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Research assistance.

Tell members about what you have found useful, and find out about other researchers' go-to resources.
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KayFarndon
Posts: 34
Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 13:19

Research assistance.

Post by KayFarndon »

Dusty Docs is free research site and gives you many resources.

Curious Fox has a subscription of £6 a year and can be valuable locating places where your ancestors might have lived.

I am often asked out of birth, marriage or death certificates, which gives the most information and without a doubt it is a marriage certificate. There are 24 elements and in no significant order they are:

1.Year & date. 2.Whether by banns or license. 3.Where the marriage took place. 4.Building. 5.Officiating officer. 6. Name of groom. 7. Name of bride. 8 & 9. Addresses of where each was residing at time of marriage. 10 &11. Occupations of both. 12 &13. Names of fathers. 14 & 15 Occupations of fathers. 16 &17. Ages of bride & groom. 18. Number in the register. 19 & 20 Names of witnesses. 21 & 22 signatures of bride & groom. 23& 24 Signatures of witnesses.

Just hoping I am not taking coals to Newcastle with this post, but I have known marriage certificates to solve queries, locate people and answer many questions.
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AdrianBruce
Posts: 358
Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 18:57
Location: South Cheshire

Re: Research assistance.

Post by AdrianBruce »

... and if it's a Scottish certificate, it gives the names of both parents!

It's an interesting question which certificate you should go for, if you're on a budget, and a marriage certificate will certainly give you a lot of "bangs per buck", especially if set alongside census records.

But my advice if you can afford it, is that for your direct ancestors, you should get all 3 (of BMD) and all the censuses (if you're in that era). Anything else is false economy for your direct ancestors. I remember a distant relative of mine was tracing our mutual Taylor line of ancestors - she was trying to locate one of our ancestors with a really common name like Thomas Taylor and she got the wrong Thomas Taylor (not difficult to do in all honesty). The wrong one lived in Preston, Lancs, not Penwortham. The problem was that the 2 places are on opposite sides of the River Ribble - everyone's heard of the big town of Preston, no-one's heard of the little parish of Penwortham, so Thomas had clearly got fed up of explaining where Penwortham was and got into the habit of saying that he was from Preston. But if you took him at his word, and looked in Preston, no surprise that you found someone with pretty much the same details. Whereas pedantic me had got every census for him, including ones where it was obviously the same family but he gave his birth-place as Penwortham.

Confession - if it's a sibling or cousin, etc, that I'm chasing, no I won't go buying those BMD certificates unless they're really, really, interesting. Even there I won't make a wild guess, I'll just stop. But have I been as careful? I wouldn't like to say...
Adrian Bruce
Templ4r
Posts: 75
Joined: 13 Jun 2020, 20:18

Re: Research assistance.

Post by Templ4r »

.....and if you're lucky and have Scottish baptisms or marriages in 1855, they also tell you where the parents were born. After 1861 baptisms tell you where the parents married.
I believe burials will tell you where and who the undertaker was in 1855.

I agree with Adrian, get Hatch, Match and Dispatch for your ancestors..
meekhcs
Posts: 468
Joined: 02 Jun 2020, 18:19
Location: Lincolnshire, but Hampshire born and bred!

Re: Research assistance.

Post by meekhcs »

..... and even then be careful as lies were often told as I have found out recently!!!!!
Sally
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