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SoG Getaway What’s Been Done Before?

Finding Pedigrees Online and at the SoG

Else Churchill

Genealogist

Society of Genealogists

Hints & tips on www.sog.org.uk

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Google Generation

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Uploaded GEDCOM Pedigree files for hot-matches and shaky leaves

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Wiki Tree

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Pedigrees on Ancestry and other commercial sites

FamilySearch

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Family Tree Searcher trawls through a number of US sites

Portal Websites

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“Gateway ancestor”

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Surname/Place interest sites

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Genuki.org – sumarises Roots web well

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• Rootsweb via GOOGLE - Churchill St Weonards

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Local FHS

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Published Genealogies

Family History Library

Society of Genealogists

Family History Library

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Society of Genealogists

14 Charterhouse Buildings,

Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA

www.sog.org.uk

Founded in 1911

The Library is

Britain’s premier

family history

research centre

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Why use the SoG Library? Unique material

• Where did they live?

• What did they do?

• Who are they?

• What’s been done before?

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Various Ways to Search Records

Library Catalogue

SoG online data (for members)

Website surname indexes to

manuscripts

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Who are they? Family Histories,

Document & Special Collections

• Published and Unpublished Family Histories

• Research Notes - surname

• 350 Special Collections – subject or theme

• Card Indexes

• Microforms

• Computer databases

First family histories

One of the first family histories of the Berkeley family compiled in 1620s by John Smyth of Nibley (d 1640) using public records and family muniments. Republished in abstract in 1821 edited by Thomas Dudley Posbroke (copy at SoG)

First Family Histories The first published English family history by Robert Halstead Succinct Genealogies of the Noble and Ancient Houses of Alno, Broc and Mordaunt (1685) replete with forged charters and fictitious pedigrees (facsimile at SoG)

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Tell the story

SoG Library Catalogue on website sog.org.uk

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Published FHs found through SoGCAT

260 Vols of Family History Tracts c 5000 bound pamphlets, offprints and TS Family Histories and Biographies

• The Genealogist’s Guide by G W Marshall, 1903

• A Genealogical Guide by J B Whitmore, 1953

• A Catalogue of British Family Histories by T R Thomson, 1922

• The Genealogist’s Guide by G B Barrow, 1977

• Scottish Family History by M Stuart, 1930

• Scottish Family A Histories held in Scottish Public Libraries by J P S Ferguson, 1986

• Bibliography of Irish Family History and Genealogy B de Breffny, 1974

• Bibliography of Irish Family History by E Maclysaght, 1982

Useful Bibliographies

G W Marshall The Genealogist’s Guide

(To 1903) On SoG Website

Ormerod’s History of Cheshire

Whitmore lists the sources he indexed

• Hertfordshire families: The Victoria history of the counties of England: History of Hertfordshire genealogical volume

• Joseph Foster’s Yorkshire Pedigrees

• Howard & Crisp’s Visitations of England and Wales

• William Berry’s County Genealogies – Berks, Bucks, Essex, Hants, Herts, Kent, Sussex, Surrey

Collected Genealogies and Reference Works

Foster’s Yorkshire Pedigrees

A meticulous genealogist and editor

Visitation of England and Wales

Edited by Joseph Jackson Howard, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary

and Frederick Arthur Crisp, Antiquarian (1851-1922) and document collector. Editor of Fragmenta Genealogica, Collections relating to the Family of Crispe etc

Berry’s County Genealogies 1830-1842

Not well received by contemporary critics . He was writing

clerk rather than registering clerk at College of Arms and

lost libel suit against Nichols and Son publishers/editors of

Gentleman’s Magazine.

Genealogy of the Submerged

• Peerage and Royalty

• Baronages, Baronetages and Knights

• Gentry

• Heraldic Visitations

• Antiquarian and Scholarly Periodicals

• Biography

– DNB, Who’s Who?

Snobs’ Corner

• Barlow's Peerage 1772 British Compendium 1726, 1746

• Burkes Family Index 1976 Burkes Dormant & Extinct Peerages 1883

• Burkes Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage 1828-2003 (107th ed),

• Collins' Peerage (ed. by Bridges)

• Complete Peerage - George Edward Cokayne (GEC) ed Vicary Gibbs et al 1910-40

• Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage 1805-2008

• Dodd's Peerage, 1878, 1897, 1944 Edmondson's Present Peerage, 1785

• English Compendium 1753,1761 Foster's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 1880, 1883

• Lodge's Genealogy of the British Peerage & Baronetage,1832, 1857

• Nicolas's Peerage 1825, 1857

• Pine's New extinct Peerage Ridgeway's Peerage 1847-1869

• Sharpe's Peerage, 1830 Stockdale's Peerage, 1816-1832

• Whitakers Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage & Companionage 1910-1933

• The Scots Peerage 1904,

• The Peerage of Scotland 1767, 1790

• Lodge's Peerage of Ireland 1789

Published Pedigrees Peerages

• Peerage material often contain Baronetages but there are works exclusively on this subject which have been shelved and catalogued separately

• Doyle's Official Baronage, 1886

• Bank's Dormant & Extinct Baronage, 1807

• Bank's Baronies in Fee/ Baronia Anglicane Concentrata, 1844

• Complete Baronetage - G E C, 1900

• Index to Baronetage Creations, 1967

• Betham's Baronetage of England, 1807

• Burke's Extinct & Dormant Baronetcies, 1844

• Courthorpe's Synopsis of the Extinct Baronetage, 1835

• Debrett's Baronetage, 1800. 1815, 1840

• Kimber & Johnson's Baronetage 1971

• Wooton's Baronetage 1741 (vols 2&3 only?)

Published Pedigrees BARONAGES/BARONETAGES/BARONIES

Although not part of the peerage these works follow on from the peerage works and act as a bridge into the biographical reference works

• Burke's Authorised Arms, 1860, 1863

• Burke's Visitations of Seats & Arms, 1855-8

• Burke's Colonial Gentry 1839

• Burke's Handbook of the British Empire

• Burke's Commoners 1836,

• Burke's Landed Gentry 1839 (1st ed) – 2005 (19thed)

• Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland 1898-1958

• Kelly's Upper Ten Thousand/ Handbook to the Titled, Landed & Official Classes 1875-1977

• Walford's County Families 1860-1920

Published Pedigrees Gentry

The shelves and the catalogue have the following arrangement:

• Heraldry General - texts and guides,

• Heraldry Armorials – Burke’s General Armory, Papworth Ordinary of Arms etc

• Heraldry Special - eg Civic Heraldry, Heraldry of Smith etc , Heraldry Foreign - European Civic Coats of Arms

• Armigerous Ancestors .A catalogue of sources for the study of the Visitations of the Heralds in the 16th and 17th centuries with a reference list of names by C R Humphery-Smith, 1997

• Burkes General Armory , 1884;

• General Armory Two - ed C R Humphery Smith, 1973

• Papworth Ordinary of British Armorials, 1874

• A Complete Guide to Heraldry - A C Fox Davies,1909

• Boutell's Heraldry (ed J Brooke Little), 1977,

• Fairbairn's Book of Crests (various editions) 1860, 1904

• Elvin's Handbook of Mottoes, 1971,

• Rietstep's Armorial Général

Heraldry

HARLEIAN SOCIETY • Fully listed in Texts and Calendars. An Analytical

guide to Serial Publications. Royal Historical Society Guides & Handbooks no.7 - E L C Mullins [Apply to staff, Quick Ref shelves], these volumes mostly produce editions of Visitations made by the Heralds in each county during the 16th & 17th centuries. Armigers showed their decent from the original grantee and these pedigrees prove much of the basis for genealogical references of the period. Those who were not entitled to bear the arms they used were disclaimed by the heralds and these disclaimers are listed amongst the visitation records. Early volumes were based solely on copies of the visitations amongst the Harleian Manuscripts now held in the British Library but later, more scholarly edited volumes compare all versions of a visitation which may exist both in the records of the College of Arms and in other editions held elsewhere.

• Many of the volumes at the SoG contain numbered manuscript annotations by Percival Boyd indicating he has included the family amongst the 60, 000 family group sheets that comprise Boyd’s Inhabitants of London now online on the SoG website

Other volumes amongst the Harleian Society Proceedings include: • Vols 37-40 Hunters Familiae Minorum Gentium

• Vol 84 Hunter's Pedigrees - continuation of above

(includes many pedigrees of lesser "gentry" and many nonconformists)

• Vols 44-49 Musgrave's Obituaries prior to 1800

• Vols 50-52, 55 Lincolnshire Pedigrees

• Vols 95-96 Yorkshire Pedigrees

• Vols 63 Staffordshire Pedigrees

• Vols 91 & 97 East Anglian Pedigrees

• Vol 7 Le Neves pedigrees of Knights made by Charles II ...Queen Anne

• Vol 67-68 Grantees of Arms ... to the end of the 17th Century

• NS Vol 17 Heraldry of Foreigners

Harleian Society NS vol 16/17 Visitation of London 1687

Musgrave’s Obituaries

MUSGRAVE’S OBITUARIES.

A very useful source for obituaries for this period is a series of volumes known as Musgrave’s Obituaries published by the Harleian Society (Harleian Society Volumes 44-49) – or to give it its full tile Obituary prior to 1800 (as far as relates to England, Scotland, and Ireland) as compiled by Sir William Musgrave 6th Bart of Hayton Castle and entitled by him “A General Nomenclature and Obituary” with reference to the books where the persons are mentioned and where some account of their character is to be found edited by Sir George J Armitage Bart FSA.

Based on a manuscript compiled by Musgrave now held at the British Library these printed volumes are full of obituary notices published before 1800. Many are taken from journals and magazines of the period particularly The Annual Register, the European Magazine and London Review the London Magazine., the Gentleman’s Magazine and published biographies of the period. Musgrave’s Obituaries has been largely digitized on various sites. A full text version appears on the Internet Archive. http://www.archive.org/stream/obituarypriorto01socigoog/obituarypriorto01socigoog_djvu.txt

Finding the magazine that contains the original obituary can be difficult. The Society of Genealogists has some of the sources cited but it can mean “trawling the Internet” or good reference libraries for others.

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Joseph Hunter Familiae Minorum Gentium

The Rev Joseph Hunter FSA (1783-1861) historian of Hallamshire and South Yorkshire and Assistant Keeper of Public Records.

After his death the Harleian Society edited and published (HS vols 37- 40, 84) his folio of manuscript pedigrees chiefly, but not exclusively, of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire and Lancashire Families.

By reason of his large genealogical acquaintance and also of connection with many of the leading Unitarian families, Foster had the opportunity of gathering a mass of information

Gentleman’s Magazine • Gentleman's Magazine started in 1731, a Britain-focused

miscellany of information about people, places and events, including news summaries, parliamentary reports, biographies, birth, marriage, death and obituary notices, poems, essays, and a register of current publications.

• The Gentleman’s Magazine has been partly digitised and indexed through the world wide web and many volumes can be found through Google Books and the Internet Archive but there are gaps in the runs available on various sites. The best links to finding text of this magazine is http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=gentlemans

• Local extracts from the Gentlemans’s Magazine were edited and published as 15 or so volumes called the Gentleman’s Magazine Library. Arranged by regional and/or county volumes the Library volumes do not include all the obituaries and names from births marriages and deaths mentioned in each magazine. The GM Library volumes have been digitized widely including on Ancestry. However its OCR does not always enable a reader to establish the context of the entry of a name that is found and the browsing functionality for each volume is very poor.

• There are cumulative subject indexes for the period 1731-1818 at various places online. The College of Arms holds a 75 volume index to names appearing in the magazine which was typed up by the Genealogical Society of Utah. This has been microfilmed and microfiched and should therefore be available through your local LDS family history centre. You can find information about this on the Family History Library Catalogue available through www.familysearch.org.

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A Body of Biography - cited as a source for entries in the Dictionary of National Biography some 7000 times

John Nichols “the death hunter”

Older Antiquarian and Genealogical Periodicals in the Society of Genealogists Library

The history of Genealogy as a subject can be discovered in the older antiquarian and genealogical periodicals found in the upper library. Most were edited by distinguished genealogists and scholars of their day but some were, shall we say, a little less academically robust in their accuracy? These journals reflect the interest of their editors, their whims and indeed the feuds that persisted within a select field. The biographies of some of the editors, found updated in the New Dictionary of National Biography, are enlightening.

The titles are arranged alphabetically by title on the shelves and range from periodicals published in the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. The hand-out shows, where possible, the editors, when they were published and whether the genealogical information they contain on at least three generations of families has been listed in the bibliographies compiled by either George Marshall in The Genealogist’s Guide (1903) or J B Whitmore in A Genealogical Guide or have been described by Stuart Raymond in his bibliographic work British Genealogical Periodicals. A Bibliography of their Contents -

Vol.1 The Ancestor; Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica; Topographer & Genealogist

Vol.2 The Genealogist

Vol.3 Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica

Vol.4 Supplement 1: British Genealogy in Miscellaneous Journals

Periodicals

• The Ancestor - ed. Oswald Baron, 12 vols & index 1902-05. (indexed - Whitmore/Raymond).

• Collectanea Genealogica - ed. Joseph Foster, 1881-5 vols 1-3 (indexed - Marshall).

• Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica - ed. John Gough Nichols, 1834-43, Vols 1-8, (indexed - Marshall/Raymond)..

• Genealogical Magazine: A Journal of Family History, Heraldry & Pedigrees, 1897-1904. Vols 1-7. Indexed - Whitmore)

• The Genealogical Quarterly - eds various inc. Henry de Lavel Walter & Christopher Telford, of 52 Lincolns Inn Fields, 1932-1970. Indexed - Whitmore)

• Genealogical Queries & Memoranda - ed. George Tudor Sherwood, 1896-1899. (Precursor of the Pedigree Register).

• The Genealogist - ed. G W Marshall, 1877-1922, vols 1-7, NS 1-38, (indexed - Whitmore/Marshall/Raymond/Bernau).

• The Genealogists Magazine 1925 - date (indexed - Whitmore).

• The Herald & Genealogist - ed. John Gough Nichols, 1863-1874 (indexed - Marshall).

• Miscellanea, Genealogica et Heraldica - eds. inc. Joseph Jackson Howard & A W Hughes Clark, 1868-1938, vols 1-2, NS 1-4, 2S 1-5, 3S 1-5, 4S 1-4, 5S 1-10 (indexed - Marshall/Whitmore/Raymond).

• The Northern Genealogist - ed. Alfred Gibson, 1895-1903, (Largely extracts from many records notably northern wills & marriage licences etc, there are not very many pedigrees. Indexed - Marshall)

• The Pedigree Register - ed. George F Tudor Sherwood, 1907-16, 3 vols, (

• Topographer - ed. Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges and Stebbing Shaw, 1789-91 (indexed -Marshall).

• Topographer & Genealogist - ed. John Gough Nichols 1846-58, vols 1-3 (indexed - Whitmore/Raymond).

Scholarly Journals

Genealogy Wars

J Horrace Round (1854-1928) destroyed the bogus descents “nailing them one by one” as Round said “as a gamekeeper nails his vermin”. Thereby revealing the pleasures of destructive as well as constructive genealogy A J Camp in Genealogy: The Construction of Family Histories printed in Human Pedigree Studies, Proceedings of a Conference organised by the Galton Institute 1998.”

Vols 1-4 (1925-28)

Vols 28-31 (2004-date)

Remaining vols to

follow shortly

SoG holds many of the titles indexed by PERSI on findmypast

SoG Library

Manuscript, Digital & Special Collections

in the library of the Society of Genealogists

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Various Ways to Search Records

Library Catalogue (Books Microfom & CDs)

SoG online data (for members)

Website surname indexes to

manuscripts

Card Indexes

SoG Members’Birth Briefs index on www.sog.org.uk (28,000 surnames)

Birth Briefs received 2007-2012

7000 Roll Pedigrees

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Document Collection Research Notes surnames listed on website

www.sog.org.uk

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The Document Collection of Miscellaneous Family Research Papers

These manuscript research notes for the name Norris are typical of the contents of thousands of envelopes in the SoG’s Document Collections representing about 44,000 surnames. This envelope contains rough pedigrees, letters, certificates, photos and unique family documents. Recent acquisitions are microfiched and then listed in the Genealogists Magazine.

Marriage Settlement of Mr Batson with Miss Smart August 1781

There is no place where marriage settlements or other such original and personal family documents might be deposited. This settlement outlines a form of pre nuptial agreement between the families. The IGI and Ancestry show the marriage by licence of Robert Batson (widower of “St Annes Middlesex”) and Mary Smart at St Dunstans and All Saints, Stepney on 16 August 1781. There is a Faculty Office Marriage Licence for this marriage issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 14th August and indexed by the Society on SoG Data Online & the Findmypast website. Altogether these documents shed light on the practice of marriage in the 18th century.

What is NOT YET Online 350 Special Collections in 1300 boxes

The SoG Special Collections are usually a genealogist’s work over a lifetime looking at several families with a common theme. Usually more than one boxful of material, they often arrive in a removal van!

– e.g. County families (Rogers Cornish families, Campling East-Anglian families)

– e.g. One Name Studies

– e.g. Occupation (merchant seamen, coastguards, lawyers, civil servants etc, investors in GRW)

– e.g. Jewish or Huguenot families

Special Collections

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Names listed in Special Collections Card Index

Photographs and Memories

Photographs from the Seear Collection.

This collection contains the

research of David Edward Seear (1930-c1998). This large family history extends into London and the Home Counties. The family were particularly connected with confectionery and tea selling and the four boxes contain many fascinating pictures and information on the shopkeepers in S.E. London.

Diary from the Lister Collection

This is the diary of Ellen Lister. It shows that on the day before the First World War broke out in the hot Summer of August 1914 the Lister family went to see the popular New York comedy play Potash and Perlmutter which had crossed the Atlantic to rave reviews. This comedy was probably touring in repertory theatre. A production was very well reviewed in the Reading Eagle in September 1914 thus showing, like this diary, that the general population had little inkling of the forthcoming horrors of the Great War.

One Name Collections – e.g.DOO

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The Campling collection

(East Anglia)

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County and country collections

• Berkshire - Snell collection

• Cornwall – Glencross & Rogers bequests

• East Anglia – Campling & Whitehead

• London – Boyd’s inhabitants & burials

• North country (& clergy) – Fawcett index

• West country – Dwelly index

• Scotland – Macleod collection

• India – Percy-Smith or India index

• West Indies – Smith collection

Digitising Card Indexes • One-Name Study

Indexes

• Stand Alone Indexes

• Unfilmed cards

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Single Surname Card Indexes

ANSELL, BETHELL BLO(O)MFIELD, COTTERELL, DIBDEN, DREW, DUNKLEY, ELLIOT, FAWCETT, GALE, GIRTON, GRAHAM, HAILEY, HALE, JONES, KEMBALL, KEMP, LANGTON, MANFIELD, MARKWELL, MASTERSON, MEACOCK, MILBOURNE, PITMAN, SAINSBURY, SCATCHARD, TAPLEY, TURNER, WALL, WILLIS, WODEHOUSE, YOUNGER

SoG Card Indexes on film • Great Card Index 3m miscellany of information in name order

• Bernau Index 3m legal entries from Chancery and other courts etc . pre 1750

• Fawcett Index Clergy and Northern Family interests

• Dwelley Index West country families

• Glencross Index West country families

• India Index Miscellany on British in India

Filmed by GSU and available through the

FamilySearch Libray catalogue

www.findmypast.com

SoG Data on www.sog.org.uk

• Selected datasets of Findmypast

• All SoG digitised material on SoG Data Online

SoG data on-line

SoG Data Online “A snapshot of the SoG Library”

Non-members search results/ £ = gentle reminder to pay up and join!

Purple box search results lists the datasets with information

Once logged in the £ sign has disappeared and you can view results or browse

Surnames digitised card indexes, gedcomfiles and PDFs of books

Standing on the shoulders of Giants

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Search/Copy Service