How to deal with blocks in evidence pre-census

[Nosmit18]

I've traced the paternal side of my family tree convincingly back to around 1729. Before this is becomes much more difficult. I can't use census records to verify family connections. I've come to one ancestor, let's call him John Smith, and then searching for this ancestor's birth records I've found a John smith born in 1700 with one father then another John smith born in 1698 with a different father. Are there any ways to verify which of these is the 'John Smith' I'm looking for and therefore who their father is? I  hope that makes sense. Thanks

[Alan of Kaslo]

What country?  Some have better records then others. If you can find his death record with an age then you can possibly trace the year of birth and compare docs. It can also have occupations on the doc that can help. You can try and find their wedding info and see locations and witnesses. Again , depending on the country.

[Nosmit18]

Thanks. Most of this line of ancestors seem to have been registered at Brompton in Sawley, Yorkshire. I have searched as much as I can on ancestry. The trouble is that neither birth or death records from this era have a lot of detail about relatives. The only information I can see a death record giving me is whether they died old enough to be a parent and even then it wouldn't tell me who that person's parents were

 This family line tended to name their children one of only a few names so cousins/uncles etc become quite blurred. I'm guessing wills would contain the most detail as they contain spouses and children. However, I am struggling to find any of these

[Rena]

Usually most European countries used the same naming pattern that honoured their parents and grandparents and which additionally could acknowledge the name of an important personage in their area;  the important personage could be the doctor, the employer, etc..

Fingers crossed that your ancestors had more than the one son named "John".

https://www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/how-to-use-naming-patterns-to-find-your-ancestors/

[amondg]

Many who had professions such as blacksmith, or perhaps a farmer had property or tools of the trade to hand down or a going business. Look for wills in the general area where they lived.

Only those with more substantial property had their wills administered by PCC. (U.K.)
So look in the records offices of the county (U.K.) for local wills.

[martin hooper]

Research complete families. Identify all the children from each possible set of parents. Then find out all you can about each child. Often you will find connections that indicate which is the correct family for your tree.

Martin

[Drayke]

There are many ways to work it out with some being those already mentioned like naming conventions, same occupation as father etc, however, sometimes it is impossible to be 100% sure.

Another way is to look at wills. Don't just look at wills that are for the same last name. Open up a blank search for the town and nearby towns the said person lived in and look at all the wills from the date of the persons death back 100 years. Then skim read all of them for known names. It can be laborious but sometimes worth it.

Doing that kind of search with the wills, you can look for potential legacies left to your relative or their children. This allows you to sometimes find cousins, uncles/aunts, siblings, mother/son/father/daughter-in-laws etc (that may not have the same last name) that mention your known relative and allow you to piece it together.

If only Ancestry or findmypast allowed searching names mentioned within the wills it would be so much easier.

Other methods that can be used depending on the county, timeframe your looking at and what is available are inquisitions, land records, tax lists, quarter sessions, churchwarden records, protestation returns (1642), removal records, etc to name a few. All available at ancestry for Yorkshire or online elsewhere.

Also you cant rely on just using search on ancestry or the like as there are some records that are not indexed. Looking at ancestry for Yorkshire (card catalogue with keyword search for Yorkshire) there are a few records that are not indexed so require looking at images one by one.

Lastly try searching google books or internet archive for the last name of the person and the town. There are many records that are available at these places (even snippets) that can reveal results from books, genealogy societies, etc which are not available on the more popular genealogy sites like ancestry.

The further you get back away from 1800, the more records you need to look at that are not indexed (searchable).