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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Northumberland => Topic started by: MaryThorn on Monday 22 June 15 20:44 BST (UK)
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So have managed to track back as far as the late 1700's using details for census returns and now I'm stuck. I take it the next place for family information would be to turn to baptisms details but how easy is it access this information online?
Any recommendations for gleaning more Northumberland family information?
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Parish registers for births, marriages & deaths can be found on Ancestry and FindMyPast
Or more limited (but growing) coverage on sites such as FreeReg: http://freereg2.freereg.org.uk/
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OPC (online Parish Clerk) sites can be very useful; a variety of free information. Here's the link to the Dorset one but if you scroll to the end there is a list of the others:
http://www.opcdorset.org/
Nanny Jan
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https://familysearch.org
http://www.freereg.org.uk
are the two main sites that spring to mind, both free, both have a searchable database which will result in a transcription. Free Reg has less coverage but greater detail, Family Search also have some of the Bishops Transcripts and you can browse through the images (time consuming but often rewarding)
https://archive.org have some scanned books of transcribed old parish registers - try a search in texts for the parish name.
Post 1837, civil certs would give the details you'd need to verify what you have found in census returns, but they are expensive at £9.25 each, so parish registers are a good substitute (though I try to get the civil certs for the direct line at least)
Old newspapers - available either on Find My Past or British Newspaper Archive (both subscription sites) may throw up some gems about your ancestors, or perhaps your library membership gives remote access to the 19th Century British Library Newspapers.
Lots of good pointers in the Northumberland Resources and Offers board and I can recommend reading various threads on here, I have learned a lot from reading other people's posts.
Boo
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It's also useful to know where parishes are in the county - it's a large county. Try
http://www.genuki.bpears.org.uk/NBL/Parishes.html
it's an excellent way to get your bearings
Christine
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in addition to Christine's post about Genuki and the great info it gives about the parishes
http://maps.familysearch.org
Allows you to see the parishes on a map - and all sorts of other useful stuff. I use it a lot.
Boo
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You don't have to just go back.... I was intrigued by my GG-grandmother's siblings, parents and their siblings, to answer the question "Where did they all go? Where did they all end up?" I assumed they'd all have stayed in the village, but they went all over the place. Some to villages 10 miles away, some to Canada/Australia - and some just "disappeared", which are more jaunts through the census records to try to find them.
Newspapers are where I've had the most interesting stuff. OK, so I knew somebody was born in 18xx, married in 18xx, widowed in 18xx, died in 18xx ....but what was more interesting was discovering she'd been in prison and why - and then seeing her physical description on her sheet!
Stalk those ancestors you've discovered....see what they got up to. I had one who was in court for "buying a soldiers pants"! Or the one who married a man who died in the loony bin, then remarried and then she died - and as they were laying out her body they discovered a huge cache of hidden gold!
They can be hilarious :)
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You don't have to just go back.... I was intrigued by my GG-grandmother's siblings, parents and their siblings, to answer the question "Where did they all go? Where did they all end up?"
oh yes, once you can establish the barebones stuff born, married, died and have the structure of the tree putting some flesh on those bones is enormous fun - and frustrating and time consuming :-)
I think the best advice I was given many years ago was save every single snippet of info you find, note where you found it and what the reference is. If you've spent three hours tracking down a piece of info, you really don't want to spend another three hours sometime later trying to remember 'where' you got it from !
Boo
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Don't forget that you can access many records free (if you're a member) from you local library that would cost you quite dearly via subscription - BMDs, baptisms, wills etc
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You don't have to just go back.... I was intrigued by my GG-grandmother's siblings, parents and their siblings, to answer the question "Where did they all go? Where did they all end up?" I assumed they'd all have stayed in the village, but they went all over the place. Some to villages 10 miles away, some to Canada/Australia - and some just "disappeared", which are more jaunts through the census records to try to find them.
Newspapers are where I've had the most interesting stuff. OK, so I knew somebody was born in 18xx, married in 18xx, widowed in 18xx, died in 18xx ....but what was more interesting was discovering she'd been in prison and why - and then seeing her physical description on her sheet!
Stalk those ancestors you've discovered....see what they got up to. I had one who was in court for "buying a soldiers pants"! Or the one who married a man who died in the loony bin, then remarried and then she died - and as they were laying out her body they discovered a huge cache of hidden gold!
They can be hilarious :)
So very true and you just don't know what may turn up next. When searching a John Grant Forsyth it soon became evident that he had been quite a bad boy, but we didn't get a full insight into his character until we read the whole account of his being extradited from Sydney in 1886 and then playing cards with the notorious murderers Caffrey and Penn who were later hanged in Auckland, while humming, "Hear Me Gentle Maritana".
I would also recommend looking for old sketches of the places where ancestors lived. These can really take you back and show you the world they used to live in. Look too for old occupations, like Tyneside Keel Men - some of these not only show one how they lived and dressed but often have a funny side which only comes out when you see a sketch from that period.
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how easy is it access this information online?
??? :-\
In an earlier thread you said you lived only 20 minutes from Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn - why not pay them a visit as advised by Christine? :)
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=721526.msg5653872#msg5653872
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Some fantastic suggestions, thank you all. Jen I really wanted to go up there a few weeks back and had it all planned but now have quite a sick relative to look after so don't have the time to go up and spend a good few hours rooting around. Actually it was my relative becoming sick that kind of reawakened my interest in finding out about the past as very little was known about his side of the family, and i've dug up some really interesting facts on the family, thanks to his side being quite prominent farmers there's lots out there in newspaper archives. My side there's less to find out about as they were all mining stock, but it's interesting to see how far afield they
migrated in working in the mines. Also having Straughans in the family has made it slightly more complicated.
Loving how I can lose myself online with the family search and how supportive and knowledgable everyone here is.
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now have quite a sick relative to look after so don't have the time to go up and spend a good few hours rooting around.
Sorry about that :( but you've been given plenty of links to earlier records to keep you going :D
Durham Bishops Transcripts are here https://familysearch.org/search/image/index#uri=https://familysearch.org/recapi/sord/collection/1309819/waypoints but please note a) not all parishes are covered b) not all dates are covered c) they are not searchable - you must browse through page by page. However there are a lot of treasures to be found there if you have the stamina and patience :D
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Durham Bishops Transcripts are here https://familysearch.org/search/image/index#uri=https://familysearch.org/recapi/sord/collection/1309819/waypoints but please note a) not all parishes are covered b) not all dates are covered c) they are not searchable - you must browse through page by page. However there are a lot of treasures to be found there if you have the stamina and patience :D
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Browsing through them is also good practice for what it's like working through microfilms of parish records when you do make it to Woodhorn ;D
Christine
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OPC (online Parish Clerk) sites can be very useful; a variety of free information. Here's the link to the Dorset one but if you scroll to the end there is a list of the others:
http://www.opcdorset.org/
Nanny Jan
Cheers for the link, I just found my gr gr grandparents and my gr grandmother on there.