badly wrong so you need to double check everything  they've done.
Findmypast is years behind with this facility but they are trying to catch up.

The DNA side can be great, I sent my test off and 6 weeks later the results dropped into my inbox showing I had 199 cousins of varying degrees ( it stands at 450 now) all over the world using the site...from that you can look at their results and tree to find the shared ancestor....not always much use as often people  have very little detail in the tree or are obsessives who might have added 80 or 90 thousand very distant people. but if the info comes up as first, second or third cousin you're really in with shout of making the connection....4th cousin and beyond can often be a waste of time. We did find that my Mum's Grandfather had sired another child to a girlfriend, when the descendants results popped up very closely related in my results....again, Findmypast is playing catch up.

Just a word of warning, Ancestry/FMP Tv ads give the impression you buy the test and everything is sorted, that is not the case...you need to put the research in to make sense of it.

Findmypast is UK based and is simply better for purely UK results...more reliable on census and BMD returns, it also has the edge on UK WW1 and before military records...Ancestry does have other useful military bits but they make you pay extra through a sister site called Fold 3 which is annoying.

   WW1  Service records can be invaluable, unfortunately  66 % were lost in the WW2 Blitz so you have 34 % chance of finding your relatives record. There are though a couple of sites that can
often come up trumps.
  If your ancestor’s service record is lost, look for the Absent Voters List for the relevant area, they often give rank, unit, and Regimental number...some are online, some are available from Council Local History services and some are unfortunately lost.

One site that can be a major disappointment is Forces War Records, promises a lot but doesn’t usually have more than you can get elsewhere. ( since I originally wrote this, Forces War Records has improved)

 If your ancestor was in the forces after WW1 you can order their Service Record from The Ministry of Defence for a fee. There is currently a very long waiting time.

 

3)

WW1 Pension records can be useful ...Fold 3 have them as does The Western Front Association, againfor a fee.

If you’ve done all the above and need to know more, try a post on Thegreatwarforum.org...it’s free to join.
Read the rules and give the helpful volunteers as much as you know. If it’s WW1 aviation TheAerodrome.com is the first place to try.
  If your interest is WW2 , try WW2Talk...also try the Newspaper Archives, there are often letters home that tell a story.
Some Squadron records are online,,,try Google and RAF Association groups.
There are also a few Facebook sites that cover similar subjects but in my experience don’t generally have as much in depth knowledge...still worth a try though.

Don't neglect local history sites or Facebook pages and remember that not everything is online, local libraries and family history societies often have good local and family History information.
City, Town and County Archives often hold Electoral rolls, old Phone books and trade directories, most of which are not available online.
 Finding other descendants  is amongst the most rewarding things to be found.

Both Ancestry and FMP have online forums, they are worth a try.

Gravestones can give useful information, besides using family knowledge, and Council records, there are sites like Billiongraves, Deceased Online, and Findagrave...all paysites however.

Tracking down other relatives can be very useful... if you are looking at unusual names it can often be surprisingly easy.
To track.. ie after 1911and before 1983, a Great Uncle/Aunt’s children input their surname and spouse’s surname into FreeBmd or FreeReg and click ‘births’, that will show all births to those two names, repeat the process on the children, try and find the children’s marriages and repeat the process until you find people who may well still be alive.
  With their names go to Findmypast and search that name using the filter 2010 + or - 10yrs. That will show Electoral Register and Company Director Registrations with addresses.
They may be local and only require a knock on the door, further afield a letter may be necessary. 192.com ( or similar) can be searched and may have a phone number or email address available for a small fee.
   If the record looks as though it could be out of date...check the address on Zoopla, if it hasn’t been sold in the intervening period your relatives may still be there.

  The final thing is to keep an open mind, you may well find things that don't fit the family narrative, I have found some family stories to be absolute fantasies...however sometimes the truth reveals incredible unknown stories... just accept genealogy is warts 'n' all.

Warning...Genealogy can be very addictive and lead you to spend a lot of money.

 

Edit...I haven't included how important Will's can be...there are a couple of sources where condensed versions can be found, they have often told an interesting tale.

It's quite a few years sinced I searched a Will and at this time of night just can't pull them to mind...if anyone can help it would be appreciated.

 

[lobster]

also for some military Records there are the National Archives partic Naval Personnel , Usually you have to pay but they give a preview to see if you on the right Track

 

There is a Dutch site that has pictures of all the men of the Admiralty Division that were interned after the Battle of Antwerp 1914 there were about 40 from Sheffield

 

The Sheffield Soldier used to be very good for WW1 Records but I don't know if it is stiil up and Running

Local jouranlist Chris Hobbs has a number of stories relating to all sorts of Sheffield Topics

Then there is the IGI - the International Genealogy Index compiled by the Church of latter day saints - good for Parish Records

[lobster]

Once came across a relative who was a " Town Scavenger "

[Slighty batty]

When looking for name variants it’s possible to use the wild card option on both the Sheffield Indexers site and on FMP.  That Dewsbury/Dewsberry. .. which was mentioned earlier, if you search on D*sb*ry it would bring up all sorts of variants.  *sb*r*y would bring up even more, but maybe too many. Not sure about Ancestry as I don’t use that one.  When using the indexers site remember not to use apostrophes, eg for O’Malley you would need to search on OMalley.  And on the indexers site, if you click on find same address remember that the same address can be written in different ways. 4 Court 5 House could also be 4 Ct 5 or 4 Ct 5 Hse or 5H 4C …. depending on what the original image said 

[lovelace]

13 hours ago, hackey lad said:

Who's Covid , the lodger  ?  😀

I should be so lucky.        Thanks everybody.

[Bellatrix]

I've tracked a little more of the history of the family who lived amongst the Sheffield steel works.  It seems they arrived in Sheffield from the iron works of south Wales and two generations or iron puddlers (filthy, laborious and life-shortening work converting pig iron to wrought iron).

 

I'm now lost amidst a slew of common Welsh names with no definitive paperwork and people flittering around the country and the records with no regard at all for the poor bugger trying to track them down 200 years later.

[lavery549@yahoo]

Well , I started ours on Ancestry , Our surname is Wragg , so no shock when I eventually found Vikings . But also found Lancashire & the fact we had an Ancestor who was one of the Pendle Witches , Ann Whittle .  Now have gone onto Find My Past & loads of WW1 heros .  Found Lancashire , Scotland , Wales , Ireland , Cornwall , Devon , London , Birmingham , Northumberland , Cumbria , Norfolk . All over . Its so interesting , & addictive .