Researching Genealogy and Family History, Tips and Tricks
This week, I was invited to set up a table at the PEI Genealogy Society Fair for work. This has inspired this week's topic - genealogy and family history.
Genealogy is a very popular topic, hobby, pastime, etc. If you do want to start looking into your family history, there are many places to look, depending on what you wish to find.
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| Left to right are Reggie MacKinnon, Johnny MacKenzie (my uncle), Brian MacKenzie (my Dad), Blair Wood, and Frank Milligan. Image from Gone to the Bay by Juanita Rossiter. |
The Canadian Virtual War Memorial provides information on the soldiers from Canada and Newfoundland who have fallen during service since Confederation. It allows you to search by name, nickname, or keywords. They also have Today's Honour Roll, which lists all those who fell during service "on this day in history."
The screenshots below give you an idea of what the Canadian Virtual War Memorial provides:
This is the record for Private Urban Joseph MacDonald. The record provides his full name, rank, date of death, military service number, age, force, unit, date of birth, information on his parents, where he is located in the Book of Remembrance, and where he is buried.
This image provides the information for Bombardier James MacDonald. As you can see, the same type of information is provided for both men. However, unlike Urban Joseph, James was buried in France. At the bottom of the image, you can see the location of the cemetery and a grave reference, these would allow you to find the grave. Their service numbers will also make finding their military service records easier.
Library and Archives Canada has a helpful guide for those who are just beginning to research their family history. Library and Archives Canada have many, many records so there could be a lot of information to go through. Also, if you have never used the site before, I will warn you it can be intimidating, in that they have so much information they need to organize a lot of data through sub-topics. But, it does become easier with a little experience.
Library and Archives Canada have a lot of their information digitized. But, if you are looking for information that is not yet digitized, there are fees for ordering copies of records.
There are also resources here on PEI, such as the Public Archives and Records Office and community museums.
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| The PEI Public Archives and Records Office is located in the George Coles building seen above, located beside Province House. The Public Archives are on the fourth floor. (Image Credit: Memory PEI - Province of Prince Edward Island) |
The Public Archives and Records Office has a large genealogy collection, including a master name index; birth, marriage, and death records; church records; newspapers; census records; land records and maps; court records; directories; and genealogy and family files.
If you go to the Public Archives, you may find a large part of your family history already recorded in the genealogy files!
But if you are looking for adoption records the archives cannot help you. You will have to contact the Provincial Adoption Coordinator.
There are also community museums throughout the Island and some have genealogy centres or records, such as:
The PEI Regiment Museum
Alberton Museum and Genealogy Centre
Garden of the Gulf (Montague) has a genealogy centre off-site
MacNaught History Centre and Archives (Wyatt Heritage Properties)
Clyde River has records at the community centre (viewings are by appointment)
Farmers Bank of Rustico
And this is only a few! If you are not sure if your community museum or library has records, call and ask. It is not always included on their websites.
If you are new to the genealogy game, here are some tips to help you get started from both Library and Archives Canada and the PEI Public Archives and Records Office:
1. Start with yourself and work backwards. This will allow you to find where your knowledge gaps are. For example, you may know the names of your grandparents but nothing beyond that. That is where your knowledge gap starts.
2. Talk to people around you. Using the previous example, you may not know anything about your great-grandparents, but maybe your sibling, cousin, parent, community member, etc. does, maybe they already did a lot of research. Talk to them, record what you heard, and who told it to you.
4. Focus on names (people and their relationships to each other), dates (births, marriages, deaths, etc.), and places (where events occurred, land deeds, etc) first and work out from there.
5. Choose your focus - do you want to focus on one side of your family, one direct line of your family, do you just want to know names and where they are from or details of their lives?
6. Utilize archives, libraries, and community museums.
7. Cite your sources. You should always give credit where it is due, but this will also make it easier if you have to revisit a source.
8. Your entire family history will not be on the internet. You may find bits and pieces, but it will not all be there.
9. You have to do the research yourself. Personnel at libraries, archives, and museums can help you, but they will not do it for you.
1. Different 'origins' than you believed. Maybe you had an ancestor come from Sweden or Nigeria that you never knew about.
2. Age of a family member who served. During the First World War, underage boys could enlist to be a bugler or to serve. When age restrictions were enforced later in the war, boys could be told to take a walk and think about their age by recruiters. Other boys used tricks like wearing pants to enlist - because men wore pants, boys wore shorts... Sometimes it was the small things.
3. Family connections. You might like the connections you find or maybe you won't.
4. Medical history
5. Second and third wives/husbands and half-siblings. Depending on the time-period you are looking at, you may not find divorces, but you may find death notices. Depending on age, the widow/widower may have remarried.
6. Alternative spellings. There are many reasons for alternative spellings including literacy issues, handwriting, someone changing their name, etc. Not to mention the Mac/Mc issue - and no, it does not come down to religion. This was a long-held belief that one was Catholic and one was Protestant...it isn't. I can understand why people may have thought this at one point, but it's not. My family is a perfect example of this - our last name is MacKenzie, my grandfather was a McKenzie and my grandmother was a MacDonald... see the issue. Sometimes these issues are simpler than you would expect.
To finish today's post, I want to give you some practical advice that sometimes gets overlooked but could cause frustration in your research or to those looking at your research.
1. Site names change over time. Sometimes this could be official names or official boundaries, but other times, the official place name may not change, but the nickname does. For example, as a child maybe you played at a stream. You and your friends gave it a name. Years pass and your kids now play there and have given it their own name.
Be aware that this does happen so you may find diaries that seem to be talking about the same place but they call it different things.
For the sake of clarity, if you identify locations make note of their GPS coordinates and all the official and nicknames you find. This will make it easier for you and those looking at your research.
2. Print everything - images, maps, notes, etc. Technology is always changing and it changes quickly. Just look at floppy discs and CD's. That hardware has changed a lot! But even simple things like outdated versions of Word Perfect, hard drives fail, computers fail, etc. If it is printed, you will always have a copy. So it is best to have hard copies of everything and a backup drive. Cover all your bases.
3. Pass on your passwords. Many computers and programs are password protected; if your family cannot access this information and something happens to you, all your research is potentially lost.
4. Know nicknames. The explanation for why this one is useful is simple, imagine how many John MacDonalds there throughout PEI history. But if you know a nickname it can be easier to trace someone as they may be referred to by their nickname in peoples journals or newspaper articles.
The simple fact is you cannot assume the name on their birth certificate is what they went by, heck you can't even assume that is how they spelled their name when they grew up.
5. Books and papers are heavy. If you do a print a lot of research or have many records be sure you have somewhere sturdy to store them.
6. No matter how large or small your research/findings are, organize it! This will make it easier to find things when they are needed. For example, maybe your child or grandchild is working on a school project and needs some information on their family history and comes to you, it will be so much easier if you have an idea of where to look. That way, if they are looking for land ownership records you are not looking through your files on war, medical records, passenger ship manifestos, etc.
Looking into family history can be very rewarding and interesting. If you want to start looking into yours, I hope this post was useful and if you were not thinking about looking into your family history, I hope this post has inspired you.
I hope you enjoyed this post. It is longer than normal, I know. If you like what I do here, please subscribe!
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