This class
will show you how to start researching your English ancestors using
both paper-based and online resources. You will learn how to find the
"bones" of your family using birth, marriage and death records,
the censuses, parish registers and wills. You will also learn how to
find out more about where your family lived and the times they lived
in.
Bio:
Sheena
Tait
Sheena
Tait was born in Scotland of Scottish parents but has lived in England
for almost twenty years. She has had a range of careers. After completing
her training she worked in the catering industry for five years. She
then joined the civil service, initially helping to run mainframe computers
and PCs and then going on to manage various large computer systems and
networks. She also spent three years as a management trainer running
courses for other civil servants.
Sheena
didn't catch the genealogy bug until after she moved to England and
has been researching her own family for the last fifteen years. Surrounded
by, and learning, the English record keeping systems she had to learn
how to research at a distance and understand the Scottish systems as
most of her ancestors are Scottish.
She then
decided to combine her love of family history and the analytical skills
developed through her work to start a new career as a genealogist. As
well as carrying out private research Sheena is a regular contributor
to the British-based 'Practical Family History' and 'Family Tree' magazines
and is also one of the resident "agony aunts" for 'Family
Tree' magazine.
LESSON
TITLES
Lesson
1) Getting organised
a) Introduction
b) Deciding what you want to achieve
c) Finding information at home
d) Has it been done before?
e) Contacting others researching the same family
f) Interviewing relatives
g) Understanding standard terms and charts
h) Recording sources
i) Organising paper records
j) Organising computer records
Lesson
2) Background
history & geography
a) England or UK?
b) Old administrative divisions
c) County divisions
d) Maps
e) Finding local history
f) Surnames
g) Social History
h) Timelines
i) Dates and calendars
j) Dating old photos
Lesson
3) Civil
registration
a) A brief history
b) What's in birth certificates?
c) Birth rules and regulations
d) A brief note about adoption
e) What's in marriage certificates?
f) Marriage rules and regulations
g) What's in death certificates?
h) Death rules and regulations
i) Finding indexes
j) Getting hold of certificates
Lesson
4) Censuses
a) A brief history
b) How were they carried out?
c) Census dates
d) Who will I find in them?
e) What information will I find?
f) Finding census indexes
g) Seeing the census returns
h) Tracking down families
i) Other censuses
Lesson
5) Parish
registers
a) A brief history
b) Types of registers
c) Births or baptisms
d) Marriages or banns
e) Deaths or burials
f) Indexes to parish registers
g) Finding surviving registers
h) Bishops transcripts
i) Monumental Inscriptions
j) Specialist indexes
Lesson
6) Mormon
resources
a) Why the Mormons?
b) The Familysearch website
c) Ancestral file
d) Pedigree Resource file
e) IGI
f) Sources of records
g) Additional finding aids
h) The Library Catalogue
i) Finding Family History Centres
Lesson
7) Wills
and inventories
a) Background history
b) Wills
c) Admons
d) Wills after 1858
e) Wills before 1858
f) PCC and PCY
g) Inventories
h) Indexes
i) Getting copies of documents
j) Death duty registers
Lesson
8) Problem
solving
a) Drawing up an outline biography
b) Missing births
c) Missing marriages
d) Missing deaths
e) Missing wills
f) Problems with Parish registers
g) Immigrants and emigrants
h) Finding and using professionals
i) Caring for old documents
j) Where next?
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Sheena Tait