Researching London ancestors

A couple of years ago, I had no knowledge of how to search for London ancestors as I didn’t have any as far as I knew. But recently, with DNA assistance, I now have a few lines through dad’s finally found father.

As tonight’s #ANZAncestryTime chat was about resources for London research, I could actually mention some sources I have used.

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What general resources have you found the most helpful or what are your favourite resources for researching ancestors from London and its surroundings?

I’m hoping to gain some inspiration on ancestors who lived or moved through London.

Looking forward to hints about ways to find my London ancestor pre civil registration when I have no idea of location

Research sites I’ve used include Genuki, Pallots Index, Family Search, Ancestry and census info as a guide to places of birth. Booth’s poverty maps are great – if you have a specific address

I have found the London Metropolitan Archives very useful bit.ly/3w8Efns and also the London Encyclopedia which I purchased recently

I struggle with having any confidence that I have found the correct birth or marriage when there’s a city of a bazillion people

Yes, it can be difficult especially if researching a common name … So many Browns in North London

Censuses, directories and parishes records! Huguenot society for sure too but also French/international collections at @MyHeritage because a lot were French or Belgian/Dutch emigrants or refugees 🤩

Because I focus on 1800s and early 1900s I find the census and church records most useful for the basic starting point for my London ancestors. They moved to NZ and Essex so I can follow they with the census to Essex

For London #FamilyHistory there are some excellent Family History Societies who offer resources, talks and publications! There is an excellent guide by @LWMFHS lwmfhs.org.uk/area-covered

LMA have a great website with many rabbit holes to disappear down. I could easily spend hours there

Westminster Archives would be another great place to research in person and the Society of Genealogists. And London Lives londonlives.org

Re London parish registers and the LMA search.lma.gov.uk/scripts/mwimai…

I don’t have any ancestors anywhere near London, and looking at my DNA matches tree, the location is mentioned only 17 times.

the @LdnMetArchives has a number of useful guides to its resources although record sets like Land Tax Returns which I find useful for 1770-1830 are often held in Borough Libraries. So much of the LMA data is now online which is really helpful.

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Do you use London specific resources? Are these available online? Is it a good place to visit for research?

Yes – mostly. I find maps very useful too and books e.g. A guide to London’s churches by Mervyn Blatch and Tracing Your London Ancestors by Jonathan Oates

Spent a few days at LMA when I was in London many years ago. So much to look at.

Can you tell us a bit about the London Encyclopaedia?

It’s one of those wonderful books that you can dip in and out of. The best kind of reference book. It’s a massive volume – 1116pages and covers anything and everything – buildings, people, organizations, streets, embankments, turnpikes etc etc

I have found it enormously helpful when tackling #52ancestorsin52weeks on my blog this year. I have a few families who originated from London.

LMA cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/h…

Yes it was great when my cousin was in Hammersmith. Plus she was very interested so we visited national archives and LMA. Found some wonderful and totally huge maps that were impossible to look at the middle sections without both of us rolling it up together.

A blog about London history via walking tours livinglondonhistory.com

some background on 1890’s London , glad I wasn’t living there then npr.org/2015/03/12/392…

Just bought an Unlock the Past book on London and Middlesex family history resources online from Gould Genealogy by Alan Stewart

no London ancestors that I know of but looked in our catalogue, quite a few resources librarycat.org/lib/CNGHRG/sea… may or may not be useful

I found Robsons Trade Directory, as part of Ancestry’s London City Directories collection, useful in placing a bricklayer ancestor in 1819. The occupation tied in with his convict indent & newspaper notices entered by family trying to track him in NSW.

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In a large city ensuring you have the right person can be hard. What suggestions or techniques do you use that can help? What about pre-census and pre-civil registration? Or dealing with people and families with common first and surnames?

I think perhaps sometimes you may never know although if they had an unusual occupation that might help. I guess I look for common names in siblings or common churches for baptisms. But sometimes it’s just like looking for the proverbial needle…

Coming to terms with never knowing is difficult Alex. As family historians we want to know it all

We do want to follow them back but when it comes to London I throw my hands up and give up.

Just remembered when I started I had to use elimination to get down to a more manageable list before expanding out to look for other records. Found my great GM this way. This technique required sometime, logic and keeping good records.

Looking for consistencies across records e.g. other family members, occupation etc.

This is my major conundrum: how can you be sure pre-civil Reg and if they die before census? Do they move between parishes? Also married in London but lived elsewhere. Seems impossible when names are not unusual. Tips much appreciated.

Usually I look to a family’s children’s names to see if I can detect a pattern for the earlier generation eg why I’ve “decided” my William Partridge’s maternal grandfather was likely William Thompson.

I have an ancestor who was a journeyman carpenter but the marriage records labourer. All else “fits”.

clues for my Partridge family (then living in Gloucestershire): Eliza (mother) and son William both shown as born Westminster on 1851 census, daughter shown as St Pancras. My husband’s ancestors married in London, lived in Notts. she was from East Sussex

I have looked for wills and letters of administration as they will give names of people involved and addresses often.

I got a great will earlier in the year. It has a row of houses in London and my grandmother left different ones to different children. I just have to find it as I forgot to file it on my computer properly.

I think luck has a lot to do with getting the correct persons. I was lucky to have families that used unusual second names & less common maiden names reused down the generations. 3 cheers for Freeborn, Collis, Myhill, Frith, Grout, Tarbet & more.

Finding my 3x g grandfather Thomas Jones in London pre civil reg has been impossible, not knowing his location

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What maps and mapping sites have helped you understand London and its surrounds? Do you find ancestors relocate and return to London? Any ancestors with interesting capital-based roles? In parliament, for example?

I tend to order maps from Gould Genealogy as I find it quite difficult looking at maps online. My Dad’s old AA guide to London from the 1960s came in quite handy when I was doing research recently ! It doesn’t have just maps but also guides to churches et al.

My dad’s side of the family were mainly from London, Surrey, Kent area so comparing google maps with the poverty maps and ordnance maps from Scotland site have been great.

National Library of Scotland has some digitised London info.

I sometimes use Google maps to check out the relative proximity, and distance, between 2 places that an ancestor has lived. However, my Brown line has pretty much been in the Tottenham/Edmonton area for generations and generations

I often use street view on google. Even though it is fairly recent I find it gives a different perspective. I had a go at layering a while back and stripping back to older versions can be enlightening.

When writing up my biographies, I try to include addresses as well and hope they are in close proximity. My great grandmother suewyatt.edublogs.org/2021/12/31/flo…

Another biography showing mapping great grandfather suewyatt.edublogs.org/2021/12/11/wil…

I have a family member who was a grenadier guard. One of his duties was Gold Stick IN Waiting to the King. Gold Stick is a bodyguard

I was lucky my ancestors were coachmen and boot shop managers or similar and were easy to follow through censuses

Readers: What sources have you found useful when researching London ancestors?

Day 2 RootsTech 2022

A relaxing day yesterday, just watching a few sessions as I know I will be able to view most of them over the next year. So now to start day 2 at 10am my time in Tasmania.

Went to the Main Stage but all sessions had finished already. Then looked at the live sessions for today and have already missed 9 out of the 10 I wanted to see. Glad these will be recorded so I can watch later on.

So looks like my plan for today is to look at some series and other sessions I have ticked and added to my playlist. I have also been watching twitter to see what other sessions are being recommended by other genealogists I follow.

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Is Everyone Here by Jana Greenalgh 

Loved the introduction to this series. Common saying by mums of large families “Is everyone here?” Jana suggests ways to fill in those gaps in your family tree where you might have found some children but maybe not all of them. This is mainly for English families.

  • An individual’s story includes all their relationships.
  • Search broad family including step families.
  • Check out signatures on records.
  • Prior to 1900 families were generally big. Demographic statistics for population and infant mortality found here.
  • Before 1900 most married women had children every 1-3 years so check your tree for gaps that might show children missing
  • Ask questions about why there might be a gap – change church, dad in gaol, dad a mariner, stillbirth etc

Find your family in every census

  • Keep a spreadsheet or chart from 1841-1921 and mark off relevant censuses you find each member of the family in
  • Remember children grow and leave home or are apprentices or servants in other homes of get married
  • If not in a census, maybe emigration
  • Also use 1939 register
  • In 1911 census , you find how many children a woman had – how many alive and how many dead

Use civil registration records to help fill gaps

  • Use indexes on GRO website gives more info than other indexes on Ancestry etc – register for free and order certificates from here as well
  • Use birth and death indexes – good for those children who died young

Church records mainly Church of England prior to 1837 when civil registration began

  • From mid 1500s, two copies of christenings, marriages and burials are found in parish registers or Bishops transcripts
  • Inscriptions on gravestones, where they are buried, maybe other members buried nearby
  • If you can find the images, it can be better than indexes – they often have extra information in margins
  • Also look in neighbouring parishes and towns
  • In small towns, create lists with same surname – often they are related

Probate records

  • Wills, admons (didn’t leave a will), estate duty
  • From 1858, check at gov.uk or in Ancestry
  • Before 1858, you need to check county probate records which can be found on family search wiki – findmypast and the genealogist also have the images
  • In small town keep record of all with same surname

 

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Escaping the Famine – Irish settlement in Canada by Melanie McComb @ShamrockGen

This session really interested me as those readers who follow my blog, know of my frustrations with my Irish Jackson family. After three members of the family, William senior, William Junior and Rebecca as well as another relative Jane Steel, were sentenced to transportation, another member of the family Anne Jackson, who had dobbed them in for stealing, asked for help to get away from Ireland.

While I was travelling in Ireland I did some research on Anne and found her with two other children Mary Ann and Robert going to Canada on the recommendation of the magistrate who had sentenced the Jacksons.

Melanie’s session included the history of Irish Immigration to Canada and many of the reasons why this happened. She also discusses the voyages across the Atlantic from Ireland to Canada. Once in Canadian waters, there was quarantine to go through at various points along the coast.

Before 1865, no formal passenger lists but some shipping companies kept lists. This is where I found Ann and her children on the J.J.Cooke list arriving on the ship Superior in 1847. These records are now on Ancestry.

Melanie also mentions a collection of records coming into New England through the Port of Saint John, New Brunswick for the years 1841-1849. It includes more than just immigration records.

Grosse Ile quarantine station has a database that can be checked through the Libraries and Archives of Canada. Another database they have is for any immigrants prior to 1865.

Melanie then went into other ways to build your Irish family in Canada:

  • Using census to looking for parent(s) born in Ireland but children born in Canada. Different information found in each census will help you work out when someone came to Canada and maybe where they came from in Ireland.
  • Church records – some found online, others still on microfilm and found in registers at particular churches.
  • Land records also might help build your family tree in Canada – province level first then county level
  • Newspapers also give lots of information including goods belonging to dead people and how to claim them. Also check out obituaries and articles in area near where your Irish family settled.
  • Gravestones might also have town and parish in Ireland mentioned on them.

Readers: What was your takeaway from day 2 at RootsTech 2022?

Can you help solve these brickwalls?

Couleur / Pixabay

Tonight’s twitterchat for #ANZAncestryTime was about helping to solve brickwalls.

Many participants had written blogposts or biographies on wikitree including the information known about their person who is a brickwall.

Other participants gave us details so we could help solve them

Sharn: I have traced my Campbell ancestors back to Neil Campbell and Christian Buchanan who had children 1761-1773 in Callender Perthshire but I can’t find a marriage or their births

Margaret: It is my father’s family that is so difficult. For his maternal gmother wikitree.com/wiki/McKinnon-…, we know her father is John. We assume her mother is Isabella from Naming Pattern, possibly Jamison. NO PROOF.

Alex: I had a go at crafting a more focused research question this afternoon. Here it is. Where and when did Robert Forfar die. He married Lucy Swait on 30 Jan 1842 at St James Westminster London UK and had a son George born 23 Oct 1848 and baptised Bannockburn? Lucy Forfar nee Swait died a widow in 1866. I surmise that Robert died some time between 1861 and 1866 as he was paying for George to go to school in Ealing in 1861. Did he die in England? Did he die in Scotland? Did he die somewhere else entirely? Robert was described as a mason on George’s marriage certificate. His family were weavers in Scotland. Forfar as a name presents a whole bunch of problems – spelling and that it is a place name as well. I need to keep rigorous records of my searches.

Kerri-Anne: I’m grateful for how much I know but I’d like to find out more information on my convicts in England Scotland Ireland – Thomas Power Jean MacDonald James Bradley Sarah Barnes Mary Parker Charles Watson Waters Ann Daley Richard Hicks Margaret Howe

Sharn: My g g g grandmother was Mary Williams said to be born in Singleton NSW c 1840 to parents named as Joseph Williams and Mary Kelly. I can’t find this couple or Mary’s birth

Sharn: Would really love to know what became of my g g g uncle Lawrence Frayne, convict who left a wonderful diary from his time on Norfolk Island after he received a Cert of Freedom in 1846

Margaret: I found most of the family for my 2xggfather William Dickson – again DNA matches and lots of research. Now I have to find his parents’ siblings – and his wife – and their missing children.

Hilary: I partially broke a brickwall when I discovered who my 3xgt grandmother married then found a DNA match with her descendants from that marriage My ancestor was illegitimate so I need to confirm the father with another DNA match

KerrieAnne: I am trying to find the origins of my direct maternal line ancestry from Ann MacLean to Robertson and further back – mt dna suggests Viking origins which is no surprise as she was from the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides

Tara: I think of them as learning opportunities and, as 3/4 of my ancestry is Irish, I’ve multiple 19C brick walls. The other 1/4 are English/Welsh origins and I can take most lines back quite far although my Welsh 3GGM is a challenge of her own

Jennifer: My 2x great grandparents John Taylor & Martha Lloyd are my brickwall. They arrived in Aust betw September 1841 and October 1842. They don’t appear on any passenger list. I’ve searched Taylor, Tailor, Tyler

KerrieAnne: Brickwalls – my husband’s direct paternal line challenge – finding Edward Tiearney & Catherine Colligan in Ireland before their emigration to US. Done ydna & got a good match but no real progress to go further back in Connacht Ireland, probably around Carracastle

Claire: my brickwall is probably not solvable. Can’t find marriage of 2x g-grandparents who had 2 kids in 1880s Dublin. No death of man recorded but dead by 1901. I’ve checked every marriage of right names countrywide church/civil & every death in Dublin from year before last kid born to 1901. Not helped by names involved: Reilly/Murphy

Sharn: I would love to know more about the family of my two convict brothers Michael and Lawrence Frayne both born in Dublin c 1809 and 1821 with children between

Suggestions of where to look for information

  • Prison hulks for convicts
  • Scottish kirk session on Scottish Indexes
  • Colonial Secretary letters
  • Occupation records such as Masons
  • National library of Ireland parish registers
  • Census records
  • Newspaper and archives for British and Irish

Try more than one site for your records – GRO, FreeBMD, ScotlandsPeople. With a missing name, I look for another person – then you find the name is mistranscribed, and that’s why it hasn’t come up on the index.

I really think spelling is key. My New Year’s resolution is to write up lists of spelling variations for each surname I am researching and make sure my searches cover all and any more I find.

A tip for breaking down brick walls is to re-examine any certificates or other documents you have. You never know what you might have missed in the past

look at the names of witnesses as sometimes their surnames might be a clue to a real surname after a name change

From Judy

I can’t join #ANZAncestryTime but my Brick Wall tips are (1) Research all relatives; (2) Try neglected sources (bit.ly/3GkDiLv); (3) ’13 Tips to Try’ (tidd.ly/3I1yiwT); (4) ‘Break Through the 1837 Brick Wall’ (tidd.ly/3rHona5).