Genealogy

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Rightey
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PostGenealogy
by Rightey » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:46 am

So anyone into this? I'd like to create a family tree/history as I don't know much about mine beyond my grandparents but I'm not really sure where to start.

I was thinking something like MS Access might be good enough but wanted to know if anyone would recommend another piece of software.

Also if you have used a database what kind of variables/fields would you include other than the standard born, died, married to, child of?

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Hypes
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Hypes » Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:42 am

You're Canadian, but presuming ancestors were British?
You should really start off by getting information, life stories, photos etc. from elderly relatives because once that unique knowledge is gone it's gone forever.
Easiest thing to look at first is census returns back to about 1861 for the UK (there were earlier ones but the info is poor). You should be able to access these returns on the Ancestry or FindMyPast website, which you might be able to access for free at your local library or provincial? archives.
Following this you'll be wanting to get Birth/Marriage/Death certificate info which goes back to 1837 and before that you'll need info from local parish registers in the UK
You can create a family tree on either Ancestry, FindMyPast, or FamilySearch (the Mormon's family history website which can provide a lot of info, but shouldn't be taken as gospel (pun intended) as it's user inputted), or I suppose you could easily create one in Excel/Access
Birth Marriage Death and Relation to whoever is the main info, but you might want to record addresses for the more recent relatives. For anything older than 1837 you might only get the baptism and burial dates as that was what was recorded in the parish registers.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Moggy » Mon Oct 23, 2017 8:25 am

When I was applying for Irish citizenship I had to get lots of certificates together and then carried on going further back as it was so interesting.

I’m assuming most of your ancestors are British (as far as you know!)?

I used Ancestry for the most part. It’s not free, but it has a huge amount of information. Census records are amazing, but bear in mind that they are only released every 100 years, the latest available is 1911, so you’ll probably have to do some research to get back that far.

You can order copy Birth, Marriage and Death certificates if you want physical records. Scotland and Northern Ireland have a different system for this than England and Wales.

For England and Wales, there is a free website that lists the available certificates ( https://www.freebmd.org.uk ). This is a great free resource for checking who married who, when someone was born etc.

You’ll only get so far for free though, it will cost but places like Ancestry usually have free trials for new users, get as much out of the free trial as possible! Ancestry also give you family tree software, it’s free to use (and has a decent phone app) even if you don’t subscribe.

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Rightey
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Rightey » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:19 pm

Thanks for the advice guys.

Sadly none of my ancestors are British so I'm not sure how good the records from back home will be. I immigrated to Canada when I was quite small so there will be a language barrier in accessing records/filling out forms from the old country. I might need to ask my dad about that if he is interested in doing this sort of thing with me.

I might give ancestry a try though as they claim to have records from 80 different countries. Is there a way to actually see what countries they do have records from? On their website they seem to be a bit vauge about it, or maybe I'm just blind.

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Genealogy
by OrangeRKN » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:26 pm

Rightey wrote:Also if you have used a database what kind of variables/fields would you include other than the standard born, died, married to, child of?


There is existing software for things like this, but if you're rolling your own remember that you may have multiple married to entries, and that names may not be recorded identically across different records so you may want to record several for one person.

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Hypes
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Hypes » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:28 pm

Rightey wrote:Thanks for the advice guys.

Sadly none of my ancestors are British so I'm not sure how good the records from back home will be. I immigrated to Canada when I was quite small so there will be a language barrier in accessing records/filling out forms from the old country. I might need to ask my dad about that if he is interested in doing this sort of thing with me.

I might give ancestry a try though as they claim to have records from 80 different countries. Is there a way to actually see what countries they do have records from? On their website they seem to be a bit vauge about it, or maybe I'm just blind.


Where are you/your ancestors originally from?

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Parksey
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Parksey » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:44 pm

My Dad had a brief flirtation with this as a pastime. As others have said, in England it's fairly easy for 200 years due to the census data.

After that, he massively lucked out by having a distant half cousin contact him on one of the sites, asking about my grandfather. This distant cousin was a priest or bishop or something and had compiled a fuckton of church data, and basically handed my Dad a complete family tree of our paternal line going back to 1392.

My Dad completely lost interest after that.

So yeah, church/parish records are pretty much vital. Immigration probably makes things more complicated as it seems my paternal descendents were all Remainers. Probably helps the wealthier they are too, as there's more chance of them leaving a dent in the records.

If anyone's interested though, I've traced Jawa's family history back to 1392 as well. Was around that time he first started Ocarina of Time.

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Hulohot
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Hulohot » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:50 pm

I haven't got involved, but my grandad and his son worked for years on our ancestry.

They confirmed that my ancestor was a big deal Victorian Commander of the fleet for queen Victoria called Admiral Lord Hornby.

There was a famous mutiny onboard his ship, and he got a 15 year old (my great great grandmother) pregnant, and paid her off to vanish quietly.

We have family pictures from the early 1900s of a nice house, private horse drawn carriage etc from the money he gave her. We even have a neat pirate cutlass in his garden shed which was apparently part of the gift from Hornby.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Moggy » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:27 pm

The most interesting relative I found was John Candy (no not that one). He was married with kids but took part in a robbery with his brother and they were both transported to Australia in 1830. Records are very sketchy for him after that, but he died in police custody in 1877 after being arrested for drunkenness.

#lad

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Kezzer
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Kezzer » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:34 pm

screw MS access, just get a roll of wall paper and write on that.

job done.

This post is exempt from the No Context Thread.

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Errkal
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PostRe: Genealogy
by Errkal » Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:39 pm

Kezzer wrote:screw MS access, just get a roll of wall paper and write on that.

job done.

Yeah but as you go back you need to swap to tapestry and that just a ball ache.


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