How to get more information while researching family history

Researching your family history is something many many of us do, or at least think about doing.

Elaine Lloyd, a former law official based in Queensland, shared her tips on how to get started last week.

Read more: How to get started on researching your family history.

Elaine started her own research 19 years ago and had gone on to publish five books of family history and compiles another.

Here she shares more of her own tips  to help you continue your own research.

Your family history is a part of who you are and your journey is a personal one to learn and to enjoy. There are however down times, when you are at a loss where to turn. Never give up, just leave it for a bit and return at a later date.

What is in a name

There will be total confusion at times when you have a relatives name but can’t find any records on him/her. If this should happen it may be because that person has been known as a particular name all of their life, but their birth recorded name is different. Another occurrence can be that names are reversed in that you may have been informed of a person named as say “John Joseph Smith”, to find he is recorded as “Joseph John Smith” and always known as John. Try to keep an open mind that the records are not always as you think they may be. Another confusion can come into dates, spelling of surnames and so on. Births may not have been registered due to isolation. Registration of births, deaths and marriages did not become compulsory until, NSW 1856, Victoria 1853, Queensland (as NSW) 1856, Western Australia 1841, South Australia 1842, Tasmania 1838, Northern Territory 1870 (formerly South Australia) and ACT 1930 (formerly NSW)

Registration of births was not compulsory until 1837 in England and Wales.

Our parents and grandparents were held with respect, not to say that does not apply to today but there was an institute of “secrecy” to events. In most cases “you did not ask questions”. Your parents will tell you “they did not ask questions”. If you broached a subject of family they sometimes did not want to respond. There were things that were “not talked about” and “children were to be seen and not heard” and so life was different in comparison to today.

Today life is viewed more openly that children do have a right, and they are encouraged to have a voice and to ask questions, allowing them to learn, and to grow in knowledge.

Once nobody wanted to have a recorded crime linked to a person in their family. We now have researchers wanting to be a descendant of a convict. Why? Because there is a huge amount of information recorded and available online. They weren’t murderers or such, they were just simple people who were starving or extremely poor and they stole a chicken or a cow to eat or stole a coat to be warm. Then one wonders when they lit that haystack, or did some other menial offence, was it to be transported to The Colony? Was it a purposeful act with a means to have a new start? Most times, after their usual seven years in the new Colony, they were eventually granted freedom and went on to marry, settle down and have a reasonably good life.

A Trove of information online

If you have a computer and can research online yourself you have access to so much. Just to Google any information you have in the way of names or places will bring up something.

A “Trove digitized Newspapers” search of names and/or places within Australia, will bring up something of interest for you.

If you wish to enter details into your computer you will need a family history program and should you choose to purchase Family Tree Maker, each entry of name and details may happen to bring up a little green leaf beside the name and if you have become a member of Ancestry.com you can access records immediately through that leaf.

One thing to be aware of at all times is that if you find a person has a public tree on Ancestry.com and there is information on there in regard to a family member with the same name and there are dates and/or places, it does not mean that it is definitely correct as some people just find a same name in a same or similar event date and in a same or similar area, village or place on Ancestry.com and they then enter all of those details thinking it is correct. I can assure you that this is not always the case as I found out with my paternal great grandfather whose birth information for Prussia was entered by persons on Ancestry.com incorrectly and were a far distance from where he was actually born. But because one person had entered it incorrectly, then each person with the same ancestor or lateral relative who saw this incorrect entry then entered it the same, and so I found myself contacting ten people advising them that their records were incorrect and supplying to them the correct details, of which they were certainly very pleased to know the true particulars.

Watch what you publish

Always try to be respectful of others. Should you wish to make public your research, always be mindful of what you post online if on Ancestry.com or even in your own site should you create one, particularly regarding newspaper clippings of “crimes” or such. While it may be interesting, even if regarding a distant or lateral relative of theirs, there may be living descendants of that person who do not want their family ancestor remembered for one bad mistake and placed into a public forum, as that person was more to them than that one life’s error. Another reminder is that living persons’ names nor their personal details are to be made public in any manner. 

Credit where credit is due

If you happen to acquire photos from family, record all of the information of the photo so it is not lost, and always record who you acquired the photo from, because if you collate a book later, it is appropriate to acknowledge the person who supplied you with the photo. This also is for yourself, because as time goes by, it is so easy to forget with all memories and information that you are trying to retain as you travel through the past. Remind yourself of copyright when gathering information in regard to photos and documents, as photocopying and public display carry copyright, and therefore acknowledgment is to be recorded in your book. Also living persons’ approval is to be acquired before printing. An owner of a photo is to give approval before printing. Anything you are not sure of, search online typing in whatever it is you want to know. Contact entities such as The Queensland Archives or the John Oxley Library who will assist or direct you on your query. If your book is lineage information and so will not be for public access but distributed within the family only, you will find that above-named Entities supplying your documents or photos will be more lenient in requirements of copying whatever you have obtained for your book for printing. Nonetheless they will inform you of their particular requirements. Always try to get copyright approval by correspondence/email so as to have it in writing.

Take a break

Once you start your family research it seems to take over your thoughts, your “spare time” is no more, your drive to find out more is always with you. It is or can be an all encompassing passion. There are twists and turns and amazing outcomes. Joyful times and down times of frustration when you get stuck on a person. When that happens leave that line alone and go to another, and then with a refreshed mind, which could be days, weeks or months later, you think of something different pertaining to the line you left and so something new will pop up and away you go again.

What is important

Most researchers would like to find that they are descendants of royalty or of gentry or wealth, however if that is not the foundation of your family, that is not the main importance. The essential outcome is to be proud, and to not lose sight of the end result, which it is to grant your ancestor the honour they deserve. They may have lived a full life of hardship and endurance to survive on a virgin harsh dry land. This sometimes brought a need to “blot” out that they left their families in another country, may never see them again, that their life was no easier than what they left, and sometimes it was even harder, and so it drove them to turn to alcohol. They must not be discredited for this act, as it is what they did to survive as best as they could, and sometimes this required lapsing from their hardship and misfortunes for a short time.  Most times they had left a cold climate to settle into our hot and arid land that could then turn instantly to flood. Their crop taken in an instant by a storm. Their cattle washed away. The immigration from their homeland and leaving all family behind to go to a destination of totally unknown events, was something we must hold close to our hearts and appreciate, as they are the reason we can call ourselves “Australian”.

Next week Elaine will share some of the discoveries she made along the way while doing her own family research.

Have you started researching your own family history?