Ancestor Research

Meet the Family highlight some of their challenges when conducting Ancestor Research, on their website. There was no official registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths required in England and Wales prior to 1837 and in Scotland prior to 1855,so those records which are available are mainly from Old Parish Registers and may have errors and miss spellings, in fact partial, or non existent records can be common place. In those days very few people could read or write, so e.g. if you went to your local church to register a birth, often the “scribe” would spell the surname phonetically (his way!!) Hence one of the reasons why the spelling of names changed over the years. For this reason, before they undertake any research for their, they will always tell them if they think either the research would take too long, or the further back we go, the more elusive the records will become.