As genealogist we “collect” anything and everything we can about our ancestors. I often just want a quick reference guide of where I am up to on my research, mainly at a direct ancestor level; say one of my 2 x gt grandfathers. The question’s I ask myself are – do I have all the BMD certificates, parish records, and the Census forms for this ancestor. I need a reminder, short and sweet.
I became fed up with the constant shuffling of paper, searching through computer files, folders, etc. I wanted to know precisely what data I had and what was missing. Basically what should I be working on. Below is my Certificates and Census Worksheet, a quick reference guide to where I am up to with my direct line ancestors.
This worksheet tells me many things:
– Do I have a name for my ancestor
– When and where were they born or baptised
– When and where were they married (or not married)
– When and where did they die (burial or cremation)
Some annotations are:
– If it is in red then I have the certificate
– If there is a ‘c’ in front of the date, I have no poof it is a best guess
– If the date is in black without a ‘c’ then it has been seen in parish records
– A ‘?’ after the place name means most likely
– There are date ranges e.g. 1841-51, this means it happened between census’
– A ‘+’ after the date means the event happened later than this date
As you can see it is easy to annotate the base data with other relevant information.
Couples in the 18/19th century often used a naming convention for their children. The Relation Name Tester is a little App that I occasionally use to try and find the first names of a couples parents based on the names of their children. It sometimes works!
I hope you have found this post useful. You may have something similar in your array of forms/sheets, let me know what your favourite form is and why.
