A Case Study
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A Case Study |
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This is an actual account of just one of the many, many challenges I have encountered on my quest
to uncover my family roots. I thought I would write about the experience in the hope that it will
give people some ideas, suggestions and encouragement when they encounter similar challenges.
If not then at least I hope that you enjoy reading about it. I decided to try and discover more about my own family history, especially on my father's side of the family which had always been a little bit of a mystery, even to my father. As with most ancestry I decided to start with what I already knew. I built an Excel spreadsheet (the latest version of which is available for download here). Armed with this I set off on my voyage of discovery. My own details and those of my siblings I knew for sure. All that I needed for them was the General Records Office references. I found these by visiting the FREEBMD website and I entered them into the spreadsheet. After that I contacted my siblings for details of all their children and grandchildren. Once I had these I entered them into the spreadsheet too. It quickly became apparent that the spreadsheet, whilst a very useful tool, was not the best method of representing the family tree so I opted to purchase Legacy (available here). Armed with my new software, I started to fill in all the details that I had. Now one of the lessons I learned is that when using Legacy is that it is such so rich in features that you need to establish your own set of standards that work for you. What I mean is that when you add a source, try to be consistent in your naming of similar source. For example, when you add a census record. I found that using a standard like: "yyyy - England Census (county name)" produces a nice sorted, easy to find source list. If you don't follow a standard naming practice it becomes less easy to use and somewhat untidy looking in reports. But I digress. Once I had my immediate family information entered I began to head backwards in time. I contacted my father and asked him for some information. This is where I learned the lesson to always verify what people tell you. Memories aren't always 100% accurate, but then neither are official records! After a while my father provided me with the information that he 'knew'. .jpg) Here is what he sent. (I have redacted the information for the people who are still living.)As you can see there are a few surprises in there and also the information is a little light in that it doesn't give location of the events. To me the biggest surprise was the fact that my father didn't know his mother's (Jane Elizabeth McDonald) birthday! Him not knowing his father's birthday (George Ferguson) was not that much of a surprise as his father died when my father was only young (5 Years of age). So the search for the missing details began. I started by obtaining the marriage certificate for George Ferguson and Jane Elizabeth M(a)cDonald. This gave me their ages at the time of their marriage and their father's names. It should be noted that my dad didn't provide any details about his paternal grandfather. Armed with a potential birth year I set about discovering both of my parents birth records. Easy right? Not so fast! I started by looking at the 1901 census and establishing the family groups (The 1911 census wasn't released at the time). This led to the first surprise. My dad had told me that his mother was born in Teesdale (Barnard Castle), according to the census this wasn't the case. The census indicated that she was actually born in Thornhill (Dewsbury), in Yorkshire. Armed with this information I was able to eventually locate and order her birth certificate. That gave me her date of birth. It also led to an amusing discussion with my father when I told him what I had found out. Dad - "Dewsbury? What was she doing there?" Me - "I don't know it doesn't say, but my guess is being born!" Dad was not amused. George Ferguson was a totally different kettle of fish. I found the family group OK but when it came to finding the birth certificate for George I spent a fortune on the wrong ones. I exhausted all of the possibilities with no luck in finding the correct one. I spread out the search from Middlesbrough to Stockton. More certificates were ordered, none of them the correct one. It was then that I had an epiphany and decided to check alternative spellings of Ferguson. There was George Furgeson at about the right year. So I ordered that certificate. It was a match! So the moral of the story is....never give in, and never assume that everyone gets the spelling correct! |
