PDF of slides of a talk given by Else Churchill at the Lost Cousins Genealogy in the Sun event in Portugal 2015. This talks looked at useful ways to find and share family trees online and showed how to access the printed, manuscript and digital pedigrees and genealogy collections held in the Library of the Society of Genealogists

1. 19/03/2015 1
SoG Getaway
What’s Been Done Before?
Finding Pedigrees
Online and at the SoG
Else Churchill
Genealogist
Society of Genealogists

2. Hints & tips on www.sog.org.uk
2

3. Google Generation
3

4. 4

5. 5

6. Uploaded GEDCOM Pedigree files
for hot-matches and shaky leaves
6

7. 7

8. Wiki Tree
8

9. 9
Pedigrees on Ancestry
and other commercial sites

10. FamilySearch
10

11. 11

12. 12
Family Tree Searcher
trawls through a number of US sites

13. Portal Websites
13

14. “Gateway ancestor”
14

15. Surname/Place interest sites
15

16. 16

17. 17
Genuki.org –
sumarises Roots web well

18. 18

19. 19

20. • Rootsweb via GOOGLE - Churchill St Weonards
20

21. Local FHS
21

22. 22
Published Genealogies
Family History Library
Society of Genealogists

23. Family History Library
23

24. 24

25. 25
Society of Genealogists
14 Charterhouse Buildings,
Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA
www.sog.org.uk
Founded in 1911
The Library is
Britain’s premier
family history
research centre

26. 26
Why use the SoG Library?
Unique material
• Where did they live?
• What did they do?
• Who are they?
• What’s been done before?

27. 27

28. Various Ways to Search Records
Library Catalogue
SoG online data (for members)
Website surname indexes to
manuscripts

29. 29
Who are they?
Family Histories,
Document & Special Collections
• Published and Unpublished Family Histories
• Research Notes - surname
• 350 Special Collections – subject or theme
• Card Indexes
• Microforms
• Computer databases

30. First family histories
One of the first family histories
of the Berkeley family compiled
in 1620s by John Smyth of
Nibley (d 1640) using public
records and family muniments.
Republished in abstract in 1821
edited by Thomas Dudley
Posbroke (copy at SoG)

31. First Family Histories
The first published English
family history by Robert
Halstead Succinct
Genealogies of the Noble and
Ancient Houses of Alno, Broc
and Mordaunt (1685) replete
with forged charters and
fictitious pedigrees
(facsimile at SoG)

32. 32
Tell the story

33. SoG Library Catalogue on
website sog.org.uk
33

34. 34
Published FHs found through
SoGCAT

35. 260 Vols of Family History Tracts
c 5000 bound pamphlets, offprints and TS Family Histories and Biographies

36. • The Genealogist’s Guide by G W Marshall, 1903
• A Genealogical Guide by J B Whitmore, 1953
• A Catalogue of British Family Histories by T R Thomson, 1922
• The Genealogist’s Guide by G B Barrow, 1977
• Scottish Family History by M Stuart, 1930
• Scottish Family A Histories held in Scottish Public Libraries by J P
S Ferguson, 1986
• Bibliography of Irish Family History and Genealogy B de Breffny,
1974
• Bibliography of Irish Family History by E Maclysaght, 1982
Useful Bibliographies

37. G W Marshall
The Genealogist’s Guide
(To 1903)
On SoG Website

38. Ormerod’s History of Cheshire

39. Whitmore lists the sources he indexed

40. • Hertfordshire families: The Victoria
history of the counties of England: History
of Hertfordshire genealogical volume
• Joseph Foster’s Yorkshire Pedigrees
• Howard & Crisp’s Visitations of England
and Wales
• William Berry’s County Genealogies
– Berks, Bucks, Essex, Hants, Herts, Kent, Sussex, Surrey
Collected Genealogies and
Reference Works

41. Foster’s Yorkshire Pedigrees
A meticulous genealogist and editor

42. Visitation of England and Wales
Edited by Joseph
Jackson Howard,
Maltravers Herald
Extraordinary
and
Frederick Arthur Crisp,
Antiquarian (1851-1922)
and document collector.
Editor of Fragmenta
Genealogica,
Collections relating to
the Family of Crispe etc

43. Berry’s County Genealogies
1830-1842
Not well received by contemporary critics . He was writing
clerk rather than registering clerk at College of Arms and
lost libel suit against Nichols and Son publishers/editors of
Gentleman’s Magazine.

44. Genealogy of the Submerged

45. • Peerage and Royalty
• Baronages, Baronetages and Knights
• Gentry
• Heraldic Visitations
• Antiquarian and Scholarly Periodicals
• Biography
– DNB, Who’s Who?
Snobs’ Corner

46. • Barlow's Peerage 1772 British Compendium 1726, 1746
• Burkes Family Index 1976 Burkes Dormant & Extinct Peerages 1883
• Burkes Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage 1828-2003 (107th ed),
• Collins' Peerage (ed. by Bridges)
• Complete Peerage - George Edward Cokayne (GEC) ed Vicary Gibbs et al 1910-40
• Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage 1805-2008
• Dodd's Peerage, 1878, 1897, 1944 Edmondson's Present Peerage, 1785
• English Compendium 1753,1761 Foster's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 1880,
1883
• Lodge's Genealogy of the British Peerage & Baronetage,1832, 1857
• Nicolas's Peerage 1825, 1857
• Pine's New extinct Peerage Ridgeway's Peerage 1847-1869
• Sharpe's Peerage, 1830 Stockdale's Peerage, 1816-1832
• Whitakers Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage & Companionage 1910-1933
• The Scots Peerage 1904,
• The Peerage of Scotland 1767, 1790
• Lodge's Peerage of Ireland 1789
Published Pedigrees
Peerages

47. • Peerage material often contain Baronetages but there are works exclusively
on this subject which have been shelved and catalogued separately
• Doyle's Official Baronage, 1886
• Bank's Dormant & Extinct Baronage, 1807
• Bank's Baronies in Fee/ Baronia Anglicane Concentrata, 1844
• Complete Baronetage - G E C, 1900
• Index to Baronetage Creations, 1967
• Betham's Baronetage of England, 1807
• Burke's Extinct & Dormant Baronetcies, 1844
• Courthorpe's Synopsis of the Extinct Baronetage, 1835
• Debrett's Baronetage, 1800. 1815, 1840
• Kimber & Johnson's Baronetage 1971
• Wooton's Baronetage 1741 (vols 2&3 only?)
Published Pedigrees
BARONAGES/BARONETAGES/BARONIES

48. Although not part of the peerage these works follow on from the peerage
works and act as a bridge into the biographical reference works
• Burke's Authorised Arms, 1860, 1863
• Burke's Visitations of Seats & Arms, 1855-8
• Burke's Colonial Gentry 1839
• Burke's Handbook of the British Empire
• Burke's Commoners 1836,
• Burke's Landed Gentry 1839 (1st ed) – 2005 (19thed)
• Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland 1898-1958
• Kelly's Upper Ten Thousand/ Handbook to the Titled, Landed & Official Classes
1875-1977
• Walford's County Families 1860-1920
Published Pedigrees
Gentry

49. The shelves and the catalogue have the following arrangement:
• Heraldry General - texts and guides,
• Heraldry Armorials – Burke’s General Armory, Papworth Ordinary of
Arms etc
• Heraldry Special - eg Civic Heraldry, Heraldry of Smith etc , Heraldry
Foreign - European Civic Coats of Arms
• Armigerous Ancestors .A catalogue of sources for the study of the Visitations of the Heralds
in the 16th and 17th centuries with a reference list of names by C R Humphery-Smith, 1997
• Burkes General Armory , 1884;
• General Armory Two - ed C R Humphery Smith, 1973
• Papworth Ordinary of British Armorials, 1874
• A Complete Guide to Heraldry - A C Fox Davies,1909
• Boutell's Heraldry (ed J Brooke Little), 1977,
• Fairbairn's Book of Crests (various editions) 1860, 1904
• Elvin's Handbook of Mottoes, 1971,
• Rietstep's Armorial Général
Heraldry

50. HARLEIAN SOCIETY
• Fully listed in Texts and Calendars. An Analytical
guide to Serial Publications. Royal Historical Society
Guides & Handbooks no.7 - E L C Mullins [Apply to
staff, Quick Ref shelves], these volumes mostly
produce editions of Visitations made by the Heralds
in each county during the 16th & 17th centuries.
Armigers showed their decent from the original
grantee and these pedigrees prove much of the
basis for genealogical references of the period.
Those who were not entitled to bear the arms they
used were disclaimed by the heralds and these
disclaimers are listed amongst the visitation
records. Early volumes were based solely on
copies of the visitations amongst the Harleian
Manuscripts now held in the British Library but
later, more scholarly edited volumes compare all
versions of a visitation which may exist both in the
records of the College of Arms and in other editions
held elsewhere.
• Many of the volumes at the SoG contain numbered
manuscript annotations by Percival Boyd indicating
he has included the family amongst the 60, 000
family group sheets that comprise Boyd’s
Inhabitants of London now online on the SoG
website
Other volumes amongst the
Harleian Society Proceedings
include:
• Vols 37-40 Hunters Familiae Minorum Gentium
• Vol 84 Hunter's Pedigrees - continuation of above
(includes many pedigrees of lesser "gentry" and
many nonconformists)
• Vols 44-49 Musgrave's Obituaries prior to 1800
• Vols 50-52, 55 Lincolnshire Pedigrees
• Vols 95-96 Yorkshire Pedigrees
• Vols 63 Staffordshire Pedigrees
• Vols 91 & 97 East Anglian Pedigrees
• Vol 7 Le Neves pedigrees of Knights made by
Charles II ...Queen Anne
• Vol 67-68 Grantees of Arms ... to the end of the
17th Century
• NS Vol 17 Heraldry of Foreigners

51. Harleian Society NS vol 16/17
Visitation of London 1687

52. Musgrave’s Obituaries
MUSGRAVE’S OBITUARIES.
A very useful source for obituaries for this period is a series of
volumes known as Musgrave’s Obituaries published by the
Harleian Society (Harleian Society Volumes 44-49) – or to give
it its full tile Obituary prior to 1800 (as far as relates to
England, Scotland, and Ireland) as compiled by Sir William
Musgrave 6th Bart of Hayton Castle and entitled by him “A
General Nomenclature and Obituary” with reference to the
books where the persons are mentioned and where some
account of their character is to be found edited by Sir George J
Armitage Bart FSA.
Based on a manuscript compiled by Musgrave now held at
the British Library these printed volumes are full of obituary
notices published before 1800. Many are taken from journals
and magazines of the period particularly The Annual
Register, the European Magazine and London Review the
London Magazine., the Gentleman’s Magazine and published
biographies of the period. Musgrave’s Obituaries has been
largely digitized on various sites. A full text version appears
on the Internet Archive.
http://www.archive.org/stream/obituarypriorto01socigoog/obituaryp
riorto01socigoog_djvu.txt
Finding the magazine that contains the original obituary can
be difficult. The Society of Genealogists has some of the
sources cited but it can mean “trawling the Internet” or good
reference libraries for others.
52

53. Joseph Hunter
Familiae Minorum Gentium
The Rev Joseph Hunter FSA (1783-1861)
historian of Hallamshire and South
Yorkshire and Assistant Keeper of Public
Records.
After his death the Harleian Society edited
and published (HS vols 37- 40, 84) his folio
of manuscript pedigrees chiefly, but not
exclusively, of Yorkshire, Derbyshire,
Cheshire and Lancashire Families.
By reason of his large genealogical
acquaintance and also of connection with
many of the leading Unitarian families,
Foster had the opportunity of gathering a
mass of information

54. Gentleman’s Magazine• Gentleman's Magazine started in 1731, a Britain-focused
miscellany of information about people, places and events,
including news summaries, parliamentary reports,
biographies, birth, marriage, death and obituary notices,
poems, essays, and a register of current publications.
• The Gentleman’s Magazine has been partly digitised and
indexed through the world wide web and many volumes can
be found through Google Books and the Internet Archive but
there are gaps in the runs available on various sites. The best
links to finding text of this magazine is
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=gen
tlemans
• Local extracts from the Gentlemans’s Magazine were edited
and published as 15 or so volumes called the Gentleman’s
Magazine Library. Arranged by regional and/or county
volumes the Library volumes do not include all the obituaries
and names from births marriages and deaths mentioned in
each magazine. The GM Library volumes have been digitized
widely including on Ancestry. However its OCR does not
always enable a reader to establish the context of the entry of
a name that is found and the browsing functionality for each
volume is very poor.
• There are cumulative subject indexes for the period 1731-1818
at various places online. The College of Arms holds a 75
volume index to names appearing in the magazine which was
typed up by the Genealogical Society of Utah. This has been
microfilmed and microfiched and should therefore be
available through your local LDS family history centre. You
can find information about this on the Family History Library
Catalogue available through www.familysearch.org.
54
A Body of Biography - cited
as a source for entries in the
Dictionary of National
Biography some 7000 times

55. John Nichols “the death hunter”

56. Older Antiquarian and Genealogical Periodicals in the Society of Genealogists Library
The history of Genealogy as a subject can be discovered in the older antiquarian and genealogical
periodicals found in the upper library. Most were edited by distinguished genealogists and scholars of
their day but some were, shall we say, a little less academically robust in their accuracy? These
journals reflect the interest of their editors, their whims and indeed the feuds that persisted within a
select field. The biographies of some of the editors, found updated in the New Dictionary of National
Biography, are enlightening.
The titles are arranged alphabetically by title on the shelves and range from periodicals published in
the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. The hand-out shows, where possible, the editors,
when they were published and whether the genealogical information they contain on at least three
generations of families has been listed in the bibliographies compiled by either George Marshall in
The Genealogist’s Guide (1903) or J B Whitmore in A Genealogical Guide or have been described by Stuart
Raymond in his bibliographic work British Genealogical Periodicals. A Bibliography of their Contents -
Vol.1 The Ancestor; Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica; Topographer & Genealogist
Vol.2 The Genealogist
Vol.3 Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica
Vol.4 Supplement 1: British Genealogy in Miscellaneous Journals
Periodicals

57. • The Ancestor - ed. Oswald Baron, 12 vols & index 1902-05. (indexed - Whitmore/Raymond).
• Collectanea Genealogica - ed. Joseph Foster, 1881-5 vols 1-3 (indexed - Marshall).
• Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica - ed. John Gough Nichols, 1834-43, Vols 1-8, (indexed -
Marshall/Raymond)..
• Genealogical Magazine: A Journal of Family History, Heraldry & Pedigrees, 1897-1904. Vols 1-7.
Indexed - Whitmore)
• The Genealogical Quarterly - eds various inc. Henry de Lavel Walter & Christopher Telford, of 52
Lincolns Inn Fields, 1932-1970. Indexed - Whitmore)
• Genealogical Queries & Memoranda - ed. George Tudor Sherwood, 1896-1899. (Precursor of the
Pedigree Register).
• The Genealogist - ed. G W Marshall, 1877-1922, vols 1-7, NS 1-38, (indexed -
Whitmore/Marshall/Raymond/Bernau).
• The Genealogists Magazine 1925 - date (indexed - Whitmore).
• The Herald & Genealogist - ed. John Gough Nichols, 1863-1874 (indexed - Marshall).
• Miscellanea, Genealogica et Heraldica - eds. inc. Joseph Jackson Howard & A W Hughes Clark, 1868-
1938, vols 1-2, NS 1-4, 2S 1-5, 3S 1-5, 4S 1-4, 5S 1-10 (indexed - Marshall/Whitmore/Raymond).
• The Northern Genealogist - ed. Alfred Gibson, 1895-1903, (Largely extracts from many records notably
northern wills & marriage licences etc, there are not very many pedigrees. Indexed - Marshall)
• The Pedigree Register - ed. George F Tudor Sherwood, 1907-16, 3 vols, (
• Topographer - ed. Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges and Stebbing Shaw, 1789-91 (indexed -Marshall).
• Topographer & Genealogist - ed. John Gough Nichols 1846-58, vols 1-3 (indexed -
Whitmore/Raymond).
Scholarly Journals

58. Genealogy Wars
J Horrace Round (1854-1928)
destroyed the bogus descents
“nailing them one by one” as
Round said “as a gamekeeper
nails his vermin”. Thereby
revealing the pleasures of
destructive as well as
constructive genealogy
A J Camp in Genealogy: The Construction of Family Histories
printed in Human Pedigree Studies, Proceedings of a Conference
organised by the Galton Institute 1998.”

59. Vols 1-4 (1925-28)
Vols 28-31 (2004-date
Remaining vols to
follow shortly

60. SoG holds many of the titles
indexed by PERSI on findmypast

61. SoG Library
Manuscript, Digital & Special Collections
in the library of the Society of Genealogists
61

62. Various Ways to Search Records
Library Catalogue (Books Microfom & CDs)
SoG online data (for members)
Website surname indexes to
manuscripts
Card Indexes

63. SoG Members’Birth Briefs index on
www.sog.org.uk (28,000 surnames)

65. Birth Briefs received 2007-2012

66. 7000 Roll Pedigrees
66

67. Document Collection Research Notes
surnames listed on website
www.sog.org.uk
67

68. The Document Collection of
Miscellaneous Family Research Papers
These manuscript research
notes for the name Norris are
typical of the contents of
thousands of envelopes in the
SoG’s Document Collections
representing about 44,000
surnames. This envelope
contains rough pedigrees,
letters, certificates, photos and
unique family documents.
Recent acquisitions are
microfiched and then listed in
the Genealogists Magazine.

69. Marriage Settlement of
Mr Batson with Miss Smart August 1781
There is no place where marriage
settlements or other such original and
personal family documents might be
deposited. This settlement outlines a
form of pre nuptial agreement
between the families. The IGI and
Ancestry show the marriage by
licence of Robert Batson (widower of
“St Annes Middlesex”) and Mary
Smart at St Dunstans and All Saints,
Stepney on 16 August 1781. There is a
Faculty Office Marriage Licence for
this marriage issued by the
Archbishop of Canterbury on 14th
August and indexed by the Society on
SoG Data Online & the Findmypast
website. Altogether these documents
shed light on the practice of marriage
in the 18th century.

70. What is NOT YET Online
350 Special Collections in 1300 boxes

71. The SoG Special Collections are usually a
genealogist’s work over a lifetime looking at
several families with a common theme. Usually
more than one boxful of material, they often
arrive in a removal van!
– e.g. County families (Rogers Cornish families,
Campling East-Anglian families)
– e.g. One Name Studies
– e.g. Occupation (merchant seamen, coastguards,
lawyers, civil servants etc, investors in GRW)
– e.g. Jewish or Huguenot families
Special Collections

72. 72
Names listed in
Special Collections Card Index

73. Photographs and Memories
Photographs from the Seear
Collection.
This collection contains the
research of David Edward Seear
(1930-c1998). This large family
history extends into London and
the Home Counties. The family
were particularly connected with
confectionery and tea selling and
the four boxes contain many
fascinating pictures and
information on the shopkeepers
in S.E. London.

74. Diary from the Lister Collection
This is the diary of Ellen Lister. It
shows that on the day before the First
World War broke out in the hot
Summer of August 1914 the Lister
family went to see the popular New
York comedy play Potash and
Perlmutter which had crossed the
Atlantic to rave reviews. This comedy
was probably touring in repertory
theatre. A production was very well
reviewed in the Reading Eagle in
September 1914 thus showing, like
this diary, that the general
population had little inkling of the
forthcoming horrors of the Great
War.

75. One Name Collections – e.g.DOO

76. 76
The Campling
collection
(East Anglia)

77. 77
County and country collections
• Berkshire - Snell collection
• Cornwall – Glencross & Rogers bequests
• East Anglia – Campling & Whitehead
• London – Boyd’s inhabitants & burials
• North country (& clergy) – Fawcett index
• West country – Dwelly index
• Scotland – Macleod collection
• India – Percy-Smith or India index
• West Indies – Smith collection

78. Digitising Card Indexes
• One-Name Study
Indexes
• Stand Alone Indexes
• Unfilmed cards

79. 79
Single Surname Card Indexes
ANSELL, BETHELL
BLO(O)MFIELD, COTTERELL,
DIBDEN, DREW, DUNKLEY,
ELLIOT, FAWCETT, GALE,
GIRTON, GRAHAM, HAILEY,
HALE, JONES, KEMBALL,
KEMP, LANGTON,
MANFIELD, MARKWELL,
MASTERSON, MEACOCK,
MILBOURNE, PITMAN,
SAINSBURY, SCATCHARD,
TAPLEY, TURNER, WALL,
WILLIS, WODEHOUSE,
YOUNGER

80. SoG Card Indexes on film
• Great Card Index
3m miscellany of information in name order
• Bernau Index
3m legal entries from Chancery and other courts
etc . pre 1750
• Fawcett Index
Clergy and Northern Family interests
• Dwelley Index
West country families
• Glencross Index
West country families
• India Index
Miscellany on British in India
Filmed by GSU and available through the
FamilySearch Libray catalogue

81. www.findmypast.com
SoG Data on www.sog.org.uk
• Selected datasets of Findmypast
• All SoG digitised material on SoG Data Online
SoG data on-line

82. SoG Data Online
“A snapshot of the SoG Library”

85. Non-members search results/ £ = gentle reminder to pay up and join!
Purple box search results lists the datasets with information

86. Once logged in the £ sign has disappeared and you can view results or browse

87. Surnames
digitised card indexes, gedcomfiles and PDFs of books

90. Standing on the shoulders of Giants
90

91. Search/Copy Service