Using the 1901/1911 censuses

Arguably the most accessible and widely-used resources for contemporary family research are the 1901 and 1911 censuses.

While fairly straightforward to use, I meet so many people who tell me that they were unable to find their ancestors on either census, and are at the brink of accepting that they must be descended from a long line of secret agents using pseudonyms and aliases.

However, this is almost never the case. The census pages are full of mistakes, while the online transcriptions often fall victim to human error.

So, let me offer some tips that I have learned and which may help you on your journey:

• Switch the surnames and forenames. As I mentioned, human error is always a possibility, and it is very easy for a National Archives volunteer to put 'John' where it should have been 'Smith' and vice versa. This was the trick that revealed the entry for my three-times great-grandmother Margaret Campbell on the 1911 census:

• 'Browse' it, don't 'Search' it. I imagine that most people click on 'Search Census' when carrying out a look-up, but personally I find the 'Browse Census' facility to be much more helpful in locating the extended family and learning more about the environment in which a person lived. I learned the value of this when I tired of searching for variant spellings of common names and was still winding up with hundred of incorrect results. If you are not getting anywhere by entering the name, then narrow it down by County and DED (District Electoral Division.) Open up each of the Townlands in a separate tab, and then you can start zeroing in on the households. The beauty of this type of search is that it lists all of the neighbours. So, those witnesses on your great-grandparents' marriage certificate? The older siblings you didn't know about? They all become much easier to locate because, while surname spellings and ages might throw you off on the 'Search Census' page, geographical tools will rarely throw you off.

• Extenuating circumstances. If you are still stuck and cannot find an ancestor in the 1901 or 1911 census, then there may be a simple explanation: he or she was not in Ireland. This does not mean that they had emigrated or that something dire had occurred; remember, the census simple reflects who was living where on one single night once a decade. So, male relatives could have been in military service with their wives/children having relocated along with them. If this was the case, then you might find them in the UK censuses. If you don't but suspect that they did serve in the military, then try looking for their records on Ancestry.co.uk's Military collection. If the record states that an individual was serving overseas in March 1901 or April 1911, then they are not going to be in any UK census.

The record that explained why an ancestor of mine was nowhere to be found in the 1901 census.

Sometimes, you get lucky with an ancestor who had a very particular name or profession that makes him or her easier to track down on the census. But for most people, the census is the first place they look when they start researching their families, and it is very easy to get lost, go wrong, or give up altogether.

If you find yourself getting stuck using the census, then drop me a comment and I'll be happy to try to help.

Who knows? Maybe your ancestor was one of the ones with pseudonyms and aliases...

Belfast Newspaper Library

One of my favourite resources for genealogical research is the Belfast Newspaper Library.

Exterior of Newspaper Library on Library Street, Belfast.

Prior to 2013, I mainly thought of it as the place people went to get commemorative front pages for birthdays and anniversaries. Today, I realise that it holds a treasure trove of free-to-access information for anyone on the ancestral hunt, and most of this stems from the vast archive of death notices.

I know they are not the cheeriest documents to read through, but in days gone by, people included their home addresses in their insertions, so instantly you are able to place an entire family line on a geographical track.

My great-uncle's death notices from 1944.

Insertions were, as they are now, put in by: neighbours, employers, colleagues, and any groups to which the deceased held membership. Crucially, they listed the burial location. So, suddenly you can get a very full picture of the type of life your ancestor lived.

Of course, the Newspaper Library can be useful for more than just death notices: if you find any hint that one of your ancestor's had some legal trouble, then you can look up the daily reports from the Court Sessions.

If you decide to visit for the first time, here are some small tips that will speed up your searches:

• Make a list all the dates you want to look up before you go. There is nothing worse than arriving and then suddenly trying to recall your fourth cousin's date of death from 83 years ago.

• Bring loose change. A4 and A3 print-outs cost only a matter of pence (£0.10-0.15 if memory servies) so there is no point showing up with £20 notes or your Mastercard.

• Request both The Belfast Telegraph and The Irish News. You can certainly browse more rural publications if you are certain that they cover your ancestor's domicile, but the dates held by the Library for those are a little more sparse and irregular.

• Request microfilms, rather than hard copies. I know that microfilm machines can be a bit tricky to use, but the staff are happy to get you set up, and from there it is much more efficient to carry out your searches. Hard copies (while lovely to touch) are cumbersome to hold, given out only one at a time, and personally make me terrified of ripping the browned-pages at every turn.

• Bring a digital camera. Even your smart-phone is fine. Just be sure to ask the staff, and normally they have no problem with you taking your own photographs - just turn off the flash!

Other than that, there isn't much you need to know. The Library is in a fantastic city-centre location - just off Royal Avenue and around the corner from Central Library. It is also always in need of support from the public, so please make the most of this resource if you can.

Using GRONI

Since March 2014, the General Register Office of Northern Ireland (GRONI) has offered an online search facility for anyone wishing to obtain records for:

• Births dated over 100 years ago until 1864.
• Marriages dated over 75 years ago until 1845.
• Deaths dated over 50 years ago until 1864.

Prior to this online search facility being made available, everyone had to book a slot in the GRONI Search Room and then venture down to the Chichester Street office for a specific time-slot.

I first went to the office in April 2013, just as I was getting into my own family research. I paid the £35 fee for a 1-hour Assisted Search from a member of staff. This consisted of sitting on opposite sides of a desk with a desktop between us. I read out the names and dates for what/who I was researching, and the staff member proceeded to pull up the records.

The staff member was very helpful, I was able to find what I was looking for, and I also learned for the first time how records can be listed under different spellings.

But still, it was £35 for 1 hour and I had only gotten through a fraction of the records that I wanted to look up. To apply for certificates online cost £15 for each one. This was far too steep a price for me to make use of the service on a regular basis, therefore, when the online search facility was announced, I was absolutely buzzing with excitement, and I am happy to say that 18 months on, it has become a resource that I could not imagine living without.

GRONI Search Facility - Home Page

It is free to join, and as long as you have 1 credit in your account (£0.40) you can browse endless search results (5 credits/£2.00 lets you view a full certificate.)

Still, there are some glitches to be found and some stumbling blocks to be experienced if you are unfamiliar with the practice of looking up records.

Often, this happens with the further back you are going or the less information you have.

See, GRONI asks for a surname to carry out every single search - and "back in the day" most surnames were recorded phonetically (how they sounded.) That is how Mulhern becomes Mulhearn and Connolly becomes Connelly.

So if you are ever carrying out a search for an event whose date you are absolutely certain of, try clicking the 'Equals' option and changing it to 'Begins with.' With this option, you only have to enter the first three letters of the surname. So, if your ancestor was named Mulhern but possibly recorded as Mulhearn, then "Mul" will give you all options for both. Nine times out of ten, you will find that allowing for this spelling variant gives you the record you are looking for.

Another factor to contend with is the registration districts. Put it down to my relatively scarce knowledge of Northern Irish geography outside of Central Belfast, but I initially found it overwhelming to contend with the 28 districts and the 200+ sub-districts that cover this area.

Copyright: Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency

So, for any of you from further afield do not be put off by the registration districts. There is an invaluable online resource for clearing them up (click here.) It breaks down the districts into street names and neighbourhoods, facts that are more likely to trickle down through family stories than "Rural 14."

Another issue to contend with is that people in the past were not always honest about their names on records. I encountered one such case when a friend asked me to get her paternal grandparents' marriage certificate. She knew their names, their anniversary, and even the church, so I assured her that using GRONI's online search facility, I would have the certificate for her before the end of her smoke break.

Not so fast.

Since GRONI only asks for either the bride or groom's surname, I entered her grandfather's surname first. The list of results would give his wife's surname, so my thinking was that I could use that to pick out the correct record.

GRONI Search Facility - Marriage Index Page

Except, his name wasn't turning up anything. So, as per my earlier advice, I changed the spelling.

Nothing.

Then I did the "Begins with" trick and entered only the first 3 letters.

Not a thing.

Growing perplexed, I entered the rarely-seen "Not Captured" into the Surname field. See, from time to time, handwriting was so obscure that the record is actually stored under "Not Captured" as opposed to the actual surname.

But still nothing.

At my wit's end, I searched instead by the bride's name, and this at the very least gave me some search results.

But not the one I was looking for.

I didn't know what else to do. I was even about to suggest to my friend that her grandparents were never legally married!

This is a common trope in family research: we want our stories to be so extravagant and fantastical that we often overlook the Occam's Razor principle: the simpler, more logical explanation is often the correct one.

Copyright: Working Analytics

So, I went back to what else I knew about this couple, specifically the groom.

I knew his mother had died when he was very young and that his father had remarried several times since (a story for another time.) So sorry did I feel for this young boy who had lost his mother that her surname (maiden name)  somehow became lodged in my head.

I guess her maiden name had lodged more firmly in my mind than I had realised, because the next time I searched for the marriage record by the bride's name and looked down the list of corresponding groom surnames, there I saw it.

The groom's mother's maiden name in place of his surname.

I purchased the record, opened it, and wouldn't you know that there, in literal black-and-white, his name was written, and underneath it, "otherwise [father's surname.]"

Redacted copy of said certificate

Alas, while his father's surname WAS on the record as a footnote, the GRONI search facility works in such a way that it only records the primary surname on the record. I could not really fault GRONI for this, as I can't imagine too many people list multiple surnames when signing a marriage register.

Aside from the giant coup I felt at landing this record, it also opened up a whole new avenue of research into this individual ("Did he sever ties with his father, torn up by grief over his mother and sickened at his father's remarriages?")

Again, I let my imagination run wild with possibilities, but whether correct or not, therein lies the fun of filling in the blanks for the details that records are unable to tell you.

And so, there you have just a few of my experiences with GRONI.

Having dipped my research toe into other countries, I know that not many places are lucky to have instant, online access the way that we do with GRONI, nor are they able to obtain certificates on their screens for just £2 that date back to 1845. And with the recent launch of free, digitised Catholic Parish Registers, the National Library of Ireland (NLI) is able to take you back even further on your trail - an incredible development for those of you not able to visit parish church records in person.

NLI Catholic Parish Registers - Search Page

A downside to the new NLI website is that it cannot be searched by names; only by counties and parishes. However, I will talk more about using this service another time.

So, if you are new to using the GRONI search facility, or have been having some of the struggles that I have encountered, then hopefully this post has been of some use to you.

If you are still stuck, then get in touch and I'll try to help.

No promises, though.

Sometimes, some people just want to stay hidden.

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland

I first came to learn about the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) when I enquired about any surviving records for the old Belfast Workhouse, as I knew that my great-grandmother had been born there in May 1900. While reading through discussions about the Workhouse on Belfast Forum, I kept seeing this five-digit acronym and decided to see for myself what is was all about. The official website told me that all I needed to visit was a piece of formal identification, so off I went the next day on my first trip, armed with my Passport and not a clue of what to do when I got there.

It was as straightforward as everyone made it out to be: go in the revolving front door, speak to the staff at Reception, fill in a 1-page form, show your ID, sit for a photo, and voila: you are a full-fledged PRONI member.

Copyright: DCAL

I remember being unquestionably intimidated by the scale of this building. It isn’t big in any grand, skyscraper sort of way, but right from the moment of entry you get the sense of what a large undertaking had and was still going on in order to hold all of the information that is contained within its walls. I happened to be visiting with a friend, but for any solo first-timers, it is easy to feel isolated and unsure of what to do. So, if you go there alone:

My first tip: make sure that you have pressed your membership card against the keypad at reception before you venture upstairs. After literally hundreds of visits, I still get to the Search Room, swipe my card, realise it is not activated, and then have to trek back down to Reception.

My second tip: spend some time by yourself on the computers in the Search Room that let you browse the entire PRONI index. You will do yourself a massive favour if you spend some time getting to know what types of materials PRONI holds, how to order them up, and even what the reference codes mean (I feel like I should have BG/7 tattooed on my forehead at this point.)

Copyright: British Genes

My third tip: bring some loose change with you. For little over £1, you can get a photocopy card with 5 credits. This is a godsend for when you want to print off records held on microfilm (e.g. baptisms, marriages, grave purchases.) Also, the nearest ATM is at the Odyssey Arena, so unless you want to be running back and forth across Titanic Quarter every time you want a scan of a 1903 street directory, try to remember to stick a few silver coins in your pocket.

Other than that, PRONI is what you make of it. If you spend half a day there, you will hear accents from North America, Canada, Australia, Eastern Europe, Asia, and anywhere else that a long-gone Irish clan lay down some roots more than a lifetime ago.

PRONI can be particularly useful for tracing more recent ancestors, especially compared to the pricier General Register Office office in Belfast city centre. For example, I had been told about a great-great-aunt who I never knew about, but wanted to uncover as much as possible. I didn't have enough to go on to find her in the 1911 census, so I was at a loss where to start. But finding her address on a 1916 school record for my great-grandmother (yep, *that* one) I was able to go through the directories held at PRONI and open for free consultation at all times in the Search Room. I went through them one-by-one and found her at that 1916 address all the way up until 1944. Then, travelling a whole 4 feet to the microfilm reel for Milltown’s burial records, I scanned through the pages for 1944, and within a few minutes I had found her date of death and grave-site - all without spending a penny.

Personally, the most exciting set of records held by PRONI is the 1939 National Register. After 1911, it is the nearest thing to a census that we have, as it will give the names, ages, and occupations of each person at a given address. Using the online enquiry form, you can apply for access to your family's entry, provided you have an exact or close estimation of their address. It is hoped that the entire Register will soon be available to view digitally, but until then, PRONI is the only way you are going to find out how your Northern Irish family was faring at the outbreak of World War II and introduction of ration books.

Redacted copy of my paternal grandparents' entry.

PRONI is and will hopefully remain the first port of call for anyone wanting to research Irish history. It holds millions of records in what must be an endless storage area (think of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark) and yet, I had never heard of it before March 2013. In a nice twist of fate, I wound up working next door just 6 months later, and since then I continue to use as many lunch-breaks and early finishes as possible to get lost in its archives.

Copyright: Donal McCann

Learn more about PRONI and what it does by watching this short video below:

Everything Old is New Again

See, my Mum had a granny.

A 4ft-something, iron-fisted, Catholic matriarch. She lived to be 85 and died almost 30 years ago, but has has enjoyed something of a second wind since my search for her parents’ names sent me on a journey that would last years and end up on this blog.

Mary Tilson, c.1940.

This lady – my great-grandmother – was named Mary. She was born in 1900, married a man, had a family, and died an old lady. That was the whole story as far as Mum, her siblings (and hell, even her own mother) were led to believe.

But, Mum always wondered. In fact, this little lady left such a mark on her descendants that the mystery of her life was still casting as much of a shadow now as it had then.

To give the full story from my end, I have to go back  to March 2011 when I had what would be my final conversation with Mary's last surviving child. We were sitting in her front living room and talking about everything & anything when - for reasons neither of us can recall now - Mum asked:

“What was your Mummy’s last name?”
“Tilson. Why?”

To a seasoned genealogist, a maternal surname is a holy grail of a breadcrumb, but to this novice, it was something I quickly made note of in my iPhone and never looked at until two years later.

The note from this encounter has remained on my phone ever since.

Little did I know the sheer whirlwind of revelations and reverberations in which this conversation would result. 

So, flash forward again to March 2013. The subject of conversation somehow turned to family histories and I asked:

“Is there anything you’ve always wanted to know?”
“I guess where my granny came from.”
“Alright, let me have a look.”

I said this with absolutely no idea of how or where to find out this information. See, at this point there was no online GRONI to pull up a full scan of a birth certificate for just £2.

Luckily, there was Ancestry.co.uk. I did a search on its Birth, Marriage, and Death Index and found two likely hits that referred to a Mary Tilson being born in Belfast around April/May/June of 1900. Mum always remembered 31^st May as being Mary’s birthday, so this seemed like a promising start.

The problem was that Ancestry didn’t (and still doesn't) provide actual birth certificates or even transcribed details, such as: parents’ names, address, or place of birth. You might get lucky and find those on one a Baptism catalogue, but - as we'll get to next time - such a source would not have helped in this particular case.

So, I started reaching again, trying half a dozen different sites before finding RootsIreland.ie. Now, if you tried Roots today, you would have to subscribe before getting the slightest piece of intel. In 2013, however, I was luckier: by entering the information I had into the site's Baptism/Birth database, I was able to find the two records that Ancestry.co.uk had pointed towards. Except, on Roots, I was able to purchase the full birth record(s) for £5.00 each.

This seemed like a decent enough investment to give my Mum in order to answer her long-burning question, plus I knew that there was nothing else about Mary that I needed to know beyond whatever was contained in this £5.00 birth record.

I paid the £5.00, opened up the first of the two recorda, and saw that Mum was indeed correct about 31^st May 1900 being Mary’s birthday. My eyes ran through the record and lit up at seeing the name of Mary’s mother: Julia Tilson. Julia! A lovely name. Not all that common in our family, but Mum’s favourite movie was Pretty Woman, so she’d probably like this ever-so tangential connection to Ms. Roberts.

As I mentally played through all of this in about 0.3 seconds, my brain started to catch up with my eyes as it noticed the blank space staring back at me next to “Father’s name.” It then began to process other words, namely:

“Illegitimate."

“Workhouse."

You never forget your first record.

Now, despite having done some surface-level into Victorian society while at university, all I knew about those terms was from whatever I had picked up during the odd Catherine Cookson adaptation.

  
But, instantly, I was consumed. I needed to know more: about Mary, Julia, and about this Workhouse. But where and how was I to find those records? Did they even exist anymore?
__________

I eventually found the answers to these questions (though my ancestors did not make it easy)  and I will share some of those answers here. But what I want to do with this blog is to help new family researchers (especially those seeking out Irish records) by discussing my experiences with various organisations, archivists, and the learning curve that comes with making the kinds of educated guesses that can lead you to new places, new people, and new understandings of your family.

If you would like me to help you directly/privately with your research, then please leave a comment below.