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has anyone employed a genealogist to trace their family tree?

18 replies

Tutter · 05/10/2007 20:54

and would you recommend them?

any tips?

OP posts:
LadyTophamHatt · 05/10/2007 20:56

no, but my brother has spent years (on and off) tracing ours.

AFAIK he's manged to get quite far back

LadyTophamHatt · 05/10/2007 20:57

my uncle di it once too. IIRc you can use teh record at somerset house in london, or you could I think its all been moved now.

Tutter · 05/10/2007 20:58

yes cannot be arrussed doing it ourselves tbh

2yo and newborn in tow may lengthen the process

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MrsSchadenfreude · 05/10/2007 21:45

If you have an unusual surname, look on t'internet - someone may have done it all for you and saved you the bother. This happened to DH - he googled his name and got this huge family tree going back to the 1600s. The most spooky thing is that his family were all from the next village from where we are living now - about three miles away. And neither of us had lived in this area before last year!

bubblerock · 05/10/2007 21:50

There are a few of us on here that like to research family trees and have subscriptions to ancestry - feel free to cat me anything you need looking up (just include as much info as possible), I enjoy it .

Tutter · 05/10/2007 21:54

ooh bubblerock how lovely of you

i have sent you my em address - if you're serious and really wouldn't mnd, i'll pop some info on an email

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bubblerock · 05/10/2007 21:59

Tutter - I am serious, I really like to do research, I have several trees on the go at the moment. I'll email you back and if you write as much as possible I will take a look over the weekend.

bubblerock · 06/10/2007 14:14

Hi Tutter - you have email

NannyL · 06/10/2007 15:49

No but i have done a lot myself.

Putting my tree on genes reunited has also given me lots of extra links... confirming things that i thought were true but could not prove.

Some distant relative of mine has traced our family tree back to 936AD to the duke of normandy!

Just me by myself using the online censuses got me back to my relatives born around 1750 ish but they have since added the 1841 census and if i looked at that i expect i would be able to go back further.

I am very lucky in that most of my family come from a 10 mile radius of where i live... and i have since on dog walks for example found my relatives graves in local church yards

I know over 40 of my maiden names!

Tutter · 06/10/2007 16:22

wow nannyl, that's pretty impressive

bubblerock, you are a star. i have replied to your email with all the info i have

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tiredemma · 06/10/2007 16:39

How do you do this. I would LOVE to do it but just dont have time.

NannyL · 06/10/2007 17:42

tiredemma

I did mine about 18 months ago when i cut my hand, it got infected, i was signed off work and the most comfortable positon for my hand to be was resting on the mouse of my computer...

and i was stuck at home by myself for a few days.

Was lucky enough to know a fair bit about all my great grandparenst (and even a few bits about my great great grandparenst) that my grnadparenst had told me, so i joined ancestry... (they have a months free trial) and started searching from there.

Basically looking for people (knowing roughly where they lived and wear they were born).... and went from there... finding them as children in a family.... then searching for their parents... who were then chidlren with their parents etc...

BUT be warned... obviously all the census are handwritten, and people have spent hours transcribing them.... BUT due to the handwriting it can be really difficult for them to transcribe accuratley... and you may be searching for a name and never find it... cause its been transcribed wrong. (but when you look at the orignal you can see why the transcriber thought it was corrrect etc
also people seem to have no idea when they were born, as they may be aged 3 in 1 census, 10 years later they become 15 and 10 years later become 26 etc
also peoples names seem to change, for example one of my ancestors was named William as a child, but Bill as an adult.... also the place born can vary a bit..... from the name of the hamlet in one census to the name of the nearest village the next etc. Another of my ancestor had mary as ehr middle name... but it became the name she was called by the time she was an adult

so i often found myself searching for the siblings when i couldnt find my ancestors, cause then on the cencus next to my G G G aunt or whatever would be my G G grandmother but clearly her name had been transcribed wrong... if that makes sense?

It can be tricky but really satisfying when you work something out!

Ghostashoshabuster · 06/10/2007 17:54

Ive done a lot of mine, taken me 5 years, alot done on Ancestory.com. some on footslogging around grave yards and parish records. Its very addictive, so be warned.

its work looking on rootsweb.com to see if somebody has common ancestors.

LadyTophamHatt · 08/10/2007 18:54

NannyL, my brother has been tracing our for ages but according to him births (and death/marriges I assume) pre-1837 didn't have to be regitered, how have you managed to get back so far? I'm sure he'd love to know.

He's traced ours back as far as it can go without actually having to visits parish churches etc asnd the tree is huge. Apparently one section of my family is Russian!!!

CarGirl · 08/10/2007 19:00

don't suppose anyone fancies doing mine do they????? Have virtually no information to even start with !

ivykaty44 · 08/10/2007 19:02

Births deaths and marraiges wern't recorded - civil registration as we know it, until 1837. Even then the poor registrar had to chase for the births and got peace work so made some up along the way. Things changed in 1874 and the ownus was put on the parents to register a birth and fined if they didn't do so - so birth dates can be wrong to omit being fined (if late just change the date!)

Marriages - well the vicar had enough to do so these didn't always get to the registra on time and then the registrar would get a bit pi**ed off at all the work coming in all at once so he may not pass them on to head office - the GRO/somerset house and you may find marriages missing.

Deaths probably a safer bet - you need the certificate to arrange funeral - but information on death certificates can be a bit dodgy, people upset etc and info may get mixed up.

Before 1837 and after 1837 churches were told to record baptisms marriages and burials (from 1558) so good place to look at the parish registers - they are usually kept at the county record office e.g. devon parishes go to taunton record office. Hope my ramblings help {grin}

bubblerock · 08/10/2007 19:03

I don't mind helping anyone - just email me any info that you have (try to be as accurate as possible, hey Tutter ). My email is bubblerockjl2 @ aol.com (no spaces).

ivykaty44 · 08/10/2007 19:03

Ps www.familysearch.org

mormon site look at the I.G.I for baptisms and marriages - you will not find burials as mormons dont do burials

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