relatives

[cathie]

Can anyone tell me how I find out the names and dates of birth/death etc of my nans brothers and sisters or how many she had as i understand there could be as many as 15, she was born aug 16th 1902 and i think the last one was born in 1920 something, I found one brother Albert Harris, no date of birth but died in 2nd world war in 1941, also that she had a brother Percy but no dates as yet

thanks for any help you can give

Cathie

[Boongie Pam]

Hi Cathie and welcome to Rootschat.

This can be a toughie if you can't get the info from living relatives. Ask everyone!

My advice would to go through the St Catherine's index from when you think the first child was born to the year/quarter of the last.  Doing this on 1837online would be expensive, more or less so depending on whether you are looking for a common surname or not?  If you are in the UK and can get to a large library they normally hold the index on fiche, so it is free but time consuming.

An alternative method is to try and find somebody else researching the name - you may get lucky and they are related to you - but this is very hit and miss, though it happened to me with my Palmers (my great grandfather). 

Or if you know what area they lived look at the phonebook for the name - you could maybe write to the people to ask if they were related to your Nan - again it depends on how common a name it is - please don't say SMITH LOL!

Hope this helps?  Let us know the surname and area and you never know one of us here could be related!

All the best,
Pam
 

[Bee]

Hi Cathie,
maybe you could try FreeBMD especially for the births. just enter the name and area and approx year range and see what turns up.
good luck
Bee

[cathie]

Hi Pam
Thank you for the welcome, the name is Harris, my nan was Olive may Harris pre to getting married, I know my nan was born in bath but her parents died in bexhill and i have no idea how they got to bexhill from bath and if they went via london which is what I suspect, I want to go to the family records office in kew and also to hastings which has a large library and all obitories to do with the areas just time consuming and I dont mind that.

Cathie

[cathie]

Hi Bee

what is FreeBMD and have you the url at all

Thanks

Cathie

[EmPers]

If you know her parents name and where they were living, you could have a go on the 1901 census to see if there were any older siblings. For younger siblings, this method would be slow to say the least, as 1911 and 1921 won't be released for a fair few years yet.

FreeBMD (http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/) is a project by volunteers to transcribe and form a database of the indexes to the civil registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths. You could go and search the area for Harris's born in that area at the right time which might give you an idea, but without getting a lot of certificates you can't be sure.

[Boongie Pam]

Freebmd is primarily covering pre-1901 but it has good coverage for the 1901-08 years as well.

If you are near London I would definitely recommend going to the Family History Centre - it is great fun.  Here you can search the big books directly - I actually find this quicker than the PC - and it saves a gym membership LOL.

Here's the website for the FRC...

http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/frc/default.htm

It's in Clerkenwell, and I recommend the veggie Thai buffet opposite Angel station.

More recent research when you don't have a lot of info is difficult, many people (including myself) find it easier to jump back and work from the great grand-parents backwards.  When the 1911 is available it'll help find the rellies post 1901.

Happy hunting,
Pam