My Genealogy

Online Records for English, Irish and Scottish Ancestors

2009-11-16T15:03:00+13:00

During the course of family tree research for myself and others I’ve come across ancestors born in England, Scotland and Ireland. There’s a wealth of information that can be found using the internet to find things out.

My first port of call for English ancestors is findmypast.com. This site provides a number of important records that can be searched online and is very easy to use. It’s possible to search the Birth, Death and Marriage indexes from 1837 onwards. This gives you the information needed to order birth, marriage and death certificates from the General Register Office.

Another important resource from findmypast.com is searchable census records from 1841 through to 1911. These can be searched by name and address. The latter can be useful as Birth and Death certificates often give the actual address of the people involved and this address can be used in the census search if a name search is giving no luck.

Passenger lists for people leaving the UK from 1890 to 1960 are also available. This can give clues as to what ship ancestors used to get to New Zealand (or other places) and who they traveled with.

Although findmypast.com includes parish records from 1538 onwards I’ve not had much luck searching these. I assume not a lot of the parish records have been transcribed yet.

If you’re going to be doing a lot of research I recommend the subscription payment option. Paying ‘per record’ could get expensive and discourages exploring and following leads.

For a free alternative try the following sites:

The free alternatives don’t have as many records available as the non-free sites but are still very useful - and the search options are often more flexible. I tend to use both the free and findmypast.com sites.

For Scottish ancestry searches I use Scotlands People. This site has Birth, Death and Marriage lookups, Census records and Parish records. I have had great success searching this site. It does require payment and there is unfortunately no subscription option. These limits ‘browsing’. You really need to be specific and confident that the record you want to look up is the right one otherwise you’ll end up spending a fair bit of money.

An example of a Parish record obtained from Scotlands People is this record for Duncan Campbell, born 1726. Duncan is not an ancestor of mine but was the owner of the ship Bethia, which became the Bounty of ’Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame.

For Irish birth, death and marriage records I use the Irish Family History Foundation site. This is similar to Scotlands People in that you are charged per search and lookup. Again, being specific on searches cuts costs down.

New Zealand Birth, Death and Marriage Index Search Online

2009-07-17T16:21:00+12:00

New Zealand Birth, Death and Marriage indexes can now be searched online. There are limitations for privacy reasons according to the site:

Births that occurred at least 100 years ago
Stillbirths that occurred at least 50 years ago
Marriages and eventually Civil Unions that occurred at least 80 years ago
Deaths that occurred at least 50 years ago or the deceased’s date of birth was at least 80 years ago.

Looks like a useful service even with those limitations and can save a trip to the library to search through the indexes on microfiche.

Hospital Historical Records

2008-04-17T12:13:00+12:00

The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children has opened its historical records for public viewing. The records cover the Victorian and Edwardian admission records from 1852 through to the end of 1914.

The hospital is based in London, England, and provides a fascinating new resource for family history research. The archives can be accessed at http://www.smallandspecial.org/.

Searching for ‘Double’ provides a number of hits:

Admitted	Sex	Age	Firstname	Surname	Diseases	Registration district
02 Oct 1856	F	2	Eliza	Double	Measles & sequela	Pancras
25 Jan 1881	F	2	Susan	Double	Jaundice	Lambeth
17 Apr 1891	M	5	George	Doubleson	Genu valgum	Outside London
25 Jan 1893	F	3	Edith	Doubleday	Otitis	Holborn
05 Mar 1895	F	7	Ellen	Double	Osteoarthritis	Outside London
27 Dec 1895	F	8	Ellen	Double	Osteoarthritis; Scarlet fever & sequela	Outside London
25 Apr 1897	F	9	Ellen	Double	Osteoarthritis	Outside London
29 Dec 1898	F	4	Emily	Double	Diphtheria & sequela	Pancras
20 Sep 1899	F	11	Ellen	Double	Osteoarthritis	Outside London

These records can be drilled down further and in some cases provide case notes and other information. Addresses are also provided which can be useful for tracking down where relatives lived.

Researching in circles

2006-06-28T22:54:00+12:00

I mentioned in my previous post that you should always check your sources. Sometimes even the official sources add confusion.

When I first began researching my family tree I got some information from someone about my anscestors coming to New Zealand in 1873 on the ship Rooparell. They can be seen in the passenger list and are:

Charles Double, aged 27
Ellen Double (Wife of Charles), aged 24
Charles Double, aged 3
William Double, aged 7 months

The other information I received was that Charles (full name Charles Cornelius Double) and Ellen (Ellen Elizabeth Humphrys) were married in the 4th quarter of 1869, Mile End, England. Ellen’s parents were Oliver Charles Humphrys and Sarah Saulter and she was baptised on 21 Nov 1847, died 21 Oct 1927.

This was a huge help to my research. I had absolutely no information on the Double side of the family at that time. And here we learn how even official sources cause confusion.

I orded William’s birth certificate. He was born in 1873 in Mile End, London, just before their journey to New Zealand. That birth certificate lists the parents as Charles Double and Ellen Double, formerly Humphreys. So that data seemed to match fine.

Next I got Ellen Elizabeth Double’s death certificate. She died in Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand of heart failure. Her parents were not listed but there last name was shown as Humphreys and occupation of father as Tailor. Again, all matches, great!

Next came Charles Cornelius Double’s death certificate. He died in Auckland from a cerebral haemorage, aged 74. The death certificate lists his parents as being James Double and Mary Double, Grocers. Uh oh, this doesn’t match the information I originally got which had the parents as Cornelius Double and Mary Fletcher.

To further compound the issue, his wife is shown as Helen Elizabeth Double. This is close enough to ‘Ellen’ to be a possible error in the way the name is heard.

To clear things up I looked up the marriage record for Ellen and Charles. There wasn’t one for an ‘Ellen Humphrys’ but there was a marriage between Charles Cornelius Double and Elizabeth Humphries. Slightly different spelling of the last name but that’s pretty common. Is it normal to use their middle name sometimes though? There is an Ellen Humphries that got married in 1869 (the same year of marriage, different quarter though) but to an different person.

I ordered the marriage certificate and it added yet more different data. The dates for the ages on the certificate match up and Charles’ father is shown as ‘Cornelius Double’ which matches the information I received but not the death certificate. Elizabeth has the father listed as ‘James Humphries’ and the marriage was witnessed by ‘James and Sarah Humphries’. The father hear is different to the father I got in my infomrtion originally.

So where to from here to try and find out what the real information is? Currently I’m ordering the birth certificates of the other children of Charles and Ellen to see if they have more details. I’ll also look up Ellen’s birth record and order her certificate. That should confirm the parents. I’ll do the same for Charles.

Here’s hoping this other data doesn’t add more confusion! Currently I’m working on the theory that the parents on Charles’ death certificate are likely to be wrong - death certificates tend to be a less reliable source of information due to the person providing the information maybe not knowing.

I suspect that Ellen is the same person as ‘Elizabeth’ and her father really is James. Interestingly the occupation of her father on her death certificate (Tailor) is the same as on her marriage certificate so that’s promising.

The moral of this post is always check your sources. And then, don’t necessarily trust them! Cross check them with other sources.

Surprises on the Internet

2006-05-28T13:19:00+12:00

It’s funny where you can run across information about your family. Some of my anscestors are from Pitcairn Island and I have a lot of interest for Pitcairn related information. I run a Pitcarn News website for example.

On a Pitcairn related mailing list I saw a post about a document containing stamps and an old Pitcairn postcard.

One of the items in the document was a ‘parcel clipping’ from 1943 and it was addressed to my Grandparents! A screenshot of it is here

I emailed the author, Mark Butterline, of the document giving them some background on the sender and recipients. The sender was my great grandfather and postmaster of Pitcairn Island, Roy Clark.

Apparently the parcel clipping was part of a Pitcairn Exhibit by Mark at a major stamp show in Toronto last month. According to Mark the judge was particularly impressed with the parcel clipping and the exhibit won a national gold.

The exhibit is also being shown at the 2006 World Philatelic Exhibition in Washington which is on at the moment.

NZ Births, Deaths and Marriages on Microfiche

2006-02-15T23:29:00+13:00

In a previous post I wrote about the New Zealand Births, Deaths and Marriages indexes on microfiche. These can be viewed at some public libraries and other places. It’s also possible to purchase the microfiche from the Department of Internal Affairs.

I contacted them for prices recently and they turn out to be fairly pricey if you want the whole lot. The indexes are broken down into smaller pieces though so you could build up a collection over time. The prices for the birth indexes on microfiche are:

Years	Cost ($NZ)
1840-1900	$199.00
1901-1920	$175.00
1921-1930	$87.00
1931-1940	$92.00
1941-1950	$136.00
1951-1960	$175.00
1961-1970	$177.00
1971-1980	$281.00
1981-1990	$281.00

Death indexes on microfiche are:

Years	Cost ($NZ)
1840-1900	$78.00
1901-1920	$73.00
1921-1930	$105.00
1931-1940	$105.00
1941-1950	$105.00
1951-1960	$105.00
1961-1970	$105.00
1971-1980	$105.00
1981-1990	$105.00

Marriage indexes on microfiche are:

Years	Cost ($NZ)
1840-1900	$105.00
1901-1920	$115.00
1921-1930	$215.00
1931-1940	$215.00
1941-1950	$215.00
1951-1960	$215.00
1961-1970	$215.00
1971-1980	$215.00
1981-1990	$215.00

In New Zealand there used to be a seperate register for births, deaths and marriages of Maori. The indexes for these cover the years 1911 through to 1961. If you are researching names and you are unsure if they are of Maori descent it can be worthwhile to look through these indexes. The price is $150.00 for the entire register covering all years and births, deaths and marriages. I’ll write more about the Maori registers in a future post.

Interestingly the price list also shows a price for an electronic copy of the records rather than a microfiche copy. The prices for these are much more expensive. For example an electronic copy of the Maori births is $3,000.00. For the general register of births it’s $474.00 per quarter or $225.00 per month. Ouch! I’m not even sure what format this is in. I’ll try and find out what exactly an electronic copy is.

It would be nice to have a scanned in version of all the microfiche available on CDROM or DVD, fully indexed to facilitate searching in a similar manner to what services line findmypast.co.uk have for the UK registers. Even better would be to then OCR or have volunteers manually enter the information to provide a freebmd type service for New Zealand. If anyone knows of such a service that is planned leave a note in the comments as I’d be very interested.

Maori Birth, Death and Marriage index

2006-02-15T23:27:00+13:00

I mentioned previously that there was a seperate record for Maori Birth, Death and Marriage information.

For marriages this register operated between the years 1911 and 1954. Prior to 1911 only marriages between Maori and Pakeha were required to be registered and these appear on the standard registry.

Births and Deaths were recorded on the seperate register for Maori between the years 1913 and 1961. After these times the entries were registered in the standard Birth, Death and Marriage registries.

If you are searching for ancestors in the indexes and you know them to be of Maori descent it is important to check both the Maori register and the general register just in case. It may pay to check the surnames in the Maori register in case there is Maori ancestry you are unaware of.

A nice thing about the Maori register is that for the entire year range it is in alphabetical surname order. The general register is in alphabetical order for each year so it requires you to look information up for each year if you don’t know the actual year of the event. The Maori register requires just a single lookup under the surname.

The NZSG Maori Interest Group has some good tips for looking in the Maori registry:

When searching the BMD Indexes for Maori entries, you must be aware of looking under both an individual’s first and last names and any aliases used as before 1900 Maori surnames were not commonly used - Maori people usually had both a tribal name and also a name easy for Pakeha to pronounce. Maori of Pakeha descent may also have used their father’s name and a Maori translation of that name.

Update on NZ BDM Microfiche

2006-02-15T23:15:00+13:00

Further to my post about the New Zealand Birth, Death, and Marriage indexes on Microfiche, I received information today on what the electronic copies are.

The microfiche indexes are for the years 1848 to 1990. After that the records are available in electronic format, not on microfiche. Unfortunately the electronic copies are much more expensive than the microfiche formats.

Birth, Marriage and Death certificates for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland

2006-02-01T01:01:00+13:00

I’ve recently had the site bmd-certificates.co.uk pointed out to me as a resource for getting birth, death and marriage certificates for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

I’ve previously ordered certificates for England from the online ordering system of the GRO but this requires you to know the GRO index numbers and can involve a fair amount of time and research. The situation for Ireland seems even more difficult as I’ve not found an online index search site (See later post for online Irish search). There is a pay site for Scottish research which seems quite useful but I’ve not subscribed to take a look.

What I like about what the bmd-certificates.co.uk website is that it offers to do the research for you and you can’t complain about the following policy from their main page:

If you do not have every detail for your certificate, please do not worry, because if we do not find an entry based on the information you give us, we will give you a complete refund. If there is any doubt, or a choice of entries, we will consult you, and will not act until we hear your decision. If you decide not to proceed, we will give you a compete refund.

Recently I’ve been helping a friend with some family research and just today I got the New Zealand birth certificate for one ancestor which showed the parents as being from Ireland and Scotland. So the information about the bmd-certificates site was quite timely. A quick search through Ancestry picked up nothing about the people so I will probably try bmd-certificates out for at least one of them and report back here on how it went. The two people concerned are:

Patrick Joseph McCarthy, Born about 1892, Limerick,Ireland
Susan Mary Devons, Born about 1894, Bellshill, Scotland

They were married in Wellington, New Zealand on 21 July 1917. I’m keen to try and get their birth certificates but the only date of birth I have is approximate, calculated from the birth certificate of their son, by subtracting their ages on the certificate from the date of birth.

New Zealand Birth, Deaths and Marriages

2006-01-24T01:18:00+13:00

The Births, Deaths and Marriages office is where you need to go to get certificates for New Zealand citizens. There is no online ordering method so you need to either call them on the phone or visit their offices (Note that ordering online is now available).

The price is currently $20.00 if the event took place after 1874 and $26.00 if it occurred before then. Make sure they charge you correctly. Recently I ordered the certificate of someone born in 1859 and I was only charged $20.00. Unfortunately a week later I got a letter in the mail telling me I had to pay the extra $6.00 before they would send me the certificate. It’s a shame they couldn’t ring or email me since my contact details were part of the request.

Apart from that glitch I’ve always found the service very fast and efficient. Make sure you ask for an electronic printout and not a certificate. The electronic copy of the record has more information and is in the original writing. This helps to prevent transcription errors from someone typing onto a certificate or missing information (like marriage witnesses).

It helps to look up the particular person you are looking for in the birth, death and marriage indexes first. This will give you a folio number you can use to reference the record when making your request. It will also ensure that there is actually something for them to find without them having to do a search. The indexes are available at the birth, deaths and marriage office and some local libraries also have a copy.

On the birth certificate you’ll often get the parents names, ages and birth locations. You’ll get the mothers maiden name and if you are lucky their dates of births as well.

The marriage certificate often contains the parents names (or the fathers at least) of the bride and groom.

The death certificate will give cause of death, where they died, age at death, where they were buried and details on living offspring, spouse and parents.