Family History research

I'm now compiling an index in street order to the 1841 census of Coventry similar to the one from the 1830 Directory. This raises a number of questions: 1. There are 30 people living at Church-yard side; is this Holy Trinity or St Michaels? 2. There are 20 people living at BALL and Anchor Yard, including publican Thomas Cooper. RealAleRambles has him at the BULL and Anchor in Bishop St, which is correct? The census does not have it Bishop St but in nearby Rood lane or Cook St area. 3. There are 30 people living in Freet St. Is this a valid earlier name for Freeth St? 4. Possibly a controversial one, is it Bayley lane or Bailey lane? 5. Any idea where Davis Yard is, in the Butts lane or Hertford terrace area?

1 Trinity Church Side was the former name for Trinity Lane, Trinity Church Yard was from Derby Lane to (the old) Trinity Lane, which is now known as Cuckoo Lane (the vicarage for Holy Trinity was on this road. At some point half the buildings were demolished to build a prison.) The route continued through St Michael's grave yard to New Street but there were no properties on it. 2 The Bull's Head and Anchor was on the Bull's Head and Anchor Yard but it was just off Bishop Street between 37 and 38. But the Yard could be accessed from the other end on Rood (Rude) Lane which itself opened onto Cook Street. 3 Not as far as I know but there is a Fleet Street 4 Bayley Lane is the right spelling but it is named after the bailey of a mot and bailey defence structure. 5 don't know

2) to really confuse things, there was a Bull's Head on Bishop Street (number 9) on the opposite side of the road with a yard behind it called The Bull's Head Yard. That ran from Bishop Street to Well Street.

New developments at the GRO The GRO have created new indexes for births and deaths, and made them available on their website. The new birth indexes cover the years 1837 to 1915 and include mother's maiden name for all entries. The new death indexes cover the years 1837 to 1957 and include age at death for all entries. To start searching, register on the GRO website here This is a great addition to online information for family researchers

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.