karex on Family Tree Circles

Not that I want to split hairs or anything, but over the decades I have lost count of the number of queries, posts, etc. that I have read in which the above terms are misused. The correct usage of a term can often lead to better results with regards to searches and replies. So in order to help people and try to sort this common mix-up:

- Ancestor: he or she who comes BEFORE in a given family timeline
- Descendant: he or she who comes AFTER in a given family timeline

Ergo, if you are wanting to find information about your great-grandfather, HE is the ancestor, and YOU are the descendant because he comes before and you come after.

If you are referring to one of your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc, then YOU are the ancestor and THEY are the descendants. The same applies to those who come after your siblings, cousins, or even common ancestors - because they come AFTER the person in question.

As a follow-up of a previous journal entry, below is a list containing sites relating to UK research that I have found and bookmarked for their usefulness on some level. Please note that this list is by far not comprehensive but merely a catalogue of my bookmarks over the years. The list is not in any particular order, aside from being separated into two parts: free or mostly free sites and those that are fee-based on some level. The list begins with the free sites, of course.
I hope that this can help someone further his/her research!
FREE OR MOSTLY FREE SITES
worldgenweb.org: Many people know about USGenWeb but not everyone knows that there is a World GenWeb project as well. Well worth checking.
FamilySearch.org: One of the biggest, if not perhaps THE biggest site for free research. Run by LDS (Mormon Church). Covers records, family trees and IGI (International Genealogical Index).
DustyDocs.com: It is a site that collects links relating to British ancestry research covering England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. Many of the links lead to subscription-based sites, but not all.
FreeReg.org.uk: Extracted parish BMD (Birth, Marriage and Death/Burial) records, including non-conformist records, donated by volunteers. Covers England, Scotland, Wales and the Islands.
FreeBMD.org.uk: Same as the previous but covering civil registration records (beginning around 1837).
FreeCEN.org.uk: Same as the two previous but contains census transcripts instead. As the previous two, it is fed by volunteers so the data is continuously growing. The census with the most information is the 1841 census.
ukbmd.org.uk: Huge list of links to sites that offer transcriptions of births, marriages, deaths and census. Also includes more information concerning DNA research and British abroad.
stirnet.com: Lots of interesting information including family pedigrees. (mostly free but access to the families database requires payment of a membership fee).
ukga.org (UK Genealogy Archives): Contains a plethora of information including Census, parish, and civil records plus heraldry, phone books, military and probate calendars, to name a few. Well worth checking!
nationalarchives.gov.uk (The National Archives): Contains just about anything you can think of. Searches are free but copies of documents are not. Moreover, much of the service has been outsourced to others such as Ancestry which are fee-based.
iannounce.co.uk: Contains obituaries, death notices, wedding and all other family-related family announcements from 410 UK newspapers.
medievalgenealogy.co.uk: Contains a treasure trove of resources for researching mostly English genealogy during the Middle Ages (up to about 1600) with some Welsh, and a little Scottish and Irish data as well.
thegazette.co.uk: Contains official public records under the Open Government License. Information includes data about companies; individuals and partnerships; wills and probate; honours, awards and charters; appointments (military, clergy, civil), plus more.
archaeologydataservice.ac.uk: Information about ongoing excavations and finds.
ukcensusonline.com: Contains indexed search and images of UK census between 1841 and 1911.
1911census.org.uk: Contains valuable information concerning all UK census from 1801 to 1931 including data format each year, background, type of information collected at each census and the dates they were taken (in the UK all census were taken on the exact same date regardless of the country) and when possible includes links to where one can find images. Note: due to UK data protection laws, the most recent census to be released from the 100-year restricted access period for public viewing is the 1911 census.
ffhs.org.uk (Federation of Family History Societies): Contains a plethora of useful information.
lostcousins.com: Focuses on linking researchers of a given family name or region to each other. Contains lots of useful information and links.
genesreunited.co.uk: Search is free but often to access a document you are led to one of their partner sites which is usually fee-based.
gro.gov.uk (General Register Office): Oversees civil registration in England and Wales (births, marriages and deaths) dating back to 1837. This is where you order certified copies of these types of records.
british-genealogy.com: Family History Forum. Great resource for networking with other researchers.
familynotices.org: Site where people freely publish family notices, i.e., announcements, birthdays, deaths and even missing persons.
sog.org.uk (Society of Genealogists): Offers free library access and has thousands of records.
british-history.ac.uk (BHO – British History Online): Digital library covering Britain and Ireland. Great source of encyclopaedia-type information.
bmdregisters.co.uk: Great site for those searching for non-conformist birth, marriage and death records (Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists, Independents, Protestant Dissenters, Congregationalist, Presbyterians, Unitarians, Quakers (Society of Friends), Dissenters and Russian Orthodox.), maternity records, Overseas Records. Early Birth Registers plus various other BMD records.
visionofbritain.org.uk (A Vision of Britain Through Time): Contains historical statistics, historical maps, travel journals, election results, census reports, etc. Covers the period between 1801 and 2001.
britainexpress.com: Covers basically the entire known range of British history. Mostly focused on tourism, nevertheless, it contains a treasure trove of historical information.

FEE-BASED SITES
britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk: Fantastic site continuously digitizing 40 million newspaper pages from the collection held by the British Library (subscription-based).
ancestry.co.uk: Most people are familiar with the Ancestry sites. (subscription-based)
thegenealogist.co.uk: Contains a lot of data from phone directories to the BMD and civil records to occupational, peerage, etc. However, the vast majority is still just in the form of transcription summaries and does not contain images of the original records. (Offers both subscription-based and pa-as-you-go options).
findmypast.com: (as per correction from below comment). UK-based genealogy site with some U.S. and Canada resources provided. Much in the same line as Ancestry in the sense that users are encouraged to upload their family trees on the site.(subscription-based).
rootsuk.com: Run by Genealogy Supplies (S&N Genealogy Supplies – publisher and retailer). Not familiar with this site but appears to offer aside from the basic births, marriages and deaths, census and electoral rolls as well.

Here's hoping that these can be of help to someone.
Karen

PS: Please note that I have a keyboard with a Swedish configuration which does not appear to be very well accepted by this website. Please be warned that some basic signs and punctuation marks originally keyed-in correctly may be interpreted incorrectly and displayed in a strange manner by this website. I just hope that none of the web addresses are messed up.

This is an extremely broad subject area so I shall try to provide some basic tips based on my own experiences but it is not possible to cover everything in a journal entry.

Genealogical research is not a task as easily undertaken in the subject area UK as in some other countries, particularly if you are researching from afar and depend on what is available online. For one thing, in some places like England, there is very little available online. The vast majority of the documents are stored in physical format only and either in the National Archives, or the Regional Archives, still others such as parish records can still often only be found in the parish itself. An added problem with the National Archives is that it has recently started to outsource access to much of its digital collections to other services such as Ancestry.com, and most if not all are fee-based. Not that the National Archives has ever been known to offer affordable documents either, the last time I ordered the digital copy of a Will it cost me 5 Pounds Sterling, and this was for ONE document. In any case, as far as England is concerned this means that there comes a point where one is either forced to hire a local researcher to do some legwork, or go to England personally. Moreover, what is available online (even in the subscription services) usually consists mostly of Indexes and Transcriptions, and NOT images of the original documents, which is what we are ultimately seeking as researchers.

Scotland is somewhat different and in some ways much easier, but not much cheaper. As far as I understand just about all records that genealogists would have an interest in are housed at the Scottish National Archives, and a large number of these are available through their online arm called Scotlands People. Be aware that Scotlands People DOES NOT contain everything that the National Archives holds. The folks there are continually updating their digitized images but it is a massive and expensive job and takes a long time. For one thing, it does not help merely to have the document scanned/photographed, in order for it to be placed in Scotlands People it also needs to be transcribed for it to be searchable. Not all transcriptions are as complete as we would hope and some record series miss enough transcribed data for you to be able to discern which “Donald MacDonald” in the long list of hits in your search results is the one that you are looking for, furthermore opening each individual to check if it is indeed the right person will cost you credits... However, the folks there are extremely helpful and go out of their way to support you so I don’t hesitate to contact them when I hit such snags.

Ireland actually represents two separate countries: Northern Ireland (official name) which is part of the UK, and the southern part, covering the vast majority of the island (5/6) referred to as the Republic of Ireland or just plain Ireland (official name) which is NOT part of the UK but rather a sovereign state and has been an autonomous country since 1937 and is today a separate member of the European Union. Regardless of the Irish area however, there is one aspect that does not depend on current political borders which is important to genealogists: a major part of Irish records were lost in the 1922 Battle of Dublin as a victim of the “Irish Troubles”, or Civil War. The two countries have separate archives today but this was not the case in 1922. Surviving documents prior to 1922 exist only in fragments. The irony here is that not long before this battle, the British Government had ordered that all parish records be collected from the various parishes and sent to Dublin for “safe keeping”. Had the government administrators and politicians not committed what IMHO is the ultimate act of stupidity, many priceless records would have been spared destruction. Some of the documents lost as a consequence of the Battle of Dublin dated back to the early Middle Ages (at least the 13th century). From an historian’s and researcher’s point of view this is nothing short of a catastrophe of Biblical proportions, as it is totally irrecoverable.

Wales: I have still to clock significant research hours in Wales to be of much help to anyone to here’s hoping that someone with experience will fill in this gap!

Last but not least, keeping track of one’s ancestors was an extremely import aspect of several original cultural groups who settled in the British Isles including but not restricted to: Gaels, Picts, Britons, Saxons, Vikings, etc...
As a result of this inherited cultural value, many antiquarian/historical and archaeological societies sprang up all over Britain. Their members would often go on field expeditions to transcribe parish archives, “walk a cemetery” or perform inventories of the graves found in burial locations, follow contemporary archaeological projects in various parts of the UK and report on the finds, visit privately-held document collections (such as family libraries of charter chests), etc. This information would be written in a report, submitted to the society and become part of their publications which could be monthly to yearly, depending on what periodicity the society decided to adopt. Many of these publications are today either not copyrighted or have outlived their original copyright and can be found in many of the digital libraries online such as: Internet Archive, Google Books, Open Library, Kobo, Project Gutenberg, Hathi Trust and countless others. These publications are an invaluable source of information to genealogists, as many contain transcriptions to records which may have been lost in the meantime. Published local and parish histories, almanacs and statistical reviews are often also valuable sources of information as well as the old published genealogies published by the family, to the official publications by authorities such as those concerning Herald’s Visitations to genealogies of the nobility and landed gentry in series such as those published by Burke, etc..

More journals will follow containing research resources in each area.