A-Z of Family History Sources & Stories
Join
me on this A-Z journey to explore the fascinating records
that can enhance your family history research and writing.
DEATHS IN SCOTLAND - How I wished my
grandmother Alice Danson, nee English, had died in Scotland! If this
seems stark and insensitive, it is because Scottish BMD records give so
much more information than their English counterparts - in particular
the names of both mother and father are given on marriage and death
certificates. My major brick wall is a failure to trace Alice's birth
certificate of 1884 (or any other record) and so find out the name of
her mother.
Scottish certificates were introduced in 1855, much later
than in England (1837). if you trace a Scottish death in that first year of
registration, you are even luckier, as the certificate named children
and the burial place. Unfortunately this was regarded as too much detail to
cope with and was soon dropped. Of course you are always dependent on the informant being aware of the facts, which may not always be the case. Digitized entries can be found on the website ScotlandsPeople.
DICTIONARIES - as a former librarian, I love browsing reference sections of
libraries/archive centres and dipping into their directories and
dictionaries for nuggets of information, whether it be Chambers Scots
Dictionary, a Dictionary of Trades and Occupations, Latin Dictionary for
Local Historians etc - now of course more likely to be available online. The ScotlandsPeople website features a very useful listing of 1500 occupations with definitions and variants.
DIRECTORIES give little more than a name, brief address and confirmation of status or occupation, yet, as with all archives, there is a fascination in discovering the name of your ancestor in a publication written in his lifetime. They provide ideal background material for writing about the community and times in which your ancestors were living - for example how many blacksmiths, bakers, carters and shoemakers are listed?
DIRECTORIES give little more than a name, brief address and confirmation of status or occupation, yet, as with all archives, there is a fascination in discovering the name of your ancestor in a publication written in his lifetime. They provide ideal background material for writing about the community and times in which your ancestors were living - for example how many blacksmiths, bakers, carters and shoemakers are listed?
A page in Mannex Directory of 1851 for Amounderness (the old
name for the Fylde, Lancashire) lists my great great grandfather Henry
Danson at Trap Farm, Carleton, his neighbour and brother-in-law John
Bryning, and under Poulton-le-Fylde Inns and Taverns two relations by
marriage William Gaulter of the Golden Ball and Cornelius Cardwell of the Kings Arms, plus son-in-law watchmaker James Brownbill.
1851 Directory with entries relating to my extended Danson family highlighted
DIARIES - if I had a touch of genealogical envy, it would be for family historians who have a diary written by their ancestor. What a wonderful piece of personal history.
To end on a more prosaic note, be aware of British DATA PROTECTION legislation in restricting access to archives less than 75 years old, (100 years where children are involved). An archivist can advise on this complex topic.
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Onto E for Epitaphs, Emigration, Electoral Rolls,
& Ephemera
& Ephemera
Copyright © 2015 Susan Donaldson. All Rights Reserved
Hi Sue. I am enjoying following along your alphabet journey. Still no luck with Alice :( She may of course not have known who her father was and made it up at the time of marriage. Alternatively she might have been referring to a step father. I agree though that a Scottish or Australian death certificate would have helped. Regards Anne
ReplyDeleteYes, I have that envy for those with a diary too. And I had to laugh over the death certificates -- what nerve our ancestors had to die in a time or place that made it more difficult and inconvenient for us family historians.
ReplyDeleteI love those directories and the death certificates with the parents names on them!
ReplyDeleteThank you, all, for taking the time to comment.
ReplyDelete