Naming Convention

Many families have their own naming conventions, which is just a fancy phrase for saying traditions. Some families, the eldest male children all have the same middle name. In Victorian England, it was tradition for the eldest male child to share a first name with their paternal grandfather and the second male child would share a name with the maternal grandfather. Sadly with as many children that died as infants as they did in Victorian England, many times names were recycled. This means that in a family there might have been 9 children, 5 boys and of the five boys you may have three named Edward Joseph. But it also means that you can take a reasonable guess at what the grandfathers' names might have been!

Researching Great Britain

It's hard to know exactly where to begin in looking for ancestors once you have to start looking overseas. Sometimes it is difficult shifting your focus from census records and newspaper reports to something else. If you are searching for an ancestor in Wales or England there are a few hints that you need to be aware of: 1. Identify when certain record sets first became available. 2. Always check the records for Oxford and Cambridge to see if your ancestors attended. 3. Clergy records are more than just baptism and death records. 4. Tax records are golden. I will be spending the next few entries discussing each of these points.

Hooray for Clergy!

Let's give a big "Hooray!" for the clergy! If we're honest, they have saved us major headaches in the research field with their amazing records keeping habits. But they have other records besides just the standard birth, baptism, marriage (including Bans) and death records that could help us out. One of these records is the Visiting Books, which as the name implies would be a record of any visitors to the parish. What would Visiting Books do for genealogy? Say a man married a woman from a community several days journey (which would just be a few hours drive for us today) away and moved her from her family. When her family came to visit, the clergy in the parish would record the names, dates, members of the household and other information. Sometimes even such things as occupations, literacy and occasionally a hand drawn map to their home. --Gayla Mendenhall

What Is Genealogy?

This past week I lost my grandmother. It started me thinking, "What is genealogy?" Is it simply tracing your family tree or is it more than that? Some genealogists are more concerned with how many generations can be traced and found, others want the stories behind who their ancestors were. The term genealogy means "a record or account of the ancestry and descent of a person, family, group or the study of family ancestries and histories" It's origin was between 1250-1300 meaning pedigree and equivalent to race. But after my grandmother passed away my 8 year old taught me a lesson. He was crying and I asked why he was so sad because he barely knew her. He answered, "I loved her, she was family." That's what genealogy is the simple love of family. --Gayla Mendenhall