I am getting an increasing amount of information from other people interested in Ludlow family history and that is great because it means we can “join up the dots” by adding known relationships to the two databases: keithplus and irishplus. That adds enormously to their value.
But it is important to add relationships only when there is good evidence and to include the sources of that evidence. In the sections that follow, I illustrate how I record source material. There is no need to follow this approach if you have a large family tree with sources already set out. I will take the data in any sensible format. Besides, you might introduce errors if you changed now. But if you are just beginning to add source data to your tree, then could you think about following these recommendations.
Whatever form you have your data, let me know and, gradually, I will add it to keithplus.ged or irishplus.ged. E-mail me at: tony@ludlowfamilytree.org.
Genealogy is a long haul business and it is worth adding information that may be obvious now but will be invaluable for later generations. All sorts of biographical detail is interesting in its own right, but it may also be very useful. My ambition is to include as much biography as possible, starting with present generations.
The date and place of events such as birth, marriage and death are obviously important, but so are the date and address of houses that a person has lived in. So, too, are schools, the military, universities, degrees and occupations. In genealogical software packages, you can enter these events very easily. Most importantly, you can enter the source of the information.
For an example, click on the next link and then come back to here: http://www.ludlowfamilytree.org/example/atkinsonbook.htm. You will see that there are a number of sentences of biographical information about individual, each of which has numbers referring to the source. Try clicking on one of the footnote numbers and you will be taken to the text of that particular source.
The simplest way of achieving this is for you to create a file or document in which you put the text of each Census record or marriage certificate. If there is more than on record in the document you should identify each record with a clear section heading so that I can refer to a particular record when it is entered in the database. This is better than referring to page numbers which may change with different printers.
It is helpful if you can supply scanned images of each record. These should be in separate files and some suggestions on file names are given below.
For these reasons, I am planning to attach the text of Census and other returns to the individual records. Using Legacy, I have a general ‘Master Source’, which in this case is ‘Census records’, and the ‘Detail’ which normally gives the page number but for Census records the detail is a bit more complex. The Text is then entered in a roughly formatted way. So, I have adopted the following format:
Master Source = Census records
Detail = 1861 Census (PRO: RG9/382, f. 851, p. 26) 10 Smith Street, Peckham, Camberwell, Surrey
Text =
NAME, RELATIONSHIP, CONDITION, AGE, OCCUPATION, WHERE BORN
John J Atkinson, Head, Married, 48 yrs, Painter, Camberwell, Surrey
Martha Atkinson, Wife, Married, 48 yrs, Beckley, Sussex
Harriet Atkinson, Daughter, Unmarried, 16 yrs, Camberwell, Surrey
James Atkinson, Son, Unmarried, 12 yrs, Scholar, Camberwell, Surrey
George Atkinson, Son, Unmarried, 11 yrs, Scholar, Camberwell, Surrey
Elizabeth M Atkinson, Daughter, Unmarried, 7 yrs, Scholar, Peckham, Surrey
Joseph Mack, Lodger, Married, 40 yrs, Gardener, Camberwell, Surrey
Note, I have not put the family name first because the source will be listed as part of the individual’s record. The family name is implied.
The important thing is to have the unique code as used by the Public Records Office (PRO). In this case it is RG9/382. The RG9 shows it is from the 1861 Census and the address, taken directly from the sheet, uniquely defines the entry.
Master source = Birth certificate
Detail = Lambeth, Brixton, Surrey 25 April 1880, entry 88. Certified copy 6 July 1921
Text =
Registration district Lambeth 1880, birth in the subdistrict of Brixton in the county of Surrey Number 88.
Born 25 April 1880 at 1 Vaughan Rd,
Name George, boy, father’s name George Swansborough Atkinson; mothers name Mary Atkinson formerly Harris;
Father profession butcher.
Informant M.Atkinson, mother, 1 Vaughan Rd , East Brixton. Registered 3rd june 1880. Registrar Robert Charsley (deputy registrar).
Certified to be a true copy 6th July 1921. (Typed copy).
Master Source = Marriage certificate
Detail = Camberwell (1837-1919), Surrey, June 1878, 1d, p.1033
Text =
1878. Marriage solemnized at Parish Church in the Parish of St. Mary Magdalen, Peckham in the County of Surrey.
No. 164
May 19, 1878
George Swanborough Atkinson, 28 yrs, Bachelor, Butcher, of 5 Augusta Place;
Father: John James Atkinson, Builder
Mary Harris, 30 yrs, Spinster, of 5 Augusta Place,
Father: Richard Harris, Bricklayer
Married in the Parish Church according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church, after Banns by me, Thomas ....
in the presence of Henry Cheesman, Emma Cheesman
The Detail is in the format needed to order the copy of a marriage certificate from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) where volume is ‘1d’ and page is 1033.
My convention for filenames is illustrated by the following examples:
Where there are two or more homes in the same place, then use ‘b’, ‘c’ immediately after the surname and before the comma, eg: Ludlow b, Woking, 1979.jpg.
And where there is more than one family, then put the initials after the first comma, eg: Ludlow, AR, Woking, 1979.jpg
If initial letters are not enough, then use full names.
The purpose of this is to let the dominant interest, the family, be the sort key.
I hope it is not too sexist but I have used the husband’s name and initials for labelling marriage certificates and I have used the head of household for labelling the family home.