Family History and Genealogy

Public family trees on Ancestry are notorious for being misleading, as they prove to be inaccurate, due to a failure to substantiate what's included I found one tree which included my grandfather, it showed him emigrating to USA and marrying in that country - good job my grandma never found out! To make matters worse, the incorrect tree was clearly copied by others and adopted as "their family"!

I agree MR. It is useful to look at other peoples trees for clues but I would advise anyone to check the information themselves for errors. Also with the hints, Ancestry often come up with a hint that seems to fit until you look at them in detail.

I'd like to second that MR. When I researched my own family tree although several trees had both my parents on it, I didn't exist On the same trees both my brothers' dates and places of birth were wrong and so was the name of my father's first wife. They have now been corrected but you never now who else has used them in their tree

Thanks for the info MR, sounds a good idea and cheaper too !

For any one interested, the 1939 census is now available on Ancestry

Do you have to be a member of the church to join this site because every time I try to enter the word they tell you to, it will not let me sign on.

Since writing that, they no longer allow searches unless you have an account. You don't have to be a member of the church though to sign up and it's still free. Create a free account.

We are lucky that the LDS still enable us to access their records free and it is available online. When I first started doing family trees in the 1980's (to keep my brain working after I left work to have kids!) everything had to be sent for or a visit to a local record office was neccessary. The IGI was available from the Latter Day Saints but you had to pay for them to be printed out and you sent for a name in a county. In the end I treated myself to a second hand microfiche reader and sets of microfilm copies for Warwickshire, Staffordshire and several surrounding counties, which were for all the births and marriages in those counties. Sometimes it is easier to look through the name of a family you are researching and spot things. I still have these so if I can look up anything I am quite happy to. Incidentally the first family tree software I used was "Brothers Keeper" which was also free from the LDS. Don't forget that the IGI is only an index for the original parish register or bishop's transcript. You can't beat looking at the original document, sometimes more information is available on there and just knowing that your ancestors were there were the information was written. Ancestry do have the original documents for Warwickshire online.

British Museum Makes 1.9 Million Images Available for Free "The British Museum has all sorts of photographs available and many of them may interest genealogists. The odds of having a photograph of your ancestors are slim, but you may find historic photographs of the town or other local areas where ancestors lived as well as photographs of military units, landmarks, clothing, and even the Admonitions Scroll made in China over 1600 years ago. "The British Museum has revamped its online collections database, making over 1.9 million photos of its collection available for free online under a Creative Commons license. (That license allows free non-commercial use of the photographs.) "Under the new agreement the majority of the 1.9 million images are being made available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons 4.0 license. Users no longer need to register to use these photographs, and can now download them directly from the British Museum. "Details may be found here".

I have a distant relative who, according to the 1939 civilian register, lived in Cork's Lane, Coventry. I'd never heard of it, and surprisingly nor has Google. Is this another mistake by whoever indexed these records at findmypast.co.uk, I've come across lots of Coventry census records they've somehow recorded in Weymouth, Dorset. There are a number of houses in Cork's Lane so it's not a one-off error, don't know if this link will work. Any ideas where this could be? It's not the Corks Lane in Ipswich or Stockport.

I've followed some of the names through, and it's clearly Cash's Lane. For example, Clara Clewlow lived at no.10 in 1927. Confirmed now on viewing register on Ancestry. Hope this helps with your research

Thank you for that, so Ancestry didn't trust findmypast and indexed the register again?

Don't know, John, don't use FMP. Ancestry show images of the Register. The transcriptions of the Register are poor quality - weren't they using prisoners to do some of the transcribing. Whatever, not done particularly professionally.

Certainly is....!