Do your own research - get the BMD's

[tj_]

Just thought I'd add my tuppence-worth - in the hope I can help save others a lot of time and avoid annoying frustrations.

You will, I am sure, save yourself a lot of time if you manage to resist the temptation of plagearising other people's research - typically from sites like GR. I wish I had!

Now don't get me wrong. GR (and similar sites) can be really good sources of possible leads. But that's how you should treat them - possible leads.

When I first started my 'research' (June '08), I was so eager to get an ancestor back to the 1700's that I grabbed details from here, there and everywhere. What a fool I was!

Notwithstanding that I have no desire to offend, but if someone has 2, 3, 4 or perhaps +7,000 people in their tree, I doubt that they've been able to properly research all of the individuals (unless they're very rich and have a team of researchers).

Please, don't do what I did - don't run before you can walk. Start with what you know, get the BMD's and work back from there. Yes, boring, slow and expensive I know - but you've got to be able to 'prove' your case; citing someone elses', undocumented, claim is not enough.

And when you get stuck, ask the good people here at RootsChat for the next clue.

Happy hunting,

Tim

[LizzieW]

Good advice Tim.  I've got over 150  BMD certs, plus quite a few copies that other distant relatives have shared with me.  I tend to buy about 3 each month and hope my husband doesn't notice.  Hmm.  He always checks the credit card statements and asks me about things he doesn't recognize, but his comment last month was I know the GRO ones are the certificates for your family research so I don't bother about those.

However, I think census are also good sources of information.  Although I tend to, it's not really necessary to get BMD certs for all the children in one family, if the information is on the census.  Wills are another good source of information, in fact I have wills for one of my 4 x g.grandfathers and his wife, both of which name a son who doesn't appear on parish records.  I have no idea who this child is, it could have been one they took in, but without any other info, I've not added him to the family.  This was before 1837.

Lizzie

[Nick29]

Good advice, Tim, and I suppose you could say that I am guilty in a way, too.

I have over 4000 names in my tree, but I'm not a "name collector" - whenever I hit a brick wall, I often check out the branches of cousins, etc, to see if I can find any clues that may help.  However, I don't have the time, cash or inclination to send off for certificates for all these people.  Now, whilst I'm well aware that the data on my more distant cousins is to be less trusted than the mainstream relatives, people who find me through Ancestry or GR may not be aware that I haven't researched these people thoroughly.  When people contact me for information, I always warn them that these people are distant cousins and have not been researched thoroughly, but when other people "borrow" this information directly off my tree, I can give no similar warning.

So, I'm afraid the moral of the story is "always do your own checking" 

[jake01]

Good advice Tim. I started of like yourself gathering info from all sources but soon realised this is not the way and began to do more research myself. Slow but very rewarding and all our friend on RootsChat are very helpful sometimes suggesting a new angle and new ideas on your particular brick wall. I thank all RootsChatters.
Jake.

[acorngen]

I have over 2000 names on my tree all of which are researched through Parish records certs etc.  It as taken me over 20 years to get where I am so please dont make wide statements without quantifying what you mean

Rob

[Sylviaann]

I'm not interested in numbers so I've never counted the names in my tree.  I too have been researching for 20 years and have found everything from censuses, BMD and Parish records and wills.  If I have proof I enter siblings. 

I got back to 1670 with one line and created a jig-saw from the parish records back to 15something.  I sent this information to someone telling them it was only a suggestion and I could find no proof.  Guess what it is now on ancestry as part of our tree and lots of other peoples.

I also looked at the IGI for my Channel Islands families(There is no other way for me to do it).  Very interesting.  Some of the people were born before their parents or were 100 years old when they had children.

Sylviaann

[Maggie.]

How times have changed.  I first became intersted in family history about 15 years ago when I was taken by a cousin to York to look for evidence of our mutual family in the Borthwick Institute and in the Local Studied Dept of York Library.  My cousin was an old hand who had been researching for many years and all our work was hand written carefully into notebooks, then we drew out the trees by hand.  My cousin was very thorough and only interested in researching the main family lines and I can still remember the thrill when we found our family in the un-indexed census records. 

Then we would take it in turns to send for the GRO certificates and hand copy the info. for each other as we had neither computers nor copiers.  I still get very excited at the arrival of a certificate as more than anything else, for me they give substance to that person.

Now I have all the internet help and would hate to be without it.  Like Sylviaann, I have no idea how many names I have on my tree, but each name who makes it onto my tree has been checked out by me personally and I feel like I know them.

Maggie

[Woody32]

I have 3 seperate Family trees..

1,  Mastercopy- Everyone i can find brothers sisters aunts uncles etc (found on Census IGI etc)
2,  Direct line - Just parents grandparents GGrandparents etc

and Finally No. 3 Directlinemain.  This one has only got my family line that i have got copies of BMD certificates of, or actually seen parish registers of, needless to say this is the smallest tree but the most important to me, because i have actually researched this information myself. Hopefully this tree will get bigger with the help and hints i have gleaned off trees but not until i have checked it myself.

[lizdb]

What wise advise on here.

GR, other peoples trees, etc etc can be useful leads (sometimes) but they are NOT original sources, NOT surviving documents, etc.

How often it seems some folk confuse the two.