Jean Stirk
GET THE MOST OUT OF ARCHIVES
Key questions for reviving your research
Most of us use internet sites that are now prolific whether free to use or reasonably charged for researching our ancestors, so giving us easy access to much family history information. As we increasingly become reliant on the internet, we might wonder where would we find the time and money to cover the cost of travelling to record offices in the west, the north, the east or the south? However, taking our research out into the ‘real world’, as opposed to the ‘virtual’, computer one, may be just what we need to do, in order to find new resources to research.
Beware the limitations of the internet
Be aware that information on internet sites may be curtailed when being copied or translated into ‘computer speak’, depending on the provider’s system. For instance, only certain fields may be transcribed or indexed, and it is always worth ensuring that you look at a copy of the original census page.
There may be restrictions regarding the digitised image of a document on a website. For example, on census sites the final column might be omitted from the index details, that would otherwise note whether a person was blind, deaf, dumb or an idiot and, without that, it may be difficult to understand why a person is in a particular occupation, or no occupation is mentioned. Similarly an omission of a family relationship in a census transcript, just noting a female as a domestic servant because her surname is different although she is related, leaves us as researchers without that family connection.
Don’t deny yourself opportunities