Pitfalls, Planning and Persistence -
Including ways and means of finding, ordering and processing your information
Presentation by Hugh Reekie to BIFHSGO, 12 February 2005 - updated 05 Feb 2005

• Family trees from Bible keep appearing
  • I have 3 - I must be lucky
• Visit places in the UK of known family information - A0
  • Visits to my grandfather's churches
  • South Shields - Sept 2004 - minister 1915-1925 - A scan
  • Church closed - but documents available - A22 scan
    • Manse torn down 2002
• Visit the local Postmaster ASAP
  • or Librarian
  • Places, neighbours, ruins
    • eg - Tynron, Carronbridge, Glengenny, Blaen Pennal
  • Local Historians & "Genealogists"
    • Welsh Choir Concerts

• Dunfermline, Fife - Young
  • family letter - saddlers - Burl
• Ireland - Civil Engineering
  • Wiliam Maxwell, John Algie, Lisduff House, Ballinasloe - C. HR fam hist url + box text - D url Lawrencetown farmsl
  • Lisduff House - real Estate - photos
    • search every 6 months
    • read HTML source code - date, jpg urls
  • Algie - land records - plus Maxwell - Farm Designer in East Galway, after the potato famine
• Methods I use with search engines
  • Google proritizes by hits
  • Use double quotes "Hugh Reekie"
  • Google is more aggressive in "listing" new pages with its 'spider'.
    • GEDCOM-generated FH pages may not get listed on search engines
    • Use the "google html" web version - for speed & convenience - HR discuss with Doug H
  • If over 50 hits - don't read - do another search - either:
    • More specific - add another specialized word
    • Retain generality, but force a sort
      • add a simple word - e.g Scotland or "Family history" - and read the first 20 or so
  • Read up on the "rules" under advanced search
    • Hors* horse, horses, horsemanship etc
  • More and more people are finding me because my web pages are on Google and they are interested in what they see
    • Not just family history - other pages, too

• County description and summaries
  • Very detailed information, easy to browse
  • Print out sections - 3 ring binder
• Specialist lookups - for certain parts of the UK
  • BIFHSGO members should volunteer!
• Books have detailed indexes produced - G1 - writer John Williams
• Various GENUKI volunteers are prepared to help
  • Book Lookups with detailed, GENUKI-created indexes - URL _ Welsh lookups
  • Central Wales - Dyfed, Cardigan, Pembroke is well set up for personal e-mail replies - G2 HR Williams Drovers url
• Good for background on trades - 1820 era trade directories, searchable, available
• "Shire Books" useful for trades and historical trends - H url H2 scan Toulson trade routes
  • Welsh Drove Road
  • Toulson Drovers Walks book H3 Map scan

• Many "mini" 1851 census lists available - esp for Scotland - permitted by SRO - J url
  • Dumfries and Galloway have a searchable 1851 Census - not widely known
  • Be careful about name spellings
  • Paterson, Patterson & Shawbrae - K url D & G seach page 1851 census
• Victorian Publications on the web - books
  • Local History &c
  • "Tales of the Covenanters"
  • Many names listed
  • BIFHSGO volunteers for sharing?
• Hugh's Scottish Links Page

• Many BIFHSGO members have copies of County FH Soc Newsletters
  • contain very useful, specialist infomation
    • Cardiganshire - Victorian School registration lists available
  • especially "members interests" listings - constrained geographically
  • GENUKI County names lists are very powerful
    • Also GENWEB - unlike print sources, query stays "available"
  • Let's start an informal "exchange" with available newsletter indexes
• Many Family History Societies will do "lookups" from specialized documents
  • The documets are usually listed on web site
  • Usually a fee for non-members
  • Looking at atricle titles may match up either a family or trade
    • In my case, Williams, Blaen Pennal, Cardiganshire, and Drover matched up - R scan
    • The articles were VERY interesting - the author insisted - no family connection!!
• Consideration - Indexes of FHS publictations - in BIFHSGO library and on discovery tables
  • Access listed - in libraries or loans from BIFHSGO members
  • Bring back the BIFHSGO Saturday morning "region" Sessions

• Simple text files, suitably named
  • Cut 'n paste to a .txt or .html page
  • HTML on ISP server - a backup
  • define sources, date accessed - example - U url Bennoch
  • Inter-related text with paras - memo to file
  • Be careful to define what you have, and have not, selected
  • Wills, sasine, testaments, church session records, census searches etc
• I summarize gathered information onto a web page - whether published or not!.
  • Bennoch - poss omit this line
  • Williams & hymn writers - V url
  • Drovers of Central Wales - W file

• Abebooks.com - Victoria BC - X url
  • HR - 12 + books
  • Book descriptions often have useful information in the description
  • Use for information - Topic searches
  • John Reekie - trade in M/c
  • Manchester Golden Jubilee Exhib - Y scan Y2 scan Y 3 scan Z scan
• Libraries scan & publish their holdings
  • eg - US Library of Congress
  • Many books - older non-copyright
  • Victorian parsons retirement activity!

• Step Back, Think, Prioritize
  • Plan that UK Holiday!
• Take an interest in Local and Trades History
  • Helpful with migration patterns
• Use the UK Local FH Societies
  • Join
  • Ask questions
  • Use their specialist publications
• If stuck, don't be afraid to produce "mini-trees" from IGI
  • Look for name patterns
  • Analyze - economic migration
  • Make a map of the area
  • Learn adjacent parish/village names
  • Step back, and think again
  • HR/FGR found this useful in Derbyshire
• A summary of this presentation, with web links:
  • http://members.allstream.net/~max-com/bifhsgo.search.detail.feb05.htm

Page maintained by Hugh Reekie- h.reekie@ ieee.org or max-com@allstream.net - comments and suggestions welcome