Sometimes you may have valuable evidence about your ancestors buried away in a shoebox – there are useful tools available for interpreting them
How to
How to
Most families have treasures tucked away in a drawer or a box in the attic that can provide useful clues to further your family tree research. Anything that might contain details or even passing references to names and places could potentially confirm something you’ve found in another source, or give you a new lead to follow.
Photographs are perhaps the most common heirlooms, but if nobody took the trouble to write details of the subjects on the back, they may offer only more mysteries. However, as our step-by-step guide below shows, it’s surprising what you might be able to learn from powerful online tools such as those at TheGenealogist.
Any handwritten documents can offer a goldmine of information – letters, diaries and postcards can all give information about what yourancestors were doing, when and with whom – see our article starting on page 92 for more on how these documents can help locate your ancestors or follow family moves.
Many families may have military memorabilia in the cupboard, too – service records are an obvious help, but artefacts such as medals or regimental insignia can help make connections with records available online or at The National Archives.
There are many other possibilities – newspaper cuttings or sporting memorabilia might tell a family story, and even documents without any personal details, such as old travel tickets, recipes (see page 138) or period handbills and advertisements can all bring new light to aspects of your forebears’ lives.
What can you discover from just a single photograph?
1 Let’s say all we have is a photo
with a name and a probable trade
of baker (see below). Log in at
www.thegenealogist.co.uk and start
with the 1911 census, entering J* as a
wildcard forename search, Alston as
surname and ‘baker’ as a keyword.
2 We discover the record of James
Malet Alston, a baker born in Essex
but now living on the Hertfordshire/
Cambridgeshire border. One click takes
us through to a high resolution copy of
the original document, complete with
the householder’s original handwriting.
3 The 1911 census revealed James was
a widower, living with his children,
a servant and some boarders. Now we
can go back to the 1901 census, where
he is listed as a baker and breadmaker,
married to Louisa.
4 Using the marriage search icon at
TheGenealogist, we can now look
for a copy of the marriage record for the
couple. This provides the references for
ordering a copy of the certificate from
the General Register Office
5 Searching the death records at
TheGenealogist, we find Louisa
sadly died in 1901. Further searches of
parish and death records at the site
actually show James’ second wife,
Minnie, also died in 1908.
6 We can also trace James’s family
back to his great-grandfather, an
agricultural labourer listed in the 1841
census. And more information on the
family’s businesses can be found in trade
directories, again at TheGenealogist.
Here is James’s grandfather listed in
1878. All this from one picture!
In Focus: Family Heirlooms
Many different types of document or artefact can yield clues about family history
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It was very common in the late 19th century for traders to be
photographed with the tools of their trade or outside their
premises. See the step-by-step guide below to find out just how
much can be learned from only a name and a trade with careful
use of online resources at TheGenealogist
A page from the diary of
Anthony Evans, a Victorian
bank clerk who lived in
Bloomsbury, London.
This page comes from
September 1938 and relates
to a month’s holiday he took
by train to Liverpool and
North Wales – this sort of
information is invaluable to
family historians. Luke Mouland
Many families had a
tradition of writing the
names of members in
a large family bible –
always remember to
check details with other
sources, though
Medals can link
to paper records,
although some are
easier to follow
up than others.
The Queen’s
South Africa
Medal, shown
here, relates to the
Second Boer War
and is particularly
helpful: there are
more than 20
different clasps
for different
campaigns, and the
recipient’s name,
rank and number
are inscribed Jim Linwood
