WRITING YOUR FAMILY HISTORY E-Book

Deborah Cass

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Ever wished to see your family history in print, or imagined future generations poring over old photographs and anecdotes in a book? Writing Your Family History helps family historians realize the full potential of the names, dates and facts that they have researched to compile a detailed family history that will be preserved for future generations. Topics covered include: Exploring sources for material; Gathering information; Recording family anecdotes; Making use of limited material; Using local and social history; Studying family dynamics; Planning your story; How to begin your story; Presenting and publishing your story.

Leseprobe

WRITING YOUR FAMILY HISTORY

A practical guide

DEBORAH CASS

Copyright

First published in 2004 by The Crowood Press Ltd, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book edition first published in 2012

© Deborah Cass 2004

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

ISBN 978 1 84797 442 6

Dedication To my grandmother, Lucy Ann Florence Ingamells Rogers (1908–78)

Acknowledgements With grateful thanks to the following individuals for their help and support: Andrew Peach, Mike Corr, Neil Berrett, Bob Pryor, Daphne Oldfield, the Devon Record Office, the Revd Christopher Benson, the Wiltshire Family History Society, my family and friends, and William.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

1 AN OVERVIEW OF PRIMARY SOURCES

2 FURTHER SOURCES

3 PERSONAL SOURCES

4 MAKING THE MOST OF LIMITED MATERIAL

5 IDEAS FOR CONSTRUCTING AND WRITING YOUR FAMILY HISTORY

6 PRODUCING YOUR STORY

FURTHER READING

FURTHER INFORMATION

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

If you are a family historian, you almost certainly will have amassed quite a large collection of family data in the form of family trees, photographs, birth, marriage and death certificates, letters, wills and other memorabilia. In fact, the longer you conduct your research, the more you will accumulate.

Preserving a treasured collection of family papers is a headache for many genealogists and family historians – how can you both store and safely access all this material? Is your collection of family history neatly stored and indexed, perhaps using a combination of computer programs and files to store the information and documentation? Perhaps more importantly, if you do store your papers neatly and in an orderly manner, how do you give the contributors and other family members access to them, to all the fragile photographs and old letters you have collected from them over the years? Are you the family ‘curator’ with sole access to your material? Are you using archive-quality paper? Is your storage adequate? Is your material safe? Are there any copies? Can anyone else gain access to your computer – how will your geneology software stand the test of time?

Over the years, my concerns about my family history material grew to something bordering on neurosis. Not only was my treasured collection disintegrating with the passing of time, but what disturbed me equally was the thought of losing all this documentation through my imagined, worst-case scenarios of fire, theft or flood. Was I the only family historian who had ever tried to work out in the event of a fire how I could save both my dog and my treasured papers? They were, after all, irreplaceable, and if, like me, you have had to persuade relatives to part with their precious photographs and documents in the interests of future preservation, not only might the papers perish if personal disaster strikes, but can you really claim to keep them in any better conditions than their original owners?

If you are anything like me, far from being neatly stored and indexed, this material lives in boxes, plastic bags and old briefcases and in no particular order. In the past, as the self-appointed family historian, when I had a query from a family member or I wanted to find a piece of information, I had to wade through it all to find what I wanted. During this process, as I handled thin, fragile papers, some literally crumbling between my fingers, I was again confronted with my own mistreatment of all this material, especially when I was in a hurry to find something and when I was not as careful as I should have been.

A question perhaps even more pertinent to family historians is how will your collection papers and photographs be interpreted by future generations? Will they be able to follow your lines of research, know exactly who was who, put the right face to the right name, unravel the notes scribbled in your notebooks? Or would the many years spent researching your family history be construed by others as confusing – worse still, as meaningless – as the information lies immersed in computer programs, notebooks, albums of photographs, bags and boxes?

Until now you may have just updated family trees as babies were born and distributed the updated versions around your family as and when asked to do so. Of course, your family enjoy receiving the new record, but, apart from naming the next generation, it does nothing to impart any information or history of these ancestors. While the names will always mean something to those who remember certain characters, to future generations they will just be names.

THE SOLUTION

If you share these concerns, there is a solution, a way to bring all your research together, preserve the material you have, give all your relatives access to their family history and present your family’s story in a coherent way and that is to write your family history. In writing this history not only will you be able to set the record straight as to your family’s origins, but you can also detail the lives of your ancestors and use history to give them the presence they deserve. You can include facts, figures, dates, photographs and photocopies, family trees and transcriptions of original documents to share and distribute among your relatives.

This will allow access to copies of original documents to all your family members, thereby rendering unnecessary any handling of the originals and, at the same time, duplicating the material you hold, so that, should the worst happen, at least the family story would not be lost. Even more importantly, you can put your family’s story into its historical context, tie up loose ends and turn names into real people by telling their stories. You will be able to offer your relatives something more than just a family tree; you will be able to share the knowledge that you have gathered and present them with the story of their family.

The ‘project’ of compiling the family story may give you a new focus for further research and a purpose to the gathering of your information. It may also have a positive effect on your relatives if you tell them what you are doing and yield further material for you to use.

WHY WRITE YOUR FAMILY HISTORY?

Quite apart from the advantages of saving original material, telling the story of your ancestors’ lives as fully as possible, is as exciting as first discovering them from a parish register or a census return. You will also find that to document the lives of ‘ordinary’ people can be as worthy and extraordinary as documenting the lives of the famous. This book will show you how to give your ancestors a presence in history, whether you have comprehensive details of their lives or only limited material to work from.

It was because of the response that my own family histories received (I wrote up all three lines of my family history) and my feeling that this was the point to my research that I felt compelled to encourage other family historians to do likewise.

THE PURPOSEOF THIS BOOK

This book assumes that you have begun researching your family history – you may have been doing this for many years or for just a few months. Either way, you will most likely already have a number of guidebooks informing you of all the sources from which you can obtain your family history.

In the first chapters here you will find a list of primary sources. Although not exhaustive, these particular subjects or sources are highlighted to show their ability to provide you with material for your story. If you have not yet considered how newspaper archives and articles can help you or you have not yet delved too deeply into social or local history in your research, this is where you will be encouraged to do so. The information contained under each heading will prompt you to examine any documents that you may already hold and to explore subjects (if you have not done so already) that relate to your ancestors. I hope that these sources will ensure that you will make good use of local libraries to examine census returns, newspaper articles and local histories and your local record office for parish registers.

Then, how might your ancestors’ personal possessions and gifts throw light on further material for your story? Have you ever considered questioning why a particular photograph was taken or asked for whom and what occasion a gift or family heirloom was first given or acquired? This book will illustrate how these things may become valuable sources to add interest and colour to your story.

This book, therefore, is not intended as a definitive reference guide to the major information sources – there are many other works that already do this job very well and I do not seek to replicate them (see the note at the end of the Introduction). This book is intended to take up where such guides leave you, with a wealth of accumulated information and aims to be used in conjunction with your favoured genealogical guides. You will be encouraged to write your family history using the data you have already assembled and to examine further sources. The primary aim is to show you how to use your family’s history to ascertain its value in relation to telling your family story and discover a new focus and direction for your research other than merely to assemble a large database of names and dates. Write your family history and make a written record of your ancestors’ lives to share with your relatives and future generations. In the process, it may help you to preserve your original documents and to ensure that copies of them are circulated to a wider audience. Let your documents and originals rest in their boxes and use this book to bring your family history alive.

The book will focus on:

Material

This urges you to examine what you already have and to look at further sources and their potential to provide you with information. Chapters 1 to 3 encourage you to reassess your material and cover both primary and personal sources to ensure that you examine all the traditional sources, such as birth, marriage and death certificates, National Archives and census returns; they also ensure that you cover some more unusual sources, such as the media, the Mass Observation Archive and personal possessions.

Using Limited Material to Write Your Story

Here, ways in which you can enhance your story even with limited sources are suggested. Chapter 4 is for the family historian who thinks that he or she has only very little material to go on but who still wishes to write a good account of the family history. This section may also be used by all family historians to help them to tell a more comprehensive story; there are suggestions for researching sources other than those mentioned, such as on occupations, and how to examine ancestors’ relationships and comment on their health, wealth and the homes they may have lived in. This chapter also shows you how to use essays to enhance your story and it emphasizes the use of local and social history.

How to Write and Present Your Story

Chapters 5 and 6 set out recommendations on how you might actually put the words on the page and offer suggestions on how you could start your story and where it might end and on speculating on our earliest ancestors. There is also advice on style, format and binding and on how you might wish to publish the finished product.

In places, I have used some of my own family research to illustrate just how valuable the information you may acquire from a particular source could be to your story.

A Final Note on Sources

While the sources referred to in this book are mainly British, the principle of obtaining as much information as possible from any similar source in another country is the same. Wherever you may live and of whatever culture you may be, you can apply the advice and suggestions contained here to your own family history.

For further guidance on sources (books, periodicals, addresses, telephone numbers and websites), see the appendices starting on page112.

1 AN OVERVIEW OF PRIMARY SOURCES

In order to write a family history you first need to have material. You have to know as much about your subject – your family – as possible. Material in the form of names and dates forms the ‘bones’, the skeleton of your family history. Letters, photographs, memories and anecdotes are what you will need to add ‘flesh’. Even if you have only a limited source of these, the use of local and social history will add interest and enrich your story in the absence of other family material to draw upon.

Neither do you need to have a long family history in order to justify writing it. If your family history is in its early stages, you can still start to write a comprehensive history of the lives and times of your relatives – a good story does not necessarily need a host of ancestors. You may wish to start writing your history with yourself and work backwards. If this has the effect of putting you off, then you may wish to start with your parents or grandparents. If you have a fairly extensive family history you might like to start writing it from the farthest point and work towards the present.

Whether writing an extensive history involving many ancestors or just one of your immediate family, material is the key to making it interesting to your reader. In your quest for family material do not overlook those relatives nearest to you in generation just because they may not be particularly old; they will almost certainly have a wealth of material, anecdotes and stories which it would be a pity to ignore. Likewise, do not be afraid to approach an old aunt or uncle you have lost touch with who could possibly provide you with much information of relevance.

Your family history material will come from many sources and it may surprise you just how many you have from which to seek the information you need:

• birth, death and marriage certificates

• parish registers

• parish records

• census returns

• National Archives/local record offices

• wills

• local history

• social history

• reference books

• newspaper articles/news items

• family memories/anecdotes

• local libraries

• photographs

• personal correspondence

• possessions/gifts

• diaries

• hobbies

• relatives

• Mass Observation archive

• surname studies

• the Internet

All of these and their ability to provide you with material for your family story are covered here, and although this tally is not exhaustive, it could be used as a checklist for research into your family’s past. The categories are divided into two main areas: some I have referred to as primary sources since these are the obvious ones you would look at; the secondary sources I have referred to as personal sources as these are the ones that will be closest to your personal family history, such as diaries and correspondence, all or some of which your relatives or ancestors may have had and that may provide the more intimate insights and interesting minutiae of their lives. Writing your family history is a chance to revisit all the data you have and to analyse it and pull out the information to form your story.

BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH CERTIFICATES

Since 1 July 1837 records of all births, marriages and deaths have been subject to national official registration by civil authorities; they record the events and issue the appropriate certificates. The civil registration system provides family historians with an indispensable resource for tracing their ancestors back to that date and will most likely form the backbone of the skeleton upon which you can begin to build up your family’s story. Indexes to these records may be found at the Family Record Centre in London, some record offices, local history libraries and through the Internet.

Birth Certificates

These provide a mine of information and a starting point for the family history writer. A birth certificate, for example, will give you the name of your relative, usually his or her parents, and where and when your relative was born. After some simple research into the facts contained on a birth certificate you will be able to add to the circumstances surrounding your relative’s birth.

Date of Birth

The date on which your relative was born will enable you to place him or her in history. You will be able to check for any significant events that may have occurred on or around that date and be able to inform your readers which monarch was reigning at the time, the Prime Minister then in office, what were the burning issues of the day and the more pertinent local details that could have affected your relative’s life.

Name

The name of your relative could help you in unexpected ways by confirming family ties. For example, my illegitimate great-grandfather Isaac Brown Rogers was named after his father Isaac Brown, even though the father’s name did not appear on the birth certificate. The Christian name may also reflect the importance of the mother’s family, with the mother’s maiden name being used as a Christian name for a child or the mother’s father’s name being used in its entirety for continuity. As an example, an ancestor of mine called her son Richard Dawson Carey Ingamells after her father, Richard Dawson Carey. Where this occurs, it could be an indication of the recent death of a relative and the naming of the next son or daughter being made by way of remembrance of the individual. This may link you unexpectedly with the next generation of your family. Perhaps you have instances where a first-born male or female always carry a certain name; it is highly likely that the further your research takes you that reused Christian names will appear in your family history. Names of ancestors are worth a second look to determine the existence of any patterns or links to previous generations.

Place of Birth

The place of birth is an interesting fact to bring to notice – placing your relatives in a particular place and perhaps even social standing. The location of a birth will enable you to trace a map of the area, locate a street or road and maybe even find a photograph of it from local archives. If your relative was born at home, you may wish to describe and comment on what sort of housing it was, when it was constructed, whether it is still there and, if it is, provide a photograph, all matters of interest in your story. (See Hearth and Home in Chapter 4.)

Parents’ Names

The certificate will show the names of the father and mother, or only the mother’s name if your relative was born illegitimately. If the father’s name is omitted, this will restrict your research on this line of your story, leaving you to concentrate on the maternal line. If the parents were married, the mother’s maiden name will also appear, giving you an opportunity to enlarge your story by introducing the mother’s family.

Marriage Certificates

Marriage certificates can introduce you to many people linked to your relatives. As well as the bride and groom, there are their fathers and the witnesses. The certificate will also show occupations and addresses.

Ages

The ages of your newly weds may feature on the certificate or may be written as ‘over 21’ or ‘full age’. Do not always taken the ages at face value but check them against their birth certificates or census returns. This may be worth commenting on in your story, especially if there is a disparity. For example, in the 1851 census my relatives are shown as aged 21 and 16, and yet two months later their marriage certificate shows both of full age. Since they did not marry in their nearest church, it begs me to ask the question: did they have parental consent or did they elope? Where possible, always check the ages since, who knows, you may be able to comment on a romantic elopement. Bear in mind that parents’ or guardians’ permission to marry was still needed for anyone aged under 21 until 1969, when the age was lowered to 18.

Occupations

Occupations will provide you with a rich source of information. If your ancestors were town- or city-based then they were likely to have industrial occupations, maybe factory workers, coal miners or dock workers, information on all of which can be obtained from reference and history books or through research in your local library. Some sources may also give you the wages paid in the past, the conditions people worked in and the working methods used, all of which are important when researching the lives of your relatives and explaining their working environments (See the section on Occupations in Chapter 4.)

Residence

Note the residence of your ancestor and check it against any others that you may have found them at already. Also note the residence of the intended spouse and the proximity of the two addresses: did they live in the same town or village, around the corner from one another, or come from places further afield?

Witnesses

Do not overlook the witnesses on the marriage certificate. Although the names may be unknown to you, they could have been your relatives’ best friends. If the names are familiar, research should tell you whether a witness was the bride’s or the groom’s brother or sister, or some other family member; either way, the names could be important and confirm the family unit, especially in extended families where members of which do not all share the same surname.

For example, people today may think that the extended family unit is a modern development, the product of divorce and of people having several marriages, when, in fact, extended families were nothing unusual to older generations. While it is probably more the case that extended families came about due more to widowhood than divorce, my own experience seems even more strange; in 1860 my great-great grandmother was apparently ‘left’ by her parents to be brought up by strangers in Mountain Ash, Wales, when they moved from their village of Evercreech in Somerset. This relative lived in her new household from the age of 6 with neither of her real parents’ being evident on census returns. She appears to have been brought up in the household of a Mr and Mrs Rogers, who had no apparent family ties. In the 1861 census return, aged 6, she was described as a visitor, but ten years later she was still there.

By the time she was married, Mr Rogers was a widower and my great-great grandmother was referring to him as her ‘father’. It seems that she also returned Rogers’s generosity because he continued to live with her and her husband William Mogg, in a household that also consisted of her illegitimate son (my great-grandfather, to whom she gave the surname Rogers), her father-in-law and the three daughters from her marriage. Luckily for me, one of these daughters, Harriett Mogg, appeared as a witness on my great-grandfather’s marriage certificate, confirming that, although he did not share her surname, my illegitimate great-grandfather indeed belonged to that rather complicated family unit.

Men and women took on other people’s children and families as their own, if not through divorce then by the death of one partner and the remarriage of the survivor, and therefore witnesses at marriages may not always be as obscure as they appear. Indeed, to keep track of extended families of step-sisters and step-brothers, and mothers and fathers in multiple marriages can be like unravelling genealogical wool. As the example above illustrates, relationships could be as complex in the past as they can be perceived to be today and so it is worth taking the time to study the names of marriage witnesses.

Death Certificates

Death certificates reveal to you the end of your relative’s life. They will tell you where and when and from what cause your relative died, and who, if anyone, was in attendance at the end (sometimes another way of confirming family units – daughters- or brothers-in-law could be present at the time).

Place of Death

The majority of people in the nineteenth century were born and died at home and the locations of these will tell you much about your relatives’ lives. Some people never left the town or village they were born in and just moved around in it, living in various houses or tenements. Your relative may have died in an almshouse or workhouse; if this was the case, again, you will be provided with an opportunity for further research and material on which to comment and include in your story. The buildings of such institutions as workhouses or almshouses may still be standing, allowing you to add a photograph of the place where your ancestor died.

Cause of Death

You will also learn the cause of your relation’s death and this too can lead to a mine of information. If he or she was unfortunate enough to die from one of the prevailing diseases of the time, such as cholera, typhoid or diphtheria, a little local history research should reveal whether there was a particular epidemic at the time. Depending on how thorough you want to be, you could discover an explanation of the disease and even its progression when once caught. This may seem a little morbid, but the occurrence of such diseases is luckily mostly a thing of the past now and their appearance in your account could raise a question from those who do not know along the lines of, ‘What was diphtheria?’

Your relative may have suffered a violent or otherwise unexpected death which may have been the subject of an inquest. If this was the case, this event will have almost certainly been reported in a local newspaper at the time and it would be worth trawling through it on either side of the date of your relative’s death. The death certificate of my great-great grandfather revealed that he drowned in the Solent. The cause of death was stated as ‘Accidentally drowned during a storm whilst on a coal barge.’ The certificate also gave the date of the subsequent inquest.

Obtaining Details of Inquests

Depending on the time lapse since your relative died, if an inquest was required, you may even be able to obtain a copy of the inquest papers (a 75-year rule applies). These may be stored at your local record office, but if not, you may find the Gibson Genealogical Guide Coroners Records helpful in locating them.

From the present day back to 1837, civil registration will be your guiding light to a succession of ancestors.