The Nosey Genealogist

Here are some pitfalls waiting for the family history researcher when looking at Parish records that I have read about recently.

1. The handwriting can be difficult to decipher. It may vary enormously from parish to parish depending on the vicar or clerk writing it. The art of reading old handwriting is called palaeography and you may find various books available to purchase.
2. The registers are often no more than copies of the original daily memorandum book. These may have been written up once a year and so the possibility of mistakes creeping in or entries being left out becomes a real possibility.
3. Gaps in the registers or they are missing altogether.
4. Details lacking from the Parish record as there was no standard as to what should be recorded in early times.
5. Before 1733 most legal documents would be written in Latin, although surnames would not be translated into Latin.
6. Spelling of surnames may vary from the norm.
7. Children were not baptised at all, or were christened when they were older. In one of my paternal lines four or five were all baptised together on the same day!
8. Periods of non-conformity, again in my same paternal line I find several children christened in the established church and then several more in the Presbyterian chapel.
9. Illegitimacy, parentage in doubt? Make a search of the local poor law records such as Bastardy bonds.
10. A person may be mistaken and not know where they were born. The solution is to widen your search to other parishes.
11. People moved about more than many expect so be prepared to look at surrounding Parishes from the one you assume your ancestors hailed from. Following on from this is that the family may have moved into the area from a different parish. Here you should do a search of parishes on the IGI or the County Record Office for a ten mile radius. A great piece of software to help find the names of the neighbouring parishes is the Parish Locator free from this website:http://web.onetel.net.uk/~gdlawson/parfind.htm
12. The change of the calendar in 1752 may be a pitfall for you to tumble into if you are not aware of it. England and Wales adopted the Gregorian calendar in September 1752.

• 11 days were omitted - the day after 2^nd September 1752 became the 14^th September.

• The first day of the year, or Supputation of the Year became the 1^st of January.

• Prior to this in England 7 Wales, the year began on Lady Day, or the 25^th March. This would mean that the 24^th of March 1750 would be the last day of 1750 and the next day was the 25^th of March 1751, and a new year.

The Calendar Act 1750 changed this situation, so that the day after 31 December 1751 was 1 January 1752. As a consequence, 1751 was a very short year - it ran only from 25 March to 31 December.

The year had previously been broken up into quarters, still in use for some legal practices, Lady Day (25^th March), Midsummers Day (24^th June), Michaelmas Day (29^th September) and Christmas day 925^th December).

To throw even more confusion into this situation, Scotland had already changed the first day of the year to 1 January in 1600 and so 1599 was a short year there ( remember that in 1600, Scotland was a completely separate kingdom). What has to be recognised is that when King James VI of Scotland also became King James I of England in 1603, the possibilities of date confusion must have been very large indeed.

Food for thought!

Tags: Parish Registers, Pitfalls in Family history, Stumbling blocks

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 30th, 2008 at 7:19 pm and is filed under Family History Help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.