Collins Tracing Your Family History - Anthony Adolph

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REFERENCE

      INDIA OFFICE LIBRARY

      NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF INDIA

      nationalarchives.nic.in/

      PAKISTAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES

      DIRECTORATE OF ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES

      KENYA NATIONAL ARCHIVES

      REGISTRAR GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT

      PROFESSIONAL GENEALOGISTS AND RECORD AGENTS

      An increasing number of people and small firms are advertising their services as researchers in genealogical magazines such as Family History Monthly, in the Genealogical Services Directory and similar publications, and in the lists of independent searchers maintained by many record offices. They come in two categories – professional genealogists like me who plan, implement, direct and report on projects investigating family trees; or record agents, who are hired to undertake very specific pieces of research at their client’s instructions. It is best to hire those who are qualified under educational systems such as the IHGS or who have a proven track record of experience and professionalism. Many belong to organisations such as the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA), but be aware that membership often means just that and does not imply very stringent tests of ability.

      There are very few dishonest researchers in the field, but a great many incompetent ones. If someone’s initial response to your enquiry is in any manner unprofessional (badly typed or not typed at all), throw it away. Very few professionals worth their salt are without email. Whoever you hire, make sure that they understand exactly what you want to know before you part with your money.

      Be equally understanding, though, that professionals must charge for their time and effort regardless of whether they find exactly what they and you were hoping for. Negative results must be paid for too and it is not always entirely negative to know where an ancestor was not.

      QUICK REFERENCE

      INSTITUTE OF HERALDIC AND GENEALOGICAL STUDIES (IHGS)

      www.ihgs.ac.uk

      ASSOCIATION OF GENEALOGISTS AND RESEARCHERS IN ARCHIVES (AGRA)

      www.agra.org.uk

      GENEALOGY SURVIVAL KIT/1

      THESE PAGES contains various miscellaneous but also very useful facts to help you in your research.

      ENGLISH WORDS

       You will come across lots of old-fashioned expressions and phrases, which is half the fun of exploring the past. There are some specialist dictionaries like R. Milward’s A Glossary of Household, Farming and Trade Terms from Probate Inventories (Derbyshire Record Society, occasional paper 1). A stalwart source, however, remains the Oxford English Dictionary, the older the edition the better.

      OLD HANDWRITING

      Reading old handwriting is called palaeography. There are two sorts of problems:

      1. In the past, some letters were written differently to the way they are now, so are extremely unfamiliar.

      Examples of the different styles of letters are given to the below.

       Be aware, too, that writers often abbreviated words using apostrophes, or sometimes apostrophes followed by the last letter or two – and sometimes the apostrophes were just missed out. ‘William’ was often written ‘Will’m’ or Wm, James as ‘Jas’, ‘Majesty’ as Maty’ and so on.

       Two excellent guides to old scripts are H. E. P. Grieve’s Examples of English Handwriting 1150–1750 (Essex Record Office, 1949) and L. Mumby’s Reading Tudor and Stuart Handwriting (Phillimore for BALH, 1988).

      2. Bad handwriting. However, like cracking codes, you can often work out what an incomprehensible letter is by studying its companions. For example, if you can read ‘Ed-ard’ then you can surmise the other letter is a ‘w’ – but look for the letter elsewhere to make sure you have it right: never go with an unsupported guess.

       You can also see how letters are written in phrases or words where you know what the letters should be. Many wills, for example, start ‘In the name of God Amen’, so you can see how the scribe wrote his ‘I’s, ‘n’s, ‘t’s and so on before tackling the will itself.

       Don’t be daunted by age. Sometimes a 16thcentury document can be so beautifully written as to be easier to read than some modern scribble.

      MONEY

       Besides being a 60s’ drug, LSD was also the acronym for pre-decimal currency of pounds (livres), shillings and pence (dinarii). This was written in a number of different ways; for example, four pounds, two shillings and three pence (‘thruppence’) could be written £4–2–3 or £4 2s 3d or 4l 2s 3d or using Roman numerals – IVl IIs IIId or even IIIJl IJs IIJd.

       It is very difficult to find out how much money was worth relative to what it is today. The Bank of England has a ready reckoner and you can also study C. R. Chapman’s How Heavy, How Much and How Long? Weights, Money and Other Measures Used by our Ancestors (Lochin Publishing, 1995) and L. Mumby’s How Much is that Worth? (Phillimore for BALH, 1996).

      DATES

       Years and days haven’t always been recorded the same way in every country. C. R. Cheney’s Handbook of Dates for Students of English History (CUP, 2000) lists all old forms of dating, including by saints’ days and popes’ and kings’ regnal years.

       Years were often counted from the date of a sovereign’s accession, so, for example, the first day of the first year of the reign of Elizabeth II started on 6 February 1952, the day she succeeded her father.

       The book also provides a calendar for looking up which day of the week fell in what date in a given year. So, if someone wrote a letter dated 25 May 1657 saying their father died ‘last Monday’ you can find out that 25 May 1657 was a Friday, so ‘last Monday’ must have been 20 May.

      OLD STYLE AND NEW STYLE

       Britain and Europe used to use the old-style Julian calendar, whereby the year

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