Where to go?

[Leigh183]

Hello, My name is Leigh & I have been looking into my Family tree for the past month or so.
I have managed to go back to pre 1801 on my Mothers Paternal Grandfathers side (Fender) and to 1781 on my Mothers Paternal Grandmothers side (Lockey).

Now I'm stuck , don't know where to go from here!!
on My Mothers Maternal side of the family the surnames are very common (Robinson and Bell) and also My fathers side is Armstrong so I'm finding it very hard to get anywhere with this!!

Any advice and useful sites would be very welcolm. Thank you all very much xxx

[Uncle John]

Hello Leigh and welcome to FTF. You say you've been looking into your family tree for a month or so and have already got back 4 or 5 generations. I'm a bit concerned that you may have been picking likely names without the proof that birth, marriage and death certificates provide. Especially since certificates only started in the middle of 1837 (1855 in Scotland).

I'm sure that other folks here will agree with me that you need to be sure you have the correct people. So for starters - do you have your own birth certificate and your parents' marriage certificate? And then your parents' birth certificates? Without all of these, you can't be sure that you will find the correct details for your grandparents and earlier generations. You may be like me, with parents who used to talk a lot about their families. Even so, some of the facts get a bit mixed up. There are people on this forum who couldn't even be sure of their grandparents before they got help on here.

[tglyn]

Hi Leigh
Cant help with you being unable to get any further than you have but may I ask a question please about the name Lockey you mentioned.

I noticed you had a Lockey on your mothers Paternal Grandmothers side.
I have been trying to find out anything about a Sarah Lockey that appeared as a marriage witness of my George Palmer and Mary Ann Latham marriage on the 22 Mar 1835 at St Michael Bassishaw, London.
Why you may think well.....
The name also apears as a middle name of their son Robert Lockey Palmer born 05 Sep 1854 at 2 Charles Street, St Giles Cripplegate
Any help would be appreciated
Tony.... Palmer

[Kate P]

I'd second Uncle John's advice about getting bmd certificates for proof. Whilst there are enormous resources now available online, without obtaining some certificates you will have no proof whatsoever that any of the names you have are your relations. For example, when I started my tree I thought I'd got back to my gg grandfather (and beyond) very easily. Everything tied in, all the different sources I'd found. So I ordered a marriage certificate and low and behold, unless the person I thought was my gg grandfather was 7 years old when he married then I'd got the wrong chap. Including all the generations I thought I'd found for him further back. Now I've heard of child marriages but that would have taken the biscuit.

So the moral of the story is please, please do order at least a few key certificates to authenticate your research. The people here are always willing to help to, so if you have any queries about weak links in your chains, let them see if they can help too.

And finally, certificates should only ever cost £7 from the General Records Office, don't get sucked in by other sites with higher prices.

Kate x

[Olde Crone Holden]

Hello Leigh and welcome to FTF.

I agree with Uncle John - your progress in your tree has been a bit too rapid for accuracy unless you have been incredibly lucky and have bmd certs already in your family possession.

There is really very little point in trying to push back the generations until you are absolutely certain of what you have found so far. Do you want to say where you have found your information and we will be happy to pass judgement on its accuracy, lol!

Please remember though - we do not allow the names of living people on this forum, so either start with your dead relatives, or pm one of us to check your living relatives off the boards.

OC

[Kate P]

I'm worried we might be sounding a bit critical of you Leah - we're not trying to upset you I promise. It's just that so many of us have made these kinds of mistake in the past, that we'd hate for someone else to go through the same when we can help!

[JBee]

Welcome Leigh

I trust that you are enjoying researching your family tree and that you have undertaken your research in a methodical and thorough way starting with yourself and your parents and purchasing every certificate to prove your way.

Don't assume that, what you think you know, is actually correct. So many people have been caught out by starting with their grandparents not realising that they could well be following the wrong line. Previous marriages, adoptions, parents unmarried, no father recorded. Assumptions that someone of the same name in the right area is actually a relative - I would think that most of us have some wrong certificates which have stopped us from following the wrong line.

Part of the fun finding something a little out of the ordinary as some of the stories on this site can tell you. They have been absolutely scintilating

Genealogy isn't as easy as the tv programmes like to make out - they often make assumptions and to be honest you shouldn't ever assume but check it out. Family history shouldn't be undertaken if you just want a quick result as there's so much more to it - social history, geography, relationships, timeline, industry.

Even family stories that have been told to us can sometimes only have a shread of truth and misconceptions can happen. It's much more interesting finding out for yourself what is true and what isn't.

Anyway good luck with your research

[Leigh183]

Thanks everyone.

The reason I have found so much is because my great uncle is still alive (My mothers fathers brother) who is 83. He has birth and death certificates of both his parents (born 1894 and 1900)and also information on their brothers and sisters and also their parents. They all lived in Northumberland and there aren't many Fenders or Lockeys in Northumberland, we also know the little villages in Northumberland that they lived in, so it has been quite easy. All I have used to find out this information are the Census. They also had really big families so it has been easy to match up each Census.

[Uncle John]

That's OK then. I traced my aunt's family in Northumberland. They were shepherds and stayed in the same place for ages, then moved to a different farm. But once you get earlier than the 1851 census you have to be careful because in 1841 they just listed people and ages (to the nearest 5 years) and didn't include anything about relationships. So it's easy to pick the wrong family.

[Christine in Herts]

Welcome to FTF, Leigh.

I'd have echoed what the others have said - indeed, I do echo it - but you have been extraordinarily fortunate in having an older relative with the documents and the memory and the willingness to share that information. It's so rare that these coincide, and there are plenty of horror stories about years of effort having to be set aside because a really convincing set of info turned out, at the last moment, to be inaccurate.

I wish you every success with your research, and I hope you get lots of pleasure out of it.

Once you get back before civil registration (1837) then you start having to think around the problem a bit. If you have a look at "Starting Out on Your Research" in the yellow banner at the top of the page (at least, it looks yellow to me!), you'll probably find a lot of what you know already, but it's also likely to give you some useful ideas for moving on from where you've got to. The sorts of things that crop up - depending on the family's economic status, as much as anything else - parish records, Wills, Settlement orders, Workhouse records, Parish Relief records, Manorial records, newspaper archives (e.g. The Times Digital Archive, to which you may have free online access through the use of your library card)... all sorts of things, but little that's so systematic as civil registration and 1841+ censuses.

Good hunting!... and has anyone warned you that this is seriously addictive?

Christine