Michael Kitchen

Ask 100 people to name their favourite TV detective and I would wager a bet that, somewhere among the votes for Sherlock Holmes, Morse, Lewis, Frost, Barnaby, Wycliffe and their ilk, a sizeable number would plump for Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle. The superb drama series ‘Foyle’s War’, which has been on our screens for over a decade now, has built a regular audience of over six million viewers, not least because of the intelligent scripts by writer Anthony Horowitz, the setting of the programme in wartime Hastings and also the fact that no series has ever lasted beyond four episodes – the most recent series, which saw Foyle joining MI5, only ran to three – leaving fans yearning for more.

However, beyond any doubt whatsoever, the success of the programme is principally due to the almost hypnotic performance of its star, Michael Kitchen, the actor who plays Christopher Foyle. Foyle’s character – moral, courteous, soft-spoken, patient, scrupulously honest and yet determinedly tenacious in his pursuit of criminals – is brilliantly interpreted by Kitchen, who dominates every scene he’s in. So, it was with enthusiasm that I set out to research his family history.

I wish I could report that I found in his ancestry a real mystery worthy of DCS Foyle’s investigative talents – but, sadly, no! Despite the relative commonness of the surname, I was able to trace Michael Kitchen’s direct paternal line fairly quickly back to his great-great-great-grandparents in Lincolnshire about 1800. His forebears were – probably like Foyle’s – working class artisans and tradesmen. I did come across one minor puzzle which I was able to solve with some assiduous detective work, of which more later.I knew from online biographies and from the General Register Office’s birth indexes that he was born in 1948 in Leicester and registered as Michael R. Kitchen. It came as a slight surprise to learn from his birth certificate that his middle name is Roy – probably the only thing we have in common!

He was born in Leicester General Hospital on 31 October 1948, his father being Arthur Ernest Kitchen, a pork butcher’s assistant, and his mother Elsie Betty Kitchen, formerly Allen, both of 102 Wilberforce Road, Leicester.  His parents’ marriage certificate showed they were married at the Church of the Martyrs, Leicester – an Anglican parish church founded relatively late in 1890 – on 10 April 1948. Arthur Ernest Kitchen was 27 and a pork butcher, his father being Thomas Henry Kitchen, with no occupation stated. Elsie Betty Allen, 21, was a hairdresser and her father was shown as Roy Cecil Allen, hosiery operator. Possibly Michael Kitchen’s middle name came from his maternal grandfather. Arthur Ernest Kitchen was born on 17 January 1921 at 18 Wand Street, Leicester, a street of terraced houses not far from the city centre. His father, Thomas Henry Kitchen, was described on the birth certificate as a ‘Hotel Barman, Ex Army’ while his mother was Annie Elizabeth Kitchen, formerly Johnson. Arthur Kitchen, Michael Kitchen’s father, died at Leicester in 2002, aged 80.

The Kitchen family in 1911

Further research showed that Arthur was a latecomer to the family, considerably younger than his siblings, for Thomas Henry Kitchen and Annie Elizabeth Johnson were married at Leicester in the April-June quarter of 1901. By the census of 1911 they had three children and were then living at 18 Wand Street, North West Leicester, where Arthur was born some 10 years later. In 1911 Thomas Henry was aged 32, a hotel cellarman, and his birth place was given as Grantham, Lincolnshire. His wife Annie Elizabeth was 31, a hosiery machinist, born at Leicester. Their children were William Kitchen, 6, Annie Elizabeth, 4, and Edith May 3. There was, thus, a long gap before Arthur came along – not entirely unusual.

Michael Kitchen’s grandfather, Thomas Henry, was found in Leicester in the 1901 census as a single man, living with his parents and half-a-dozen siblings. The family were at 26 Martin Street, Leicester. Head of the household was William Kitchen, aged 51, a plasterer, and his wife was Elizabeth Kitchen, 44, both having been born at Welby, Lincolnshire. It was apparent from the pattern of the children’s birth places that the family must have moved around a bit before arriving in Leicester. The children were: Thomas Henry, 22, plasterer’s labourer, born Grantham, Lincolnshire; William, 14, tailor’s presser, born at Nottingham; Annie S, 12, errand girl; Ada, 10; Arthur E, 6; Edith M, 4; Agnes K, 1 – the five youngest all being

Thomas Henry Kitchen in the 1901 census

born in Leicester. I had to take care when checking the censuses, for there is also a place in Leicestershire called Welby – but it was clear that it was the Lincolnshire Welby, about four miles north-east of Grantham, that was the original home of the Kitchens. In 1891 William and his family were living at the same address as in 1901, 26 Martin Street, Leicester but in this census the surname was spelt KITCHIN. The details of names and birth places were very similar to those given in 1901 but, of course, the ages were 10 years lower and there were only four children, the three youngest having not yet been born.

Next, I looked at the census of 1881 and found William and Elizabeth Kitchen, with son Thomas Henry, not in Leicester but in Grantham, Lincolnshire. It then became clear that William and Elizabeth must have moved to Leicester at some time between the censuses of 1881 and 1891. We can pin it down even more precisely because the 1891 census shows that their son William was born at Nottingham about 1887 and his younger sister Anne was born in Leicester about 1889. In 1881 William and Elizabeth Kitchen were found at 40 Spring Gardens, Spittlegate, Grantham. This couple were the great-grandparents of the actor Michael Kitchen and in 1881 they only had the one child, Thomas Henry, then aged two. The GRO marriage indexes reveal that William Kitchen and Elizabeth Storer were married at Grantham registration district in the January-March quarter of 1877.

William Kitchen in 1861

To trace the ancestry farther back, I went to the censuses of 1871 and 1861. In 1871 William Kitchen was a visitor in the household of a family called Millhouse at Elton Street, Spittlegate, Grantham. He was then aged 21 and a plasterer, born at Welby, Lincolnshire. Ten years earlier in 1861 William was with his parents and four siblings in the village of Welby, Lincolnshire, a few miles north-east of Grantham. The address was shown as 9, Private House, Welby Pasture, Welby.

Richard Kitchen, William’s father, was an agricultural labourer, aged 52, and his wife Elizabeth was 43. Their children were: Thomas, 12, agricultural labourer; William, 11, agricultural labourer; Joseph 7; Richard 3; and Emma 1. The whole family were shown in the census as being born at Welby. Now we go back another 10 years to the census of 1851 when the Kitchen family were also in Welby. No address was given other than the village.

Richard & Ann Kitchen in 1841

Richard Kitchen was aged 41 and a farm labourer, while wife Elizabeth was 32. They had six children: Ann 12, John 9, James 7, Mary 5, Thomas 3 and William 1. Adding the three younger ones who appear in the 1861 census, plus another born in 1864, indicates that Richard and Elizabeth Kitchen had at least 10 children. I also found Richard and Elizabeth – Michael Kitchen’s great-great-grandparents – in the 1841 census. They were in Welby and had just the one child, Ann, who was aged two. Also in the household was another Ann Kitchen, aged 70, and, while relationships were not given in 1841, it seems likely that this was Richard’s mother.

A somewhat sad fact emerged when I discovered from the 1871 census that Elizabeth Kitchen was by then a widow, Richard having died and been buried at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Welby, on 10 April 1864, aged 55. This I learned from the parish records collection on the Findmypast website. His death at that time was particularly poignant for, according to the 1871 census entry for Elizabeth Kitchen her youngest child, Sarah J Kitchen, was six years old – so she must have been born around the same time that her father died. Indeed, the death record for Richard Kitchen and the birth of Sarah Jane Kitchen appear in the same April-June quarter of 1864 at Grantham registration district. Elizabeth was then aged 53 and had three other children with her: Joseph, 16, Richard, 13, and Emma, 11.

I mentioned near the beginning of this blog that I was able to solve one problem in the ancestry of Michael Kitchen and this concerned Richard and Elizabeth Kitchen, his great-great-grandparents. It appeared from the 1841 census that they were married by then – though precise relationships are not given in that census – but despite intensive online searching, I was unable to find a marriage, either in the period immediately after civil registration came in on 1 July 1837 or in parish registers before that date.

Then I had a brainwave! I tracked down the church warden of St. Bartholomew’s parish church, Welby, a very kind gentleman called Colonel John Riggall to whom I am extremely grateful, and he popped into the church to look at the marriage register for me. It transpired that the register began in September 1837 and is one of those rare older ones still in use today. There, only the fourth marriage in the book, was the union of Richard Kitchen, bachelor of full age, a labourer, and Elizabeth Exton, a minor of unstated age, on 18 December 1837. Richard’s father was shown as William Kitchen, also a labourer, and Elizabeth’s father was James Exton, publican. Armed with this information, I was able to solve the mystery of why the marriage doesn’t appear in the GRO marriage indexes online. In fact, the names of Richard Kitchen and Elizabeth Exton do both appear in the indexes in the same October-December quarter of 1837 – but the volume number given for Grantham registration district against Richard Kitchen’s name is wrong and therefore the entries don’t match up! The volume number for Grantham at the date in question was 14, whereas in the indexes against the name of Richard Kitchen it is shown as 24. It may be that the page number is wrong, too, for in one of the entries, for Richard Kitchen is shown as being on page 511 and Elizabeth Exton on page 611. These occasional errors in the GRO indexes are familiar to experienced genealogists but may well prove a trap for novice family historians.

I hope Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle would think I have been diligent in my research and followed his meticulous example in tracking down his ancestors, even solving a small mystery along the way!

Roy Stockdill

Roy Stockdill has been a family historian for almost 40 years. A former national newspaper journalist, he edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He writes regularly for Family Tree magazine.

Ray Woodward-Clarke sent us his photo and asked:

‘This family group photograph was taken in Brownhills, Staffordshire – a mining community. I would like to know approximately when it was taken, please.’

Jayne says:

Click to enlarge

Everyone is dressed up here for the photograph, wearing their ‘Sunday best’ clothing – decent outfits kept for church and other occasions demanding a smart appearance. Although there are few adult males here, I am assuming from the location that they would have been miners, so the men and older boys in the middle and towards the back here would have looked very different when working in the mines. Most of them are wearing respectable hats, the boys the peaked ‘kepi’ style caps popular before the cloth cap became established around the turn of the century, while the man in the centre wears a bowler hat, the tall crown of which confirms a late-19th century date.

Three or, probably, four generations are pictured here, from infants to elderly matrons, and are all dressed according to their age. It is interesting, for example, to see how the two older ladies in the group are wearing their woollen shawls: young women would not have worn these homely, traditional accessories for a special photograph at this time, although they may well have worn them for everyday work wear, with aprons over their dresses.

In a mixed group like this, it is the appearance of the younger women that provides the most accurate dating clues, as even our ordinary working ancestors often followed fashion closely when aged in their late ‘teens’ and early 20s. The most fashionable females here are the two young women on the right, one standing, one seated. Their dark cloth bodice and skirt outfits both feature sleeves that are slightly puffed at the shoulder: this signifies the early phase of the puffed ‘leg-o-mutton’ sleeves that came to dominate the 1890s. Usually this small vertical puff would indicate a year of c.1890-92. I doubt that these women are very far behind the times, despite being from a labouring background, but we might add a couple of years in case, so I would suggest a date range of c.1890-94 for this scene.

Jayne Shrimpton

Clearly this photograph was taken to mark a particular occasion, although we can only really guess at what that may have been. An important family celebration such as a wedding or christening is not evident here, so perhaps the occasion was a landmark birthday – or just possibly a work-related event that involved more than one family. The semi-formal bowler hat that one of the men wears almost certainly marks him out as the senior or most important member of the group and he does seem to occupy a prominent position here. He also holds a large book: I wonder if this was a family bible, or another kind of volume that was connected in some way with this scene. Hopefully the close timeframe for this fascinating photograph may give you some idea of which of your ancestors are pictured and what may have been happening.’

If you’d like to send your photo to Jayne Shrimpton, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Jayne only has time to analyse two photos each month, but if yours wasn’t chosen this time, you could be lucky next month!

Elizabeth Cargill sent us her photo and asked:

‘I am hoping that you will be able to date this photo for me. My cousin was born in 1884 and I believe she was a governess. I have tried to research the company but haven’t found very much. Thanks for your help.’

Click to enlarge

Jayne says:

‘This is a professional studio photograph dating from the early 20th century. As the old carte de visite and cabinet card formats began to die out during the Edwardian era, new types of portrait photograph became fashionable. One popular style was the photograph presented in a cartouche-like frame on a pale or soft-coloured mount, as we see here.

The so-called USA Studios, whose name does not represent a transatlantic business or location, but reflects the growing British interest in American culture in the early-1900s, used this format frequently, although they were equally well-known for their postcard photographs, then also coming into vogue. I have been unable to discover precise operational dates online for the USA Studios, but they were a prolific photographic chain operating from London and many different towns around the time this photograph was taken. If you wish to discover dates for individual USA Studios branches, this information can be requested from the photographic website which provides photographer data for a small fee.

Turning to the image, we see a well-dressed young woman wearing the fashions of the late-Edwardian era. Her smart ‘tailor-made’ suit – the popular term for a plain tailored skirt and matching jacket – was a stylish and respectable yet relatively practical outfit. Many Edwardian women favoured this for everyday wear when out in public, for work and even for some special occasions. An attractive blouse, like the high-necked blouse worn here, and an eye-catching hat added a formal, feminine touch and completed the ensemble.

The hat adopted here – sometimes referred to as the ‘gateau’ style due to the wide crown, which is almost as broad as the brim – offers a great dating clue, as this shape can be dated broadly to c.1907-1912. It was most fashionable during the years 1908-11. Fitting on top of a full hairstyle, such hats had to be secured by hat pins and a pin is visible here. Unusually, perhaps, this lady also wears rather chunky woollen, suede or fur mittens – slightly less elegant than the leather gloves often seen in studio photographs.

Jayne Shrimpton

You mention that this relative is believed to be a cousin born in 1884 and this seems to be a plausible identification. She would have been aged between around 24 and 28 at the time of this photograph – the kind of age that we might estimate this young woman to be. Her dress and general appearance does not indicate any particular occupation or profession, although looking at her confident pose and direct gaze, it is quite possible to imagine her as a governess. Perhaps she visited the photographer on this occasion to commemorate the start of a new job.’

If you’d like to send your photo to Jayne Shrimpton, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Jayne only has time to analyse two photos each month, but if yours wasn’t chosen this time, you could be lucky next month!

From Val Dunne:

‘The 1871 census shows my great-grandfather, aged 10, as a pauper, living in a house in Everton with his sister, aged 16, a servant, and the head of the house who was no relation. I am unable to find birth certificates for both brother and sister. If they were born in a workhouse, would they be on the national register of births?’

Stephen says:

‘Hi Val,

The short answer to your question is ‘yes’. The indexes to the civil registers of birth should be complete from July 1837 to date. A longer answer is ‘yes in theory, but not necessarily in practice’. Despite the threat of fines, registration was not made completely mandatory until 1875. Before that date, there was under-registration, due to a variety of factors: lack of awareness of the requirement, indifference, wariness of authority, non-compliance and transient family lifestyle, for example.

In addition to this, there is an inevitable small-percentage loss of actually recorded events due to clerical error, e.g., when copying an entry from the original district register of births into the quarterly copy prepared for the General Register Office, or accidentally turning two pages instead of one and missing out an entire spread of entries, or perhaps loss of entire registers in transit between the district level and the central office. There are also more contemporary hazards – for example, pages inadvertently not microfilmed and, therefore, not digitised for the online versions with which most of us are familiar these days, and entries that transcribers have mis-indexed (although this is unlikely to apply in your case, with your two missing entries).

Estimates of under-registration of birth vary, and perhaps can be exaggerated – the level will always be uncertain and unknowable. Even if the level never topped, say, 7%, this would still represent a lot of missing births (and potential genealogical brick walls!). In the very earliest years, to maybe the mid-1840s, one can see from comparing the civil registers with parish registers that some entries in the latter do not appear in the former. The reverse is also true of course, because the parish registers of the established church by their very nature exclude Catholics, Non-Conformists, Jews and others.

For certain districts, one sometimes also notices an unusually high number of entries indexed as ‘male’ or ‘female’ in the civil births (i.e. unnamed at registration) which bear names in the parish registers (i.e. because the child is baptised and christened). Don’t forget to consider these, just in case (they don’t necessarily denote an infant death).

Your great-grandfather would have been born circa 1860/61, by which time one would expect levels of under-recording to have fallen, although clearly not sufficiently for the state, as of course it acted to make registration compulsory from 1875. Moreover, one would definitely expect workhouse births to have been registered. Separate workhouse birth registers existed, at least for some institutions, and one would assume that these were copied to the central authorities in the normal way.

It is also worth remarking that while some families were born into poverty and never escaped it, others could fall upon hard times with alarming speed – in the mid-19th century there was no real equivalent of the modern welfare state. Just because your great-grandfather was a pauper in 1871, therefore, it doesn’t mean that he would have been born into poverty circa 1860/61.

There are other reasons why you might not be able to find his birth – you don’t give any specifics, so I can only speculate, but here are some possibilities: he may have been born outwith England & Wales (e.g., Ireland, or Isle of Man); he may have been registered under a variant of his name; he may have been born illegitimately and his birth registered under his mother’s name; or he may have been born legitimately, lost his father to premature death and taken the surname of a step-father after a remarriage of his mother; or he may have been informally fostered and taken the name of the family in whose care he was placed. Note that each of these possibilities could equally apply to the sister that you mentioned.’

If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!

From Hilary Hillier:

‘I am having difficulty finding the birth record of my great-grandmother Lily Mary Bruce. Her name has been spelt various ways and I have a copy of her marriage certificate for 25 December 1875 in the parish of St Luke, Kentish Town in the county of Middlesex. On this certificate my great-grandmother’s name was spelt ‘Lillie Mary’ when she married Henry Thomas Hill and her age is stated as ‘full’. Her father is Edward Ernest Bruce.

I have found Lily’s residence in the 1901 census when her age is stated to be 48 years and her birth place Scotland. Her address at this time is the parish of Clapham, borough of Battersea. I also have found Lily in the 1911 census aged 59 years in the registration district of Wandsworth.

Her name on both censuses is spelt as ‘Lily Mary Hill’ with birthplace as Edinburgh, Scotland. I have spent many hours searching birth records in Scotland and the UK using Lillie Mary Bruce, and Lily Mary Bruce and even Mary Bruce, with no success.

I did find a Mary Bruce in 1851 Scotland census, however, aged 0 with birthplace as Edinburgh in the county of Fife. This record did not give other household members, however, so I am unsure if this is my great-grandmother.

I’m hoping you can shed some light on this for me.’

Stephen says:

‘Thanks for your email about your great-grandmother. I’ve made some searches myself and can appreciate the difficulties you have experienced and can add only a little to your knowledge of the family.

Firstly, I infer from your email that you have found the family on the 1901 and 1911 censuses, but not the 1881 and 1891 censuses – as Lily married in 1875, one should expect to find those two earlier census returns too.

Here are the references for the two census returns in question:

• 1881: RG11 piece 649 folio 73 page 42
• 1891: RG12 piece 424 folio 34 page 5

You can go straight to the images in question by inputting these citations at findmypast.co.uk’s census reference search page. If you don’t already do so, I would encourage you to keep census references such as these, so you can return to the images easily in future.

In 1891, the surname has seemingly been written as ‘Nill’ but it is clearly the same Hill family – perhaps the enumerator had trouble reading the original householder’s return that he used when compiling his returns, or perhaps what appears to be an N is simply a hastily and badly written H.

In both years, the family was residing in Battersea. Both returns agree with the age data from the 1901 and 1911 censuses, i.e., indicating that Lily was born circa 1851-53 in Scotland. The description ‘full age’ at her marriage in 1875 means she was at least 21 years old and, therefore, born before 1854.

What is interesting about the 1881 census is that your great-grandmother’s name is given not as Lily but as Elizabeth. It is not commonly known that Lily is a hypocoristic, or familiar form, of Elizabeth – and, by the way, Isabella is also a cognate of Elizabeth. This means you should consider not just Lily and its multiple variations, but also Elizabeth and its own body of diminutives and variants.

The other comment I would make is that Edward Ernest Bruce does not sound like a typically Scottish combination of names – to me, the forenames shout out that he was English, or of English parentage, which is not necessarily the same thing. Perhaps the family was from the north-east, or had Scottish connections, and your great-grandmother resided only temporarily in Scotland (or not at all, but thought she was, or liked to think she was), and was not born there.

Remember that all information on census returns is based upon that provided by the individuals concerned, and accepted and recorded in good faith by the census enumerators – evidence was never part of the system. This means that much mistaken information is embedded in every census return – in the case of place of birth, people might not know where they were born, or may have forgotten, or simply given the nearest recognisable place rather than the fine detail.

Unfortunately, however, this doesn’t seem to open up as many leads as one might hope – I have checked on both findmypast.co.uk and ScotlandsPeople and not found obvious references to your great-grandmother in the 1871 or 1861 censuses for England or Scotland, nor in birth indexes for England or baptisms for Scotland (civil registration in Scotland did not commence until 1855, after she was born).

On ScotlandsPeople it is possible to search for baptisms by name of father, and this shows only one Edward Bruce having children in Scotland in the 1840s and up to 1854 – he appears to have been Edward Wilson Bruce, a hatter from Newcastle upon Tyne who married in Edinburgh in 1837. He had a number of daughters but not, unfortunately, an Elizabeth or Lily at around the right date. This negative outcome may also lean towards your ancestor not having been born in Scotland.

Finally, as I have mentioned in several earlier responses to questions, when you are baffled by not finding a birth/baptism at the expected date and place, you have to consider all the possible permutations – not just whether the person was born at a different location but, for example, perhaps under a different surname. Maybe she was born illegitimately and is registered under her mother’s name, or maybe she was born legitimately but lost her father at a young age and took the name of her step-father after her mother remarried.

Also, even the most casual glimpse at such records as are contained within our Crime, Prisons & Punishment 1770-1934 collection, launched in February this year, shows the astonishing variety of aliases which people used, for all sorts of reasons – including, of course, criminal ones. I’m not suggesting for one second that your great-grandmother was deeply involved in Battersea’s criminal underworld, of course! Remember, however, that the actions of parents are visited on their issue – if an ancestor changes his or her name, that name change most probably will cascade down through the generations of their descendants, and of course this is one of the major blocks which researchers will come across when researching their family trees back in time.

Good luck with your research, Hilary, and do let us know if you make any breakthroughs. Perhaps there is even a reader out there who will see this and recognise that you share a common ancestor.’

If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!

Congratulations go to Richard Carsons from Cheshire who answered correctly with ‘Joseph Turner’. Richard wins a copy of My Ancestor was a Gentleman by Stuart A Raymond.

Thanks to all of you who entered – keep an eye out for the next competition question in our April newsletter, coming your way very soon.

These records include-

• US Censuses 1790-1940
• US WW1 Draft Registration cards
• Irish WW1 memorial records
• US WW2 Army enlistment records
• Records of Germans to America 1850-1897
• Records of Italians to America 1855-1900
• New Zealand electoral rolls 1853-1935
• Irish court & prison registers 1790-1924
• Australian school pupil indexes
• New Zealand WW1 soldiers records
• Ireland Births 1864-1958
• Ireland Deaths 1864-1958
• Ireland Marriages 1845-1958
• Australian Censuses 1841-1921
• Index of Irish Wills 1484-1858
• Irish Burial Registers 1618-2005
• Australian electoral rolls 1856-1940
• Convict arrivals in New South Wales 1788-1842

Welcome and thanks for joining me on Scott’s journey through genealogy this month here on the findmypast.co.uk blog.  As you may know, each month I talk about one of the important insights I have gained during my years of working in genealogy and on my own personal family history.

This month I am going to talk a bit about documentation.  My insight is this: Document, document, document and do it right from the very beginning of your work.  Now I know this may sound dry, but it is very important to our family history and genealogy work and will pay dividends for us and for others now and well into the future.

I like to think about documentation this way:  Just imagine how easy our work would be today if someone in each generation of our ancestors had written down information on their generation and their parents and grandparents?  What if they did things like listing everywhere they lived?  How nice would it be if they had listed who the person was that each of their siblings, especially their sisters, had married?  You can think of it this way too; How often have you wished for just two minutes with a parent, grandparent, cousin, etc. to ask ‘just one question’?  If you are like me, this happens at least once a day, if not more often!

When I started to initially work on my own family history I recall that in my initial enthusiasm I failed to adequately note where I acquired certain information such as names, locations, towns, dates, etc.  It wasn’t long before I found myself having to retrace far too many steps to try and find exactly where I had discovered some specific fact.  While I thought I would always recall each ‘find’ it wasn’t long until the sheer volume made that impossible.  I began to retrace my steps from the beginning and make certain I had each item documented.  It wasted time, it made me crazy, but I knew I had to do it.  Now, each and every time I discover a new fact, document, etc. I make certain that I attach it immediately to my electronic family tree.

As I said earlier, I suggest that you begin doing this on your family tree right from the very beginning, because I’ll bet you London-to-a-brick there will be times when you need to check back on people, facts, etc.

This issue can become especially critical when, after an exhaustive search you have finally discovered an entry for an ancestor that was perhaps significantly misspelt, a very faint entry, poorly written, etc.  Without your discoveries documented, re-finding that entry at a later date could prove very difficult and a significant waste of time.  I had exactly this problem early in my work on my Phillips’ family line.  I had finally discovered Nicholas Phillips, my great, great grandfather in the 1841 census, but due to the poor quality of the original, I found it by accident when I was looking for someone else.  In my excitement, I did not copy the document and reference information onto my family tree and later, when I needed to double-check something I spent valuable time trying to rediscover this entry.  The good news is that I did find it and now it is copied to my tree.

I copy everything I encounter in my research now.  I ‘hang’ it on my family tree and figure, contrary to what Mies van der Rohe said about ‘less is more’, in the case of family history and genealogy ‘more is more’ so I now do not let anything go undocumented.

Another example that makes me crazy is the photograph you see here.  You can see that there are just about 100 folks here.  It seems evident that these folks are gathered for a special event of some kind or another.  This photo has been handed down from my cousin.  She discovered it in an old family album.  While it is truly a wonderful treasure, guess what?  Not a name on the photo!  No names, no date, not a scribble of any kind.  Now I am in the process of looking at each face and comparing them to any other family photos I have in my family tree to see if I can come up with a match and a hint.  What a pity.  For want of less than a minute of time to write the reason and perhaps the guests of honour, a lifetime of enjoyment is lost.

Some folks have told me they are put off by the formality of documentation, but my philosophy is this.  While I personally use the Chicago Manual of Style on my citations and references and recommend it, I also say, most heartily, go for it in any style you want.  Just document who (it relates to), what (it is) where (it came from), and when (it was published).

Scott with his grandsons … will one carry on?

While good documenting does help me, it will be crucial for those who follow me and want to learn from my work, add to it, and understand where they came from.  I have high hopes that someone after me will be as enthralled with family history as I am and will pick up the torch.  Who knows maybe it will be my eldest grandson who, although only a lad of nine, is expressing interest in history, family roots, and family ties.  Selfishly I want him and any others to know I was serious about this work and give them the best ‘leg up’ on their efforts as I can!

Scott Phillips is a genealogical historian and owner of Onward To Our Past® genealogy services in Indiana, US. Scott calls genealogy his ‘sweetest passion’ and his wife calls it ‘our shadow’! Scott specialises in immigrant ancestry, especially from Bohemia (Czech Republic), Cornwall, the UK and Italy. In addition to joining findmypast.co.uk as a columnist, he is a regular genealogy contributor for Huffington Post United Kingdom, GenealogyBank.com and his own website, Onward To Our Past. You can follow Scott on his Facebook page and on his website/blog

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