Tricks of the Trade

The main thing to stress here is that there really are no shortcuts in researching your family history. One way or another, you really must see the original records to make sure they are the correct ones. Just using transcriptions, indexes or other people's research is not accurate enough.

Hopefully, however, some of the tricks of the trade that we have learned over the years might help. These are in no particular order.

General Research Tips

• Always keep a note of all the material you have used in your research. Note the source references in full and the name of the library or archive. You never know when you will need to refer back to it.
• Note the negative as well as positive findings so that you do not repeat anything unnecessarily.
• Remember that the information on birth, marriage and death records, as well as on census records, is taken at face value by the registrars. It is only as accurate as the memory of the informant. Lack of accuracy is particularly obvious with ages, but also with names of long-dead parents, for example.
• Many people were illiterate in the past and the spellling of names varied widely. It often depended on who the registrar was and where he himself was from. So, just because names are spelled differently it does not mean they are different people.
• If you are trying to find out if two people are in fact one and the same person, then consider comparing their signatures. For birth and death records, the signatures are ususally the originals. The marriage records are usually transcriptions of the original schedule and you will see the word "signed" beside the name. To see the original signatures you need to get a copy of the schedule.
• Our ancestors often, but by no means always, used a specific naming pattern for their children. The first son was named after his paternal grandfather and the first daughter after her maternal grandmother. The second son was named after his maternal grandfather and the second daughter after her paternal grandmother. Knowing this can be a help, but is by no means foolproof.

Birth Certificates

• With the exception of the years 1856-1860, the date and place of the parents' marriage is usually given on a birth certificate. This is true, even if the marriage was outside Scotland. This can be a great help in tracing back the family.

Marriage Certificates

• Always note the names of the informants on a marriage certificate. They can often be members of the bride or groom's family.
• Don't be surprised if your ancestors had an irregular marriage, this was very common in Scotland up to the 1930s when registry office weddings replaced them.
• And don't be surprised if they did not marry in Church; this only became the norm relatively recently. People often got married in a hall or at someone's house.

Death Certificates

• Always note the name of the informant on a death certificate. This will often be a relative of the deceased.
• If you are trying to trace the deaths of a husband and wife, it is usually easier to start with the wife. This is because, in Scotland, a woman keeps her maiden name, as well as her married name. Female deaths are then recorded under both names, making them far easier to trace. The wife's death certificate will usually tell you if her husband is still alive or not.
• If you are trying to narrow down the time period when someone died, you might consider checking the marriages of any of their children. These marriage certificates will tell you if their parents were deceased at the time.

Census

• If you are trying to find someone in a census that has no index and do not know where they lived, you might be able to narrow things down by checking the birth certificates of their children. If you can find a child that was born at or around the census date, this will give you the address of the parents at that time.
• Always treat ages given on the census with a pinch of salt. The worst case I have come across was in my own family where a female ancestor claimed to be 33 in the 1861 census and 39 in the 1881 census!