Researching your family history on the internet.
The internet has revolutionised family history research. You can find
info on the internet in a fraction of the time it used to take, and there
is loads of info online for you to look at. You can also get in touch
with other people researching your family lines, via the internet.
Here are the links to the main websites, that Brian Morgan and myself
talked about today …
FreeBMD for births, marriages and deaths going back to 1837, when civil
registration began … prior to this you have to search the Parish Records.
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
Family Search for the 1881 Census for England and Wales.
This website was created by the Latter Day Saints, and also contains
the IGI, the International Genealogical Index … masses of information
going back hundreds of years.
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp
For the census, click on Search Records > Advanced Search > All Censuses
> the British 1881 Census. A search for one of your ancestors on this
will also reveal (under Household) everyone who was present at the same
address, at the time of the census. You will be able to estimate the
date of marriage and the dates of births for the parents listed.
Ancestry … for the censuses from 1841 to 1901 on the free UK Library
version of Ancestry, plus stacks more information. The 1911 Census is
available, but you have to pay to access this at present. You can
download pedigree charts, to fill in yourself manually, so you can
quickly see who you might have missed. Ancestry also has photographs
of the original census forms, so you can see if the information was
transcribed correctly.
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/
The paid-for version of Ancestry costs £83.40, after a free 14 day
trial, and there is a more expensive version at for £107.40, if
you’d like to do more in-depth research (e.g. accessing the Parish
Records pre-1837). Our county libraries have a free cut-down
version of Ancestry … libraries such as the ones at Arnold and
Beeston.
Rootsweb … now owned by Ancestry, but free to use. Very useful
beginner’s section, message boards, and searches by surname and area. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
Find My Past … somewhat similar to Ancestry. Various subscription
rates, but free access at our City Libraries. You will have to pay to
access the 1911 Census however. One of my cousins thinks the shipping
records are brilliant on this site.
http://www.findmypast.co.uk/home.jsp
Access to FMP is password-protected at the city libraries, so ask the
librarian to log on for you. If someone else is using FMP in the
library, you might have to wait (which happened to me at the Central
Library on Angel Row)
Buying certificates online …
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/
Put in the info you found on FreeBMD … eg Sep 1878 : 6b : 33
Certificates are £7 each.
Using the Library Service in Nottm / Notts.
To use the internet, you will need to register for this at your local
library. You can have up to 6 hours a week free of charge. Book a
session on a computer while you’re there, with the librarian or on
a library computer. You can also book over the phone, or when online
at home. If you’re taking a flash drive, ask for a computer which
will accept one. Do some preliminary research on your home computer,
say on FreeBMD or on the 1881 census (on Family Search). Remember to
take your library card with you, when you go to the library.
To copy a webpage onto a Word document (to take home with you for
your own personal use), open up Word, turn the page round to landscape
format (File > Page Set-up), use the Print Screen (Prt Scr) key to
take a snapshot of the screen, and then paste the snapshot onto the
Word document (Ctr + V).
You can move lower down onto another Word document page, by clicking
your mouse in the white space at the lower Rt hand corner of the page,
and then pressing the Enter key. This will take you onto the next
blank page.
Save your work … File > Save As … save the entire document onto your
flash drive (or print it off at the Library).
Brian Morgan talked about three software packages you could use to
create various charts / other documents.
The LDS one … http://www.familysearch.org/eng/paf/
There is a free version of this, but Brian didn’t find it to be user-friendly.
Family Tree Maker … http://www.familytreemaker.com/
There are various versions of this you can buy. Brian uses the one
costing about £35.
Legacy family tree maker … http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/
Another excellent site … but Brian found he had to buy add-ons to get
more functionality, making it more expensive than Family Tree Maker.
Compatibility of your family tree maker software is an important
issue to think about … compatibility with the computer you’re using,
the browser you’re using (eg Internet Explorer 8), websites such as
Rootsweb (if you’d like to upload your family tree onto it), and
with the software owned by other team members that you’re working with.
Has your distant cousin got compatible software so that you can exchange
family trees with each other?
Part Two of this talk will be in the Autumn.
Happy hunting!
