Newspaper Collections
It’s not just archives that are putting their holdings online. Online newspaper archives are increasingly useful for family historians, helping you to locate articles about your ancestors that may otherwise have never been found. It is always worth checking the local newspaper that covered the area your family lived in if you have a date of birth, marriage or death for a prominent ancestor that may have warranted a mention in the personal announcements or obituaries section. In the majority of cases you will still be required to visit the local library or county record office or go to the British Newspaper Library in north London to scroll through the original chronological records.
The most important records are the digitized collections of national newspapers, many of which can be searched by keyword, article type and date range. The Times is one of the most prominent of these; its collections are available online from 1785 to the present day. To access the entire collection of The Times an InfoTrac database connection is needed, to which most major archives and local library networks provide free access. Your local library may be able to give you a PIN number and instructions about how to use the database for free from home. The Scotsman also has an online database of its backdated editions from 1817 to 1950, accessed at http://archive.scotsman.com, and the historic archive of the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes can be searched and viewed for free at www.gazettes-online.co.uk.
Local newspapers tend to be more fruitful when searching for newspaper articles for the majority of our ancestors, but you may be surprised to locate an entry in a national newspaper in the form of criminal reports, court summaries, advertisements, changes of name and address notices, in addition to the many birth, marriage, death and funeral announcements and obituaries they contain. These ever-growing online newspaper archives are so useful to modern genealogists purely because they enable us to find articles about our ancestors by name rather than by searching through months’ or even years’ worth of original newspaper reports.
Portal Websites
There are numerous professional bodies in the field of genealogy that are at hand to aid you in your quest to find as much material as you can about your heritage, and most of the larger organizations attempt to do this as best they can via the web so that they reach the widest group of people. The Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) has a Research Tips section on its website www.ffhs.org.uk, and the Society of Genealogists’ website www.sog.org.uk has genealogy leaflets that can be downloaded giving general advice about how best to go about tracing your roots. Many of the major archives also have subject-related research guides on their websites that guide you through locating and interpreting documents when at these institutions. One of the best places to find out more about the key resources you’ll be using is at www.familyrecords.gov.uk, which describes civil registration indexes, census returns, wills and probate documents and other material.
HOW TO …
… make the most of the Internet
If you are not an experienced computer and Internet user, it is probably worth investing in a good guide, like Peter Christian’s The Genealogist’s Internet or How To Trace Your Family History on the Internet published by Reader’s Digest. These books provide detailed explanations of how to research each aspect of family history using online resources and will guide you through the most popular sites. They also suggest a good range of websites for your online research.
GENUKI
GENUKI is a web-based charitable organization that offers information on all aspects of genealogy in the UK and Ireland. Its database of information and links is organized geographically and by theme on the www.genuki.org.uk website. While this site provides links to many other websites where you can seek help with any problems, the website itself aims to serve its users as a ‘virtual reference library’ and is not designed to answer specific research questions. It is supported by the FFHS and its member societies, who collaborate with GENUKI to provide them with much of the information contained on the site. It is therefore extremely useful for locating rare online indexes and transcriptions for records held in local archives that cannot be found on some of the large commercial dataset sites. As soon as you can pin a branch of your ancestors to one particular place, it is definitely worth visiting the GENUKI website because its sophisticated geographic index will show you all the key online tools and organizations that specialize in that area. Its topographical index is just as useful if there is a certain genealogical subject you are struggling with.
Cyndi’s List
Cyndi’s List is a web-based directory to help you find websites relevant to all areas of family history. Established by Cyndi Howells in 1996, Cyndi’s List is an excellent finding aid for genealogists, giving you links to thousands of useful websites. Go to www.cyndislist.com and search the Categories to find a website for whichever area of your research you need help with.
Network Websites
The benefits of data-sharing websites, where you can upload your family tree and search other researchers’ entries to find common ancestors, have been explored in Chapter 2, but there are other types of websites which help you to share and learn from other people’s research and expertise by posting messages about a specific ancestor, branch or topic of interest and awaiting responses from other users. Forums and chat rooms are particularly good for this purpose, and you will find that many sites with access to datasets also provide a forum for their members to communicate by.
Forums
Forums are great for accessing as many people with a like-minded interest as possible. If there is a family myth that you have been unable to unravel, it is possible that posting a message in a subject-related forum will attract replies from people who may be able to help, either because they have faced a similar scenario in their research, or perhaps because they recognize the names as some of their own ancestors. This way, if a family story has been passed down more than one branch distant cousins may be able to embellish with more detail about what they have heard and you can compare the two versions of events. Place your query in a forum category that best fits the subject of your enquiry, and be as specific as possible, mentioning the names you are interested in finding out more about and any relevant places and dates so that other users will be able to tell straight away if they can help you.
The British Genealogy website has links to forums covering all topics and counties at www.british-genealogy.com/forums, but also you should remember to look out for a forum section on the other websites mentioned in this book. The more forums you post your query in, the more likely you are to get a response.
Communities and Mailing Lists
The Internet is home to a range of online communities that are worth joining in order to communicate with other people who are equally as enthusiastic about their research as you. Being part of a community that has an interest in a genealogical subject you are really passionate about gives you access to a goldmine of knowledge. Whenever you are stuck you can turn to your online community and ask them for their help or opinions, whilst keeping abreast of all the latest news about your area of interest. If there is a special convention coming up, or a really important dataset is due to be released online, you should be among the first to know about it by keeping in touch with your fellow enthusiasts.
‘Being part of an online community gives you access to a goldmine of knowledge.’
These communities come in various guises. Joining a mailing list is one way to be part of an online community. Mailing lists allow subscribed members to debate a chosen topic and exchange information; each time somebody writes a comment an email is sent out to alert