Federation Of Family History Societies

The Federation Chairman’s ‘Thoughts for 2011’

I hope that in 2011 you will be able to move forward in your family history research.  These are the key areas which I believe are most likely to have the greatest impact on family historians during the forthcoming year

• Even more resources will be made available on-line.
• More people will take advantage of Subscription Services rather than Pay-Per-View.
• Social networking will continue to expand to the benefit of family historians
• Family Historians will be looking for help to make sense of the data they have obtained online.

 

Even more resources will be made available on-line.

In my examples above I mentioned that providers are looking at a wider selection of datasets and these can be illustrated by the following recent additions/updates to some of the providers.

• Anglo Boer War Records 1899-1902 – http://www.findmypast.co.uk
• British Army Service Records 1760-1913 – http://www.findmypast.co.uk
• British Army Service Records 1914-1920 – http://www.ancestry.co.uk
• British Army Pension Records 1914-1920 – http://www.ancestry.co.uk
• British Record Society Probate Collection – http://www.origins.net
• UK City & Town Directories – http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk
• Extended UK marriage search abilities – http://www.findmypast.co.uk
• Many new Parish Records across England & Wales – http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk
• Non-conformist Records –  http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk
• Online images of Parish Registers – https://www.familysearch.org
• Royal Naval Division Casualties of The Great War – http://www.findmypast.co.uk
• The SOG Collection (9 Million Records) – http://www.findmypast.co.uk
• UK, Army Roll of Honour, 1939-1945 – http://www.ancestry.co.uk
• UK Citations of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, 1914-1920 – http://www.findmypast.co.uk
• UK Military Campaign Medal & Award Rolls, 1793-1949 – http://www.findmypast.co.uk
• Waterloo Medal Roll – http://www.ancestry.co.uk
• Wills & Probate Collections – http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk
• London Metropolitan Archives Collection – http://www.ancestry.co.uk

In addition the availability of the 1911 Census & its Summary Books on more than one provider’s website, now also starting to appear on http://www.ancestry.co.uk and http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk, shows that the data owners are happy to allow more than one organisation to sell their data.  This will allow the owner to maximize income from their data and allow more datasets to be made available to a wider audience.

Documents held by The National Archives are now available from many of the providers and I fully expect that more data will become available.  TNA are particularly good at making their data available with images.  The WWI Medal Record Card images available on http://www.ancestry.co.uk are a case in point as they also show images of the reverse side of the card.

FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org, the data arm of the Church of the Latter Day Saints have started their new search engine and have started providing images of Parish Registers.  These are not the old IGI images but new digital images.  Obviously this will expand to more areas as Record Offices allow the LDS to scan and use their registers.  I fully expect that the other providers will also be trying to provide their own images in this very important area for family historians.

 

More people will take advantage of Subscription Services rather than Pay-Per-View.

I have spoken with many people who are researching their tree and apart from those who are just ‘dipping their toe into the water’ to see what family history is all about, most are now changing to subscription services with the big providers.  Their logic seems to be that the information they need is online but often spread across a number of providers and they have identified the one that is best for their research and bought a subscription, whilst still using a Pay-Per-View service if another provider has a specific dataset they are interested in.

Let’s look at a few examples of this.

Family Historian A has never bought a subscription but has considered joining one or more of the big providers.  When she first researched the services, only FindMyPast provided access to the 1911 Census.  She felt that Ancestry offered some very good datasets in conjunction with the TNA, particularly military records from WWI.  The TNA provided their own pay-per-view download system and she had used it a number of times to access medal record cards.

She had reached a brick wall in the early 20th Century and needed access to the 1911 Census and these would tie in well with the Ancestry military records.  She decided to wait and was rewarded when Ancestry also started to provide the 1911 Census and she has just started a subscription to Ancestry.

Family Historian B who lives overseas has made use of her local society and the local record sources.  She made a few forays using pay per view to see what was available on line from the major suppliers and decided that she liked the overseas data provided by Ancestry.  She accessed a couple of datasets using pay-per-view and was happy with the results.  She decided that she liked the interface and search system and that as her ancestors moved around her home country, Ancestry had the sort of datasets she would need.  She bought a subscription to Ancestry

Family Historian C had used Ancestry to research his ancestors.  He had tried a subscription to them for one year as well as using the Pay-Per-View Services of other sites.  He looked further afield at some of the smaller providers and is currently comparing FindMyPast, Origins and the Genealogist.co.uk.  These appear to match his needs in one form or another and he is considering which one he will buy a subscription from.

The future is likely to find the larger providers expanding their datasets and whilst some people may decide to subscribe to more than one, it is likely that researchers will select one for subscription and use Pay-Per-View on the others when there is a specific dataset they need.

Some providers will start providing smaller and perhaps more obscure datasets for their subscribers.

If indeed my prediction is right and Pay-Per-View use drops off in favour of Subscriptions, providers may remove their PPV services.

 

Social networking will continue to expand to the benefit of family historians.

Most of us reading this will have heard of Facebook, http://www.facebook.com and Twitter http://www.twitter.com, some of you may even have heard of the smaller networking sites.  I have recently opened accounts with Twitter and Facebook but as yet have not made great forays into using them either for personal use of for family history research.

FriendsReunited is a case in point, it started as a way for friends from school and workplaces to network together, and it spawned a number of children, ForcesReunited, for ex-military and GenesReunited for family historians.

I have no doubt that FaceBook and Twitter will develop with similar ‘branches’ for family history, indeed they are already there in both cases.  I would like to see Family History Societies taking the bull by the horns and embracing these technologies and indeed some of the societies that appear to have FaceBook or Twitter pages are:

 

Family Historians will be looking for help to make sense of the data they have obtained online.

The mass of data already online and coming on-stream as fast as it can be scanned, entered and put on the web; means that there is now far more information than we can cope with and probably more than we need.  Sadly the information is not always helpful as the following 1891 census example shows:

William Bander aged 38 living at Ferry Hill Station, Chilton, Sedgefield, County Durham. 
His place of birth is given as Cornwall, Stoherlindand

Examination of the original image MAY help give the correct place name BUT this would probably need the knowledge of placenames in Cornwall.  Far better would be to contact the Cornwall Family History Society and ask for help.  They would very quickly identify the place as Stoke Climsland and a check of the original would confirm this to be the case. 

Of course even the original may not help as the pronunciation of the place of birth as ‘Poffle’, ‘Lanson’, ‘Tidereth’, ‘Windum’ would be likely to be written as spoken and not easily reveal the true birthplaces of Poughill, Launceston, Tywardreath (all in Cornwall) or Wymondham in Norfolk.  Local knowledge is invaluable in solving these riddles.

Resolving unreadable surnames and wrongly interpreted place names may need the help- of experts.  There is scope for entrepreneurs to fill this niche by providing specialist help.  There are in fact already a number of organisations that can provide such help and indeed many family history societies do.

Contacting the Oxfordshire FHS would identify the most frequent spelling of the TRENDAL, TRINDALL, TRUNDELL, TRIMDELL, TRINDALE, TRENDLE, TRINDALE, name and whether they are indeed different surnames or possibly linked into a large extended family from a small parish who suffer from their names being spelled differently in different documents.

Societies will also have their own database and indexes, many of which are not online, that may help with identifying difficult cases where the exact person is not known.  Particularly useful in this respect are Monumental Inscriptions.  Many societies have created an index to the gravestones in their churchyards &  cemeteries and indeed may be photographing them as well.  Not all of these have made it on line and many may not do so for some time.  Many gravestones contain information about place of death, possibly overseas, and residence of family members as well as linking extended members of the family.  The two examples of Monumental Inscriptions below show the sort of information that is contained on gravestones and may give researchers links that they would not otherwise find. 

MI Pictures courtesy of Cornwall Family History Society http://www.cornwallfhs.com

©Copyright Cornwall Family History Society

©Copyright Cornwall Family History Society

In the past societies had a large number of volunteer transcribers who undertook census, parish register transcriptions and spent hours cleaning gravestones and transcribing the information on them.  This work is continuing up to a point BUT the availability of on-line information has meant that there are fewer volunteers doing this valuable work.  Perhaps if you have joined a society and have received help from them you might consider volunteering to help the society, transcribing, photographing, entering data or even choosing to serve on a committee.

2011 will see family history move forward despite the recessionary tendencies; indeed because it is possible to undertake research without the need to spend too much money, it may see an increase in interest.

Family historians are the people who will dictate where things go by asking for access to records, by changing their online search habits and by supporting family history societies in the excellent work that they provide.  Please use 2011 as a time to expand your research both backwards, laterally and into other areas of information.

Best wishes for 2011
David Holman
Chairman
The Federation of Family History Societies