What's Been Done Before?

Who's out there?

Once you get into family history you will discover that there is a huge genealogical community that will be able to help you. The internet has made contacting other family historians so much easier.

Television programmes have generated interested and there are plenty of ways to link up with research that’s been done before. Of course once you have become a family tree detective you will know to check your sources. Just because it’s on the web doesn’t make it true!

The Internet offers various sites, such as Cyndi's List at www.cyndislist.com or GENUKI at www.genuki.org.ukthat direct you towards the sites of specific surname study groups. Don't forget to check the register of interests of the Guild of One-Name Studies at at www.one-name.org.

Many people register their research interests online in the hope that other researchers may contact them. Genes Reunited is one of the larger social network sites for family historians (www.genesreunited.co.uk) and Rootsweb at www.rootsweb.com provides similar contacts for family historians who want to help each other.

Lots of genealogical websites encourage you to put your family tree online and link up with other researchers interested in the same names as yourself. Individual researchers may also build their own websites, so search engines are a useful tool for tracking them down.

Published genealogies

Many thousands of family histories have been published over the years. The Society of Genealogists at www.sog.org.uk holds the largest collection of such works in its library and its catalogue can be searched free on its website.

Several bibliographies have been published that list published genealogies and accounts of families that appear in local and county histories, biographical studies, national and local journals and transactions of archaeological and record societies. Some of the most important bibliographies have been produced on CD-ROM by various publishers and are as follows:

• The Genealogists' Guide by GW Marshall, 1903
• A Genealogical Guide by JB Whitmore, 1953
• The Genealogists' Guide by GB Barrow, 1977
• A Catalogue of British Family Histories by TR Thomson, 1980

The above books deal largely with English families. There are works that look at printed materials relating to Scottish and Irish families, although none are as comprehensive.

For Scotland, it is essential to examine Scottish Family History by Margaret Stuart, 1930. This was updated in Scottish Family Histories Held in Scottish Libraries by Joan P S Ferguson, 1986. The latter is most useful as it lists the Scottish libraries that are known to hold a copy of the books cited.

Irish genealogies are listed in the Bibliography of Irish Family History by Brian de Breffny, 1974 and the Bibliography of Irish Family History by E MacLysaght, 1980.

Finding the books

It can be quite hard to find some of the titles mentioned. Often they were limited editions or privately printed. In each case, the author has listed titles in the bibliography that contain family history information, often in a pedigree format, to at least three generations. The Society of Genealogists will have many of the books containing such bibliographies.

If they are not held by the Society of Genealogists it is worth consulting the British Library Catalogue or the Library of Congress in the United States. Many Americans with British ancestry have published the results of their research. You could also look at the catalogue of the Church of the Latter Day Saints at the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City. The catalogue is included in the FamilySearch database.

The LDS church has microfilmed many printed genealogical books and sometimes this microfilm copy is the only way of locating a rare item. Microfilm copies of books can be ordered for consultation in local Mormon family history centres.

You might also be able to find and purchase some of these reference books online at sites not specific to genealogy - for example, from www.amazon.com.

Unpublished research

Of course, not all research has been published. The Society of Genealogists has many unpublished family histories bound and shelved in the library and these are all listed on its catalogue. It also holds a huge amount of manuscript research material that has been donated by researchers. The Society's Document Collection houses miscellaneous manuscript research notes, on some 14,000 families, arranged by surname.

These are essentially a lucky dip, containing one or a thousand pages of notes on families. Some are very extensive, with pedigrees, documents and extracts from sources. Others are more sketchy. A list of names represented in the Society’s Document Collections appears on the Society of Genealogists' website.

Many thousands of larger pedigrees have been deposited in the Society's archives and these are listed in the Society's Special Collections.

Check the facts

It can be exciting to link in with a pedigree that has been produced before. But of course, all good researchers will endeavour to substantiate what the document says and establish that it is correct. Beware of any pedigree or narrative that does not cite sources, places or dates when the events took place. Always check and double check!

About the author

Else Churchill has been the Genealogy Officer of the Society of Genealogist since 1998. Formerly the Librarian of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, Else has worked for the SOG since 1994. Her main interests lie in the 17th century and sources for people who lived through the English Civil Wars but she also specialises in using the records of the Victorian censuses.