The new GRO indexes are causing me problems!

[Elizabeth Herts]

Webwiz, what problems have the GRO indexes thrown up?
Post your questions and we will try to help you.

Did the birth registration I found help you?

[Darksecretz]

The new GRO indexes have thrown the cat amongst the pigeons as far as I am concerned. I have already identified someone whose mother's maiden name does not match where I have him. Either his father remarried or I have put him in the wrong family. I have not done much with deaths yet but I fully expect the new age at death on early records will reveal similar errors.

So my quandry is how much checking of existing records should I do? I have 4700 records in my tree and a substantial number of births, possibly a majority, prior to 1911, plus quite a lot of deaths that now have age at death.

Checking all of them will be a massive job and will require careful record keeping of what has been checked. The severe restrictions on searching make it more difficult. Since these restrictions appear (to me) to have no useful purpose I wonder if they will be removed eventually which would make the job easier, and provides me with an excuse to prevaricate.

What are your plans?

Guess it depends how thorough you want to be, if you use something like FTM can you not add something in 'notes' or 'tasks'?

my research has been sporadic over the last few years, but this new index is helping to add missing bits of info.

[Katarzyna]

The new GRO indexes have thrown the cat amongst the pigeons as far as I am concerned. I have already identified someone whose mother's maiden name does not match where I have him. Either his father remarried or I have put him in the wrong family. I have not done much with deaths yet but I fully expect the new age at death on early records will reveal similar errors.

So my quandry is how much checking of existing records should I do? I have 4700 records in my tree and a substantial number of births, possibly a majority, prior to 1911, plus quite a lot of deaths that now have age at death.

Checking all of them will be a massive job and will require careful record keeping of what has been checked. The severe restrictions on searching make it more difficult. Since these restrictions appear (to me) to have no useful purpose I wonder if they will be removed eventually which would make the job easier, and provides me with an excuse to prevaricate.

What are your plans?

I think the only thing you can do is start at yourself and check each ancestor one by one. As you say with over 4,000 on your tree it's going to take a long time. I would just start with your direct ancestors and if a spouse is found to be wrong eg MMN is incorrect you would need to delete the whole twig and start again. Buying certs is the only way to go I'm afraid. As I said up thread, this is an expensive hobby and has no end of pitfalls. But take heart, if you need any help just shout out.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Before the advent of the internet I made several major errors in my tree, partly through assumption but mostly because I did not have the bigger picture. Having the certificates didn't help prevent these errors because my ancestors delighted in having parallel families, usually two cousins with same name, occupation, wives and children!

It was only when the internet came along that I was able to spot from census records that I had identified the wrong Edward and Ellen as my ancestors. The Edward and Ellen on the marriage cert I had were at a different address on the census than the Edward and Ellen at another address on the same census who I knew from other resources were my 2 x ggps. Many years of wasted research (and money).

SoG say that at least three pieces of evidence for each event or fact should be sought. Certificates are certainly important even vital evidence but you cannot rely on them alone. As tedious and expensive as it is, you have to get certs AND other supporting evidence, otherwise all you have is a sketch tree.

OC

[Vicky the Viking]

Before the advent of the internet I made several major errors in my tree, partly through assumption but mostly because I did not have the bigger picture. Having the certificates didn't help prevent these errors because my ancestors delighted in having parallel families, usually two cousins with same name, occupation, wives and children!

It was only when the internet came along that I was able to spot from census records that I had identified the wrong Edward and Ellen as my ancestors. The Edward and Ellen on the marriage cert I had were at a different address on the census than the Edward and Ellen at another address on the same census who I knew from other resources were my 2 x ggps. Many years of wasted research (and money).

SoG say that at least three pieces of evidence for each event or fact should be sought. Certificates are certainly important even vital evidence but you cannot rely on them alone. As tedious and expensive as it is, you have to get certs AND other supporting evidence, otherwise all you have is a sketch tree.

OC

wise words

I think I have been pretty good with my proofs, but I have been guilty over the years of not citing my sources. My FH research started in the first place after I found a bare tree amongst my father's papers after he died, and I had to start from scratch as there were no sources quoted on it. You'd think I would learn from that, no?

I did the Futurelearn genealogy course a few months ago, and that kick-started me back into the hunt. I went back to the start & filled in all my sources, and revisited some censuses to check I hadn't missed anything obvious. I have started to write down all the evidence I have for certain links/relationships and of course I'm now a lot more careful about documenting everything. Its going to take time to check everything, but I'm sure it will be rewarding when I know all my tree is valid. (Well, as reliable as it can be given the number of non-paternity events that may have been covered up!)

There is much more information online now so I have been able to fill in a few gaps. So far I haven't come across any major errors, but that's probably only a matter of time. So many John Fosters in Somerset, and my link into the ones that are named in land leases is so far based almost entirely on the name of one grandson...