Parish Registers where art thou!

For genealogy purposes the English/Welsh parish register indexes are in a mess, on the internet they are stored everywhere and nowhere. Naturally, the one needed is not there. Many have been transcribed and indexed by various Family History Societies (FHS) and to improve their finances they have done various deals with the common subscription sites. The only way to find if any of them holds the one required is to visit these sites and have a look. I will not be considering these sites, instead I will be concentrating on the free sites - why they haven't pooled their resources I cannot begin to understand.

For the sake of convenience the registers may be broken down into two categories pre and post July 1837, at which time national registration was introduced, however the registration of births was not compulsory until 1875 and prior to that date some records may only be found in the parish baptism records.

Post July 1837

Free BMD is the workhorse of the post July 1837 registrations, giving the GRO Reference for recorded births, marriage and deaths. Whilst these are normally regarded as the source for obtaining the certificates, they can also be used for finding parish marriage registrations using Marriage Locator.

Marriage Locator is a new site which aims to decode the GRO marriage registration code to give the registration district and the name of the church at which the registration took place. Thus, instead of having to buy the certificate the details can easily be found in the local parish registers or using sites such as On-Line Parish Clerks (Genealogy) which are listed under parish and church names. Marriage Locator was set up by the Guild of One-Name Studies but help with this project is open to all volunteers, please contact mary.rix@one-name.org if you have access to local records, and wish to assist.

UK BMD is another site where volunteers have indexed the parish registers from within their counties, again from 1837. On going to the site, click the "Local BMD" button on the left and the counties which have taken part in this project can be found. Each uses a standard format and may include the reference for a local office from which a copy certificate can be obtained.

Pre July 1837

The On-Line Parish Clerks project covers the earlier records as well as those post 1837. Usually it is possible to search all the records for each church, but not across all the churches in a parish. Hence it is better to try and establish the likely church for the registration. A number of the records contain an LDS film number, and it is not clear whether the LDS transcriptions have been used, or it is the reference for the microfilm in the local office - I hope it is the latter?

FreeReg aims to cover the whole of the UK, and probably has better coverage than other sites mentioned (except Free BMD post 1837). As with all volunteer projects coverage varies between different counties and parishes, however coverage has improved significantly in recent years. FreeReg probably gives more record details than other sites.

Of course, one site which must not be forgotten is Family Search, especially since the revisions which are currently in hand. It was on this site that after a number of years of searching that I found my 5th great grandfather, born in the early 1700s

General

When viewing all these sites it is worth remembering that they are secondary sources (unless the images are provided), and some of the originals, and not necessarily only the very old ones, can be difficult to read. The spelling of names may also vary, particularly if the informant was illiterate. Ages, especially for marriages, should be treated with care as some would have declared themselves as of "full age" when in reality they were under 21 and needed parental consent. Ages at death may be nothing more than a guess.

Finally, There are numerous small, e.g. family, sites which contain abstractions of parish registers. Many of these may be found on a CD available from One Stop Genealogy . The repositories for all registration districts are given by GENUKI.

© Ron Ferguson 2011

Genealogy History - Later

In my last blog I talked mainly of the WW2 years, one aspect I did not really mention was that of food which was, like pretty well everything else, on ration. One food which wasn't was rabbit, these were sold by the green-grocer and were suspended from hooks from the top of the shop's window. At Christmas there were no turkeys but our parents did manage to get chickens (probably from a farm near to us) which we used to pluck in front of the fire. I remember one Christmas, when my mother was in a nursing home following the birth of my sister, my father won a goose in the work's raffle. Now whether it was my taste or his lack of culinary skills I don't know, but it was far too greasy for me, and I could not eat it. I cannot say who was more upset, me or my dad. It also provided us with what seemed to be a lifetime's supply of goose-grease for rubbing on our chests every time we were wheezy!

Rationing continued for years after the war, but in 1949 they first took sweets off ration, a day all us kids looked forward to with great anticipation. Unfortunately supply was nowhere near enough to meet the demand, and few of us managed to get any, I still think that the adults nicked them! So they were rapidly put back on ration until 1953 when rationing was abolished.

At the top of the road where I lived was a large field, on the right there was a cotton mill, and on the far side the Bridgewater Canal with the Royal Ordnance Factory on the other side. On this field there was a least one barrage balloon with the associated anti-aircraft guns and soldiers. Although we were not allowed on the field, great fun could be had wriggling under the wire fence and being chased off!

I spent VE celebrations at my aunty's in St. Helens where they had a big bonfire, and then for VJ day we had a street party at home. It was a great year for the kids, it was like having three Christmases in one year! After this time we started to have regular visits into Manchester, and saw the many bombsites for the first time. Often, on these were street entertainers, many of whom I suspect were ex-servicemen. In particular I remember one man who put a slab of concrete across his chest whilst a colleague smashed it with a sledgehammer.

At the time I was 12 yrs old there was still a fuel shortage and an uncle had a business providing peat for burning on house fires. On Friday evenings and Saturday mornings my father linked up with him to set up sales and delivery rounds near where we lived, and I was enlisted to help. This was my first introduction to the working life! I continued with this work until I was about fifteen when I found a part time job with more pay - although fifteen years of age was the official school leaving age, I was still a pupil. At home there was something of a strained atmosphere for a while!

In 1953 I was on a train going for a day out to Blackpool, when I read in the newspaper that the Korean War was over. Joined with the ascent of Everest and the Queen's Coronation this made for a momentous year, but what struck me most was that this was the first time since just after I was born that the UK was not involved in a major war. It is nice to say that since 1945 I have not experienced England being bombed, although since I was a regular visitor to Northern Ireland between 1971 to 1980, it was not the last time when I heard bombs going off. I do not wish to hear that noise again!

© Ron Ferguson 2011

Genealogy History - Now!

History is, of course, what we are taught in schools. Or is it? If I subtract my current age from that at which I was born, then the Suez Canal had not opened, boys climbed and swept chimneys, there were no telephones, Britain still had its Empire, and no compulsory schooling. Oh! And registration of births and deaths was not yet mandatory.

This is some of the history which I was taught in school, and equally it is now the case that my grand children are being taught, in history, life as it was at the time I was born (and after for that matter). Those of my age tend to forget that this is history because, to us, it is still real.

So what was it like? Well, thank goodness, Britain still had its Empire because the second world war broke out very shortly after I was born, and for some years our only support came from its constituent countries. I was too young to remember the early part of the war, only from around 1943 onwards. I lived just on the edge of Salford, not far from the major industrial centre of Trafford Park, and the sound of bombs going off was not an unusual experience.

I was fortunate in that my father was in a 'reserved occupation' being a crankshaft turner at Gardners Diesel Engines. At this time the company employed a large number of women on the factory floor, mainly for the less heavy work. He also had to become a member of the Home Guard. He used to come home for lunch, and, often, that time, first thing in the morning, and some Sundays, would be the only times I would see him. A normal working week was then 12 hours a day for six or seven days a week.
Interestingly, Gardners made the engines for the midget submarines which were responsible for many attacks on European dockyards.

Being brought up in the 'blackout', so called because nearly all street lights were off, and the few that weren't were heavily shaded, we had one benefit which today's urban children miss. We could see the stars! Admittedly, this was only in the morning as we then had double summer time - clocks were 2 hours forward from GMT., so we went to school in the dark, and to bed in daylight. Imagine trying to get a kid to bed when it's bright sunlight!

It must have been 1946 before I first saw the streets lit up. My parents took me into their bedroom which looked across the fields to a main road where I could see the lights come on for the first time. It was like our personal Blackpool Illuminations - which didn't exist then, by the way! It was about this time that I met my first banana, I knew it must be food, but had to ask my mother what to do with it.

During the blackout it was not allowed for any house light to be visible from the outside, and the ARP (Air Raid Precaution) patrols would have very stiff words, or even take to court, any householder who committed such an offence. We had black roller blinds to cover all our windows, and care had to be taken to ensure that no light escaped from the edges. At that time most houses had coal fires, and it was also an offence to allow sparks to be emitted from the chimney. These lessons were drilled into us virtually from birth.

On going to school we had to ensure that we all took our gas masks in their brown boxes. Now and again there were collections for the soldiers of things like knitted goods, and books, which we also took to school for forwarding. In our early years paper and pencils were not available; we did our work using chalk on a slate! From time to time the air-raid sirens would go off , sometimes for practice, at others for real, and we would march in an orderly fashion to the shelter at the top of the school road, with absolute, but no doubt misplaced, confidence in its security.

Our leisure time was filled with the usual street games, not only football and cricket (skipping and rounders for the girls!), but hopscotch, hide and seek, and a variety of catching games. Instead of cowboys and Indians, which we really didn't come across until later, we had war games of goodies versus baddies. It had to be so named because nobody would play at being a German! Holidays were pretty well non-existent, mainly comprising day trips to more distant relatives.

In my next blog I will concentrate on life in the post war years.

© Ron Ferguson 2011

Genealogy websites 2011

One returning from my Christmas break I started to think about a suitable blog with which to start the New Year. Initially I thought about a review of 2010, but then we've done that and got the T-shirt! So, how about 2011, and what will it bring? Since my main interests are genealogy and creating websites, the exciting happenings in website development, and the possible effects on our websites is an obvious. But first, I would like you to look at The Wilderness Years to do so you will need lots of memory and preferably the Google Chrome Browser, if you haven't got it, it is worthwhile downloading for this site alone. It will just about run on the latest Firefox (but not well), and I could not get it to run at all on the latest Beta version of IE9. When asked for your town, I would suggest that you enter a large city, or at least a place where Google Earth will have lots of photos.

Now that site is based on the new HTML5 coding, and I am not suggesting that it will have much effect on research sites such as Ancestry, or Findmypast, but I am certain that it will be used by people, like myself, who write their own websites. It will also be used in conjunction with another new language, CSS3, which is used to code the positioning and layout of the pages.

Will this affect the User?

Yes, it will! Already the latest browsers are starting to incorporate the functionality which they need in order to read HTML5 and CSS3. Chrome is probably the best at present but it is steadily being introduced into Firefox, Opera, IE9 and other major browsers. The figures below are taken from visitors to my own website.
1) Browsers used:

 

As might be expected IE is at the top of the list whilst at the bottom are the mobile phone browsers. In general, it is fair to say that non-IE users tend to be very dedicated in updating their browsers to the latest version, and IE users less so as the table below shows:

2) IE Users:

 

At last some three-quarters are now using IE8 but there is still over 5% using IE6 or earlier. Those users are going to have problems because only the latest browser will be able to read the new codings, and their problem is that little will be done to get the sites to display properly when using them. Even IE7 and IE8 users will not get the full benefit of the new technology, although the probability is that the sites will degrade gracefully for these users.

IE users with the XP operating system also have a big problem since it would seem that IE9 will only be available for Vista and Win7 operating systems - a change to Chrome could be their best option.

Website Generators

To generate my Pedigree web pages I use the HTML generator included in the Legacy Family Tree program. I still consider this to be the best program around for these types of web pages, but it is now getting old and tired as it is written in very basic HTML. It has received a boost with the publishing of a program from LTools which enables the conversion to CSS/HTML, but, in my view, will shortly need to be rewritten - this comment also applies to most similar programs.

The Future

This year promises to be one of the most exciting in website development for many years but for the new techniques to achieve their potential depends not only on the website developers but also relies on the users to upgrade their browsers and the software manufacturers to improve their generators - before we reinvent the wheel!!

Disclosure

The author is a volunteer beta tester for Legacy Family Tree.

© Ron Ferguson 2011

A Genealogy Gem for a Website

Ever since I launched my Ferguson One-Name website some 3 years ago, I have not been very happy with the Family Group style web pages compiled from Legacy, nor did I really like the output from TNG Software. So, I have regularly browsed the web to look for an alternative.

At last, I think I have found it in HuMo-gen which is made by Hubb Mons, who says: "I originally wrote this software for myself, because I was dissatisfied with the features of other Gedcom-to-HTML converters, but I readily offer HuMo-gen for use by the wider public". Exactly my thoughts!!

And furthermore it is free, open source software. What more could one ask for?!

You can select what to include on the Main Index (Opening Page), as shown below:

Whilst it is written in PHP, it is claimed that no knowledge of PHP or HTML is required in order to use the program. I agree, in fact anybody used to Wordpress will find it very easy.

This shows the options available from within the program, but with only a little knowledge of PHP and HTML one can easily customise this page to include other items, for example a picture of oneself, or maybe a brief description of the site. On this page there is also a Person Search Box.

It is possible to select various levels of permissions, for example one can limit the display of Sources, to say, oneself, or family etc. or, as I do, publish them for all to see, as on the right.


Clicking the filing card icon next to the name produces as a range of other options, such as different report formats, and a range of tree charts. From these charts clicking a name will go to the report for that person.

As can be seen, the sources on this screen are links and these lead to others who use this source.


I think that this software is relatively new, from the HuMo-gen website I would think around 2009, so are there any snags? Well, yes, but none are terribly important and most can easily be overcome, some are specific to its use with Legacy. Like similar programs which rely on importing GEDCOMs it suffers from the limitations of the long outdated technology of this format.

For my usage, the fields for the genealogy sources are too short, but should be easy to enlarge in the MySQL database (I haven't done this yet). The PHP scripts are, understandably, largely in Dutch which makes following them more difficult for those of us who do not speak this language (I am not monolingual btw.) and in the Sources List, the descriptions have yet to be translated, but nevertheless the meaning of them is pretty clear.

I recommend that anyone trying this program should first try it on their own PC and not the web. This involves installing a stand-alone server and the manual gives a full description of how to to this for XAMPP-lite. This also a free open-source application. Be prepared to do some work for yourself to get the output to that which you wish, but if you do hit problems the site has a Forum which I have found to be very responsive and helpful.

I have yet to put my site on-line using HuMo-gen, but only because I wish to fully familiarise myself with its workings, and I will do so at the end of December. To those, who like me, are not happy with what has been around for a while, I would say "give it a run".


© Ron Ferguson 2010

Genealogy Patience Pays!!

We all know of the seemingly impenetrable brick walls which we bump into on a fairly regular basis. I hit one one these with my 4th great-grandfather, Benjamin Ferguson, who, according to the 1841 census was living in Kendal, and born in 1766 in England but not in the county of Westmorland. He did not appear on the 1851 census, so I assumed that he had moved on to higher things.

Over the years I have tried to find out more about him, visiting the Kendal Archives to find his burial, but without any luck, in fact I cannot even find the christenings of his children in the Kendal Parish Registers. My research has not been helped by the fact that northern England is an outpost of internet indexing, meaning that the Union Tavern in Kendal is almost a second home!

Regularly I search new registers which come on-line, and three months ago I had a minor break through, I found a Benjamin Ferguson born in 1776 in Pardshaw, Cockermouth, Cumberland, on the Beta Family Search site. OK, the surname was spelt "Furgison", but the given names of the family were those commonly found in my family. Could this be my long lost relative? With still some way to go, I contacted Kendal Archives again to see if they had the Kendal Settlement Certificates for the period between 1770 and 1790, but unfortunately they only had those to 1734.

Every now and again I switch the main search site which I use, and this month moved back to Findmypast. As always, I carried out a quick check on my brick walls and nearly fell off my chair when I found my Benjamin on the 1851 census living with his, now married, daughter Mary Airey, of whom I had never heard! This time his surname was given as "Ferginson" and his place of birth Cockermouth - Eureka!! I am left with another brick wall though - where does his father "Samual Furgison" (sic), date of birth unknown, come from??

Advances can happen in most unusual ways. Like many of you I try and help other researchers whenever I can, and this week received an email asking if an Ann Owen born 1807, father George, had any connection with the Owen family of Prescot, Lancashire, in my tree. Not having an Ann in my Owen family I asked for more details, only to be be told that since her Ann and my family came from the same area she wondered if there may be a connection.

A Richard Owen born 1791 is my one of the 3rd great grandfathers on my maternal side, and I wondered if Richard might have had a brother called George who might have been Ann's father. I have not even looked at this side of my family for years, so I started by looking for his birth in Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk, and there was his christening, and the names of my previously unknown 4th great grandparents.

Yes, persistence does pay, as time goes by it may not seem like it, but consistently checking records and revisiting sites which may well have been updated since last time often brings results. Now, if only I could get my hands on the person who ignited the 1851 Salford Census records and with it my 3rd great grandfather's history, but congratulations to Manchester & Lancashire FHS who have recovered so much of them.

© Ron Ferguson 2010

Are Genealogy Fairs Worthwhile?

Although I have been involved in genealogy for some 10 years for various reasons I have not visited Genealogy Fairs until this year. I have attended fairs at Stockport, York and Newcastle on Tyne, and broadly speaking my reaction has been favourable. But why?

Visiting the various companies displaying their software, books, charts etc. is interesting, but hardly earth shattering, although I have usually found two or three things which are of use to me, usually books or specific data discs. If  I was asked whether I would go specifically to have a look at the wares on sale, then probably not.

No, what has been of most use has been the help available from "information providers". Whilst companies such as Ancestry, Findmypast, and The Genealogist are frequently represented at these fairs, it is not these to which I refer, largely because I am reasonably familiar with their range of services, but I do recognize that they will be valuable to those who are not. Their stands are always very busy, maybe because they often offer free access!

What I find most attractive are the genealogy organisations, the local family history societies and national organisations, such as The Genealogy Society, Local and National Archives, and many others, strictly speaking some may not be genealogy societies but concern themselves with aspects of out history, eg. The Indian Army. Following my visit to the York Fair, I am pretty sure that I have found my 5th great-grandfather from an idea I picked up at a local fhs stall.

If you are considering going to one of these fairs my recommendation would be to look carefully at which societies will be exhibiting rather than at the commercial concerns who, in general, will be there anyhow. Look for family history societies and local archivists from the areas in which you are researching. The national organisations can also give invaluable advice on where to look for information.

Finally, before going do ensure that you have noted exactly what you need to know. There is nothing worse than going to a stall and not be able to remember a name or place. Take my word for it - I know!

© Ron Ferguson 2010