FAMILY TREE MAIDEN NAMES IRISH RECORDS NEWSPAPERS CRIME PARISH PERSI HOW TO GET THE BEST FROM Findmypast has an incredible amount to offer your family history research. From exclusive record collections to advanced search and family tree tools, everything you need is at your fingertips. In this free guide, we ll give you all the hints and tricks you need to become a pro at using our resources.
BUILDING YOUR FAMILY TREE GET STARTED Building your first family tree couldn t be simpler. Visit our free family tree builder on the site and begin by adding information about yourself. From there, grow the branches of your tree by adding your parents and grandparents details. HINTS As soon as you add or amend a relative in your tree, you ll notice small orange bubbles popping up beside them. These are our intuitive hints, which search our collections for records matching the details on your tree. You can then accept or reject these hints. TREE STORED ELSEWHERE? You can easily upload your existing tree to Findmypast from other online or offline sources. Most family tree software allows you to export your tree to a GEDCOM file which you can then import directly to Findmypast. MULTIPLE VIEWS You can view your Findmypast family tree in different ways. To view several generations at once, use the Pedigree view. To see a complete list of relatives on the tree, select the People view. Each ancestor also has a profile containing all the information unique to them. KINSHIP CALCULATOR This nifty feature allows you to decipher the relationship between two members of your family tree with the click of a button. Go to an ancestor s profile, click Kinship calculator and select who to pair them with to work out how the two are related. MULTIMEDIA You can add photographs, documents and even voice recordings to the profile of any member of your family tree by uploading it through the Media tab. You can also print the part of your tree you are viewing at any given time.
USING MAIDEN NAMES MARRIAGE RECORDS An obvious place to start, but marriage records contain maiden names. If you find a record without a maiden name, check the witness names, as one may be a close relative. If you still have no luck, try their children s marriage records, they ll often include mother s maiden name. CEMETERY AND BURIAL RECORDS You may find details of parents names on a tombstone inscription, and often a burial record will include full names of both parents. CENSUSES Census records can yield clues when you don t know a maiden name. Older relatives would sometimes move in with their younger family members, so perhaps a maternal uncle or grandparent can be found living with your relative and with their maiden name on record. NEWSPAPERS Local newspapers are a maiden name goldmine. Obituaries will usually contain maiden names, and you can search for marriage notices by your male ancestor s name and discover the maiden name of his new bride. MILITARY RECORDS Even if your ancestor didn t serve, her maiden name may be on pension records of husbands or sons who died while in the military, so search for spouses and children. In addition, marriage certificates or affidavits are also sometimes included in military records, presenting another opportunity. LAND RECORDS Deeds are often passed to the widowed wife when a husband who owns land dies. Look for the Latin et ux, which means and wife.
TRACING YOUR IRISH ANCESTORS CENSUS & LAND RECORDS The 1901 and 1911 censuses of Ireland survive in full and are searchable on Findmypast. Unfortunately, almost all 19th century Irish census records were destroyed with only fragments surviving. To fill this gap, there are several substitute records you can search. BIRTHS, MARRIAGES AND DEATHS Findmypast has over 21 million Irish birth, marriage and death records 1845-1958. These will reveal details of the most momentous events in your Irish ancestors lives. As well as that, you can explore over 10 million Catholic parish registers which cover the entire island. NEWSPAPERS There are over 130 historic Irish newspapers on Findmypast. They cover every county in Ireland and include local, regional and national publications. Our Irish newspapers allow you to give context to the world your ancestor lived in and discover details you won t find anywhere else. COURT & PRISON REGISTERS Delve into over 20 million detailed Irish inistitutional records. Included are our ever-popular Irish Petty Sessions Court Registers which detail the minor crimes committed by your ancestors. And if they served hard time, you might find them in our Irish Prison Registers. MILITARY COLLECTIONS Ireland s tumultuous history is documented through unique records on Findmypast. From World War 1 to the Easter Rising, if your Irish family were caught up in conflict or served in the armed forces, we have all the resources you need to find them. WHERE ELSE TO LOOK? Millions of Irish people emigrated far and wide throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. If you can t find who you re looking for in our Irish records, check our international collections as well as our extensive travel and migration resources.
EXPLORING HISTORIC NEWSPAPERS START SEARCHING Simply look for the name of whomever you hope to find something on. If you know the area your ancestor used to call home, add that to your search too. Local newspapers used to report on everything from crimes and bar brawls to marriages and community events. NARROW DOWN More than 120 million newspaper pages are searchable on Findmypast, so adding specific information e.g. do you know your ancestor s profession? and filtering the results will help you find what you re looking for. LEARN THE LINGO Sometimes, you will need to search using language of the time. For example, if you were looking for a suicide you might also need to consider the euphemisms of the day, such as did away with himself. ACCOUNT FOR ERRORS To allow for human error during the digistiztation process or a mistake by the journalist who wrote the news article, try alternative name spellings and wildcard searches (replacing a letter you are unsure of with *) SAVE A SCAN Download PDF versions of any pages you want to keep. You can even add clippings to your family tree on Findmypast, bringing it to life and ensuring an extension to your ancestor s five minutes of fame.
ANCESTORS IN CRIME RECORDS CRIME, PRISONS & PUNISHMENT Only available online at Findmypast, the National Archives Crime, Prisons and Punishment Collection contains over 5 million crime records from England and Wales, 1770-1935. From prison calendars to convict hulk ships, the level of detail you ll uncover about your ancestors in these records is amazing. MUGSHOTS Some of our crime records contain original mugshots from the time of your ancestor s arrest an exciting find for any family historian. When searching the Crime, Prisons and Punishment Collection, focus on the MEPO 6, PCOM 2 and PCOM 4 series which all include photographs. ALIASES If there is a name in your family tree that doesn t seem to fit, perhaps it s a black sheep with a double identity? Habitual criminals often had several aliases so watch out for forename and surname swaps as well as the use of their mother s maiden name. WAYWARD WOMEN A number of our Crime, Prison and Punishment records relate to women who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. In Victorian England, for example, almost 20% of prisoners were female. This collection may be a surprising place to discover more about female ancestors. NEWSPAPERS Our collection of historic newspapers makes for a great research companion to our crime records. If you discover an ancestor in our crime records, be sure to search the newspapers for additional details. Arrests, court appearances and sentences would have all been covered in the local press. LAWBREAKERS ABROAD Findmypast s international records include some fascinating collections for tracing your criminal ancestors. There are over 20 million Irish court and prison records to explore, as well as extensive crime, convict and transportation resources from Australia.
USING PARISH RECORDS IDENTIFY THE PARISH There are nearly 12,000 parishes in the UK, so be sure to learn everything you can about the area your ancestors lived in. Was it a parish in its own right or a township or hamlet in another parish? SEARCH BY FATHER S LAST NAME AND MOTHER S MAIDEN NAME Search baptisms by father s last name and mother s maiden last name to uncover records for all children born as a result of a particular marriage. SEARCH FOR TWO PEOPLE AT ONCE Include the name of your ancestor s spouse when searching for a marriage record. You can search by spouse s first name or maiden name and this will significantly narrow down your results. IF YOU CAN T SEARCH, BROWSE A number of collections give you option to browse through registers in their entirety. This can come in handy if the record you re searching for has been mis-transcribed, is missing pages or is too faint/damaged to be easily read. USE WILDCARDS A wildcard is denoted by a * and allows you to search for variations in spelling. You can use them anywhere in the first, middle or surname fields (but either the first or last name must have at least three initial characters).
USING PERSI FINDING PERSI To locate PERSI, click search at the top of the Findmypast homepage, then newspapers and periodicals. Then, on the left of the screen, select PERiodical source index. Alternatively, just visit findmypast.com/persi UNDERSTAND HOW PERSI IS INDEXED PERSI is indexed by subject, not name. Searching for an ancestor directly will only work if an article about them exists within PERSI. Use the where and optional keywords boxes to add locations and keywords that could help to find your family, such as the industry in which they may have worked. FILTER YOUR SEARCH The Findmypast PERSI search has powerful filters that can help you get results. Under narrow your search results, you can choose categories to filter. Take publisher as an example, here you can check one or more publishers, narrowing your search and telling you how many articles are available in that area. NAVIGATING PERSI In your results, you may see a camera icon to the right of the screen. Click that to be taken to the image of the periodical. When you land on a digitized periodical, you ll be taken to the front page. Click the right arrow and flip the page until you reach the content page, then navigate your way from there. CHECK YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY When you click through to the transcript of your result, you ll see repositories towards the bottom of the screen. This is a list of the libraries that hold that publication. Here, you can find out if any are near you.