Jonathan Thomas (00:22)
Welcome to the Anglotopia Podcast, where we explore British history, travel, and culture. And I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas. First, a word about who has made this episode possible. This episode is sponsored by Find My Past, one of the world's leading family history websites and home of British and Irish records, censuses, civil registration, parish records, military records, and the vast British newspaper archive.

If today's conversation inspires you to go looking for your own ancestors, Find My Past is built exactly for that, with a special depth in the UK records that so many of us with British roots need. You can start a free trial at findmypast.co.uk and we will link to that in the show notes. Now, to today's subject. So many of us who love Britain feel that pull not just toward its castles and countryside, but towards its people. And for many, a great many Americans, that means ancestors who lived

British lives in British places, and we're caught up in British history. Tracing them can feel daunting. Where do you even begin? What records exist? How do you avoid going wrong? And so in today's episode, we're going to do a genuine genealogy 101, a friendly, practical guide to taking your very first step into your family's past. This is the first of two episodes we're recording with today's guest. In this one, we want to get you started, and in the next one, we'll build your confidence and connect your family story to the wider sweep.

British history. My guest across both of these episodes is the perfect person to guide us. Jen Baldwin is the research specialist at By My Past and has worked professionally in genealogy since 2010. She specializes in British social history and the British diaspora. In other words, exactly the place where family history meets the big sweep of British history. With a family tree that reaches back to London in 1635 and ancestors across Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England.

She lives this work as much as she practices it. She hosts Find My Past's own podcast called The Family History of and co-hosts the historical true crime podcast, Was Justice Served? She lectures internationally, including regular appearances at Roots Tech, and in twenty twenty five delivered the keynote at the Guild of One Name Studies conference in Liverpool. If anyone can make starting your family history feel achievable and genuinely thrilling, it's Jen.

Jen, welcome to the Anglotopia Podcast.

Jen (02:41)
Thank you so much, Jonathan. It's great to be here.

Jonathan Thomas (02:44)
We're so excited about this one. It's I know a lot of our listeners and readers are fascinated by genealogy and they don't know where to start. So hopefully this will be a great guide for them.

Jen (02:54)
I definitely hope so. And I will be the first to say it's not that scary, it's not that hard, just have to start.

Jonathan Thomas (03:01)
All right. Well let's start. Let's start at the beginning then. Let's start with the big why. For someone who's never thought about tracing their family history, what is it about discovering your roots that can be so powerful and so addictive once you get started?

Jen (03:15)
I think it it is actually addictive. ⁓ you know, I've been thinking about this question a lot actually since you sent it to me, Jonathan. And one of the things that really pops into my head is that most of us start at kind of a very similar place. We want to know where we came from, where our ancestors were from, who they were. There's something especially I think for Americans, Canadians, Australians, people who have some connection to the former British Empire, that they really just want to know, like, w how did I get here where I am today?

But I think we all actually eventually realize, some of us quickly, some of us go on kind of a longer journey, that it's not just about who those people were, and it's not just about tracing of family history in terms of the pedigree chart. It's not just about writing down names of generation after generation. It's actually about understanding those people and how ordinary lives intersect with historical moments that we all now look back and consider important. Right. So

When we do family history, we think we're researching individual people, but what we're really researching is history. And we're researching the people who lived that history in the moment. And that's what makes it addictive, at least for me. It's that high of discovering the name of the person that you've been looking for for five years, but then also going, okay, where did he live? What did he do? Who were his neighbors? Who was his wife? His children? Where did he get his shoes? Like all of those questions can actually be answered.

Jonathan Thomas (04:44)
So y your own specialization is social history, which is the texture of ordinary lives. So how does an individual's family story connect to the big things of British history w that we talk so often about on this show? How does the personal open a window into the national?

Jen (05:01)
Yeah, if you think about ⁓ all those big moments, right? And and we can ⁓ we can list them indefinitely, but just industrialization or migration or ⁓ football culture, social reform, right? The suffrage movement, for example, one individual can really open up that topic in a way that maybe we don't expect. So let me actually answer this by telling you a little story. So I've recently been researching a man named Nelson Langsford.

Now his name is Nelson, his brother's name is Horatio, so you can kind of guess where this is going. But he does ⁓ he is born and raised on a little mill in Cornwall. It's now part of the National Trust system, actually. ⁓ and he eventually goes into the Royal Navy and he fights during World War One. So all of a sudden, I'm not just studying a person who lives on a mill, I'm studying industrialization and the military and the war itself, but I'm also studying like the the decades of mill operations before that.

I have to understand the weather patterns in Cornwall, but I also have to understand what it's like to sit in an engine room in the middle of Gallipoli. So there's one person is that gateway into all of these other little nuances of history.

Jonathan Thomas (06:11)
So a a lot of people assume that their ancestors were ordinary and therefore not very interesting. in your research you found the opposite to be true. So why do even the most ordinary ancestors so often turn out to have fascinating stories?

Jen (06:25)
There's nothing ⁓ there's no such thing as a boring ancestor. So if you're thinking that, just get it out of your head right now. ⁓ some of the most interesting people I think ⁓ have been the ones that people kind of just say, like, that's not very interesting, right? Agricultural laborers are a great example of this. There are thousands of them across Britain's history. ⁓ and they actually lived a really incredible life. ⁓ they traveled seasonally for work, they had to deal with

different economic patterns, political ⁓ strife. They had to deal with weather. ⁓ it's one of my favorite topics, weather. So I'll go back to that probably a couple of times. But there's all of these struggles, but also happy moments that they had to live that they lived through that we now get to explore, right? So it's much more than just where were they in the census? It's also where were they when the crops were being actually pulled in in four months' time, because it's probably not the same place as where you found them in the census.

Jonathan Thomas (07:21)
So let's where does somebody actually begin? I know I know the golden rule in genealogy is to start with yourself and work your way outward. So can you walk us through w why that's the right approach rather than leaping straight back to some distant ancestor?

Jen (07:37)
Yeah, it it's really hard to make that leap back. It's you have to think of your own family as like a puzzle, right? When you start a puzzle, you typically start with the borders, right? The flat edges, because that's the easy part. So in genealogy, I myself, you are yourself, you're the easy part. I already know when I was born. I know I know who my parents were. Most of us could probably say that. Not everybody, but most of us. So you start with yourself because you're the person who has the most information about you.

⁓ and and this could be a very simple process. You could start this on a post-it note if you wanted to, but my recommendation is actually to start on a Find My Past family tree because most of the research you're going to be doing is going to be internet-based. So you want a home on the internet for that material to sit. The tree system allows you to fill in information as you find it. And there's you don't have to give everything at once. There's no rule that says you have to know all eight of your grandparents before you can start.

So if you start with yourself and the information that you have about yourself, your parents, maybe your grandparents, if you can go back that far, the rest starts to just fall into place as you learn more. And then you've got an established place to all to document everything as well. I think it's important that we understand that we start with actual fact, and that's easiest with ourselves and our parents, and not what we hope to be true, right? We want to make sure that what we're recording is accurate. So if we just jump back to

You know, I heard that I had a fourth grade uncle who lived in Birmingham and was a silversmith and his name was John Lawrence. Well, there's possibly hundreds of John Lawrences in Birmingham in during that period. So how do you know? How do you get through that process of of elimination? The easiest way to do that is to start with the truth as you know it, which is yourself, and then move backward in time.

Jonathan Thomas (09:26)
And one of the from from what I've researched and and getting ready for this, one of the best ways to do that is to talk to your living relatives. It's one of the most valuable and overlooked steps when you start this genealogy journey. So what are some simple questions people should be asking their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles before that living memory is lost?

Jen (09:46)
Yeah, really important to do this before, like as you said, Jonathan, before that living memory is gone. our ancestors, whether they're alive or deceased, are libraries of knowledge. So we want to capture that ⁓ as soon as we can. So I typically start with not a set of questions about where were you born and who were your parents. That's not typically the right approach. You want to ask things that will jog their memory, that will kick off sensations for them, right? So people remember things with all five senses. So

If you have one, put a photograph down in front of them and say, what do you remember about this day or this picture or who's in this photo? Or you ask something like, tell me a story about your first car? Or do you remember what your father's job was when you were growing up? And those kinds of discussions, if you can get them into telling stories, that's actually where those little nuggets of data come from that we then take and turn into historical research.

So jobs, locations, military service, ⁓ family rumors are a great one, right? What kind of ⁓ skeleton do you have in your in your attic? Grandma is always a great way to start a conversation. So you want to ask them really kind of ask them to remember people. Don't ask them to to recite facts and figures back to you, but ask them to tell you stories about what they remember.

Jonathan Thomas (11:05)
And so and also most of us are kind of l sitting on a gold mine at home without even realizing it, whether it's old photos, certificates, letters, family bibles. So what should beginners be gathering from around the house as they begin this journey? What can those everyday items reveal?

Jen (11:20)
Yeah, you might be surprised at how much stuff you actually have already just sitting in a shoebox. there's a number of different types of records that are pretty standard, right? Like certificates, family Bibles, ⁓ anything like a baptism certificate or a marriage certificate is a really good source. But you also want to think about things like greeting cards, right? If you ⁓ my mom was a bit of a pack rat, she collected and saved all the greeting cards that we gave her over the years, but she also dated them. So

We were able to actually pinpoint that her sister or a cousin sent her a card on a particular date or year. Anything that basically has personal handwriting on it. So postcards, family letters, funeral cards, any of that material will be useful. It's really common to have kind of that shoebox of photographs sitting somewhere.

Those photographs can reveal occupations or locations or relationships. So those photographs often hold really important clues. A few years ago, ⁓ and my daughter might not like it that I tell this story, but I'm gonna tell this story. So a few years ago, my when my daughter was young, ⁓ we were looking at a family photograph of my second great grandfather, her third. And in the photograph is, you know, my grandfather and then a dog, and it's he's standing on the front porch of a house.

And I had looked at this photograph over and over and over again. And then my daughter finally says, Who's the dog? What's the dog's name? And it never even occurred to me to ask about the family dog before that moment. So look at all of that material with really fresh eyes and try to pinpoint those details that will lead you to those stories that will lead you down that new path.

Jonathan Thomas (13:02)
So let's talk about ⁓ the foundational British records. You've got civil registration, which covers birth, marriages, and deaths, which begins in eighteen thirty seven. What is it and why is it such a cornerstone for anyone researching English and Welsh ancestors?

Jen (13:18)
So, Jonathan, this is actually where UK research far supersedes US research, if I'm really honest. Because civil registration was implemented nationally across the whole country, we have a very trustworthy database of the vital events of every person's life. And yes, there are times when they're tricky to find, but their birth, marriage, and death should be in this system. It starts...

in 1837, it takes a few years for them to really get it to that national scale. But if you think about in just to compare with the United States, right, every state does it differently. Every state records these things differently. And then possibly every county within every state records these events differently. But in England and Wales, it's universal. Everybody records through the same national system.

So it doesn't matter where in the country they are born or died. It doesn't matter who they married. They are findable, which makes that initial process of genealogy, right? If you identify yourself, your parents, your grandparents, if you can get into civil registration and then say, okay, when did my grandparents get married? That marriage certificate and that information will have their parents' names on it and it will have witnesses on it. All of a sudden you're back in other generation. And then you find their marriage certificate and their birth.

And then you're back another generation and it all actually kind of falls into place pretty quickly. Now there's a couple of caveats there, of course, if you have a really common name like John Smith, you're going to have to make sure you narrow that down and you've got the right person. But for most of us, civil registration allows us to identify the generations much sooner, which gives us the chance to actually discover the history part, which for me is the fun part, right? We get more time to delve into that historical insight.

these records really kind of become the scaffolding, if you will, that kind of hold the whole family tree together in England and Wales.

Jonathan Thomas (15:16)
Then there's the census taken every ten years from eighteen forty one to nineteen twenty one. So for a beginner, what is the census and why is it so often the single most useful record for building out that family tree?

Jen (15:28)
Yeah, so census is exactly what it is today. We all participate in the census process as well. And it is a snapshot of every household that is in the country. It starts in 1841 in terms of meaningful genealogical records. There are census records in England before that. They just don't have names on it. So it's harder to use. It's more of a statistical review than it is an individual one.

The census varies with every decade, so their questions change a little bit, but they generally show the full name of the person, how old they were, their relationship to the other people in the household, their occupation, and then their birth location. So you will get a huge amount of information from just one single image. Now, as we get closer in time to today, the census actually gets better and better.

The 1911 and 1921 census of England and Wales are particularly wonderful. ⁓ with a couple of stories, I'll tell you a little bit about that. So the 1911 census is the first that is actually preserved and available online in the original person's handwriting. So every person in 1911, every household received a blank form and they were given instructions, sit down on this day, basically at this time with your household.

and fill out the instruction, fill out the form, right? Name of the head of household, their age, how many children they had, their marital status, their occupation, and so forth. And then they move to the spouse, the wife, the children, the servants, the boarders, whoever was at that address. And that is documented in their own handwriting, which is incredibly special. And then at the bottom of the form, it's signed by the head of household. Now, in 1911, there's a

Also, a significant movement, of course, of the suffrage campaign. So you have all of these suffragists saying, actually, we're going to boycott the census. So there's hundreds of women across the country who are not listed in the 1911 census because they would write instead, no vote, no census. Right? If I'm not allowed to vote, yeah, it's fantastic. If I'm not allowed to vote, then you don't get to count me as a citizen, right, on your government form.

Jonathan Thomas (17:36)
That's

Jen (17:43)
So the 1911 census is the first that kind of does that. It also tracks the number of children that each woman had and then the number of children still alive, which is a really interesting kind of glimpse at an individual person, know, an individual woman's life. Now the 1921 census of England at Wales, which was published on Find My Past in partnership with the National Archives ⁓ now five years ago, which is kind of crazy to say. ⁓

That is also a handwritten census. So it's the same thing. The form was sent to the households. They were asked to fill it out. But it is, of course, post-World War I. So the government is trying to document all sorts of new information. There is a recession happening. There's a housing crisis happening across the country. ⁓ So one of the questions is, ⁓ is this child's father still alive? Is their mother still alive? Are they both deceased? So we get this view of ⁓

orphans across the country and the impact of the war in terms of the male population. They also ask questions about divorce for the first time in 1921. And then again, there's a political component to this where there's a number of census returns that say things like, where are my homes fit for heroes? Because you promised all the veterans good secure housing when they got back from the front and that's not happening. So.

it becomes again another political tool for the people to speak directly to the government. They're fascinating records.

Jonathan Thomas (19:09)
So and and you mentioned that the the ninety twenty one census was just released a few years ago. So th they release those those census records w is it every hundred years or Yeah. Yeah.

Jen (19:21)
Every hundred years, yep.

And that again makes the 1921 census really special because the 1931 census was taken but it didn't survive World War II. It was pulped actually, the paper was pulped for the war. And then 1941 census was never taken because of the war. So the next available census to come out in England and Wales will be 1951, but we got what 25 more years to go or so. So the 1921 census is the last major census for quite a while.

Jonathan Thomas (19:45)
Well.

Jen (19:50)
And then we'll have the 1939 register that we can add to that conversation, I think we're going talk about that in a little bit.

Jonathan Thomas (19:57)
Well, and that's that's super interesting because it thinking of the broad scope of British history, nineteen twenty one was really in the middle of a pivotal pivot point, not only for Britain but the world. I mean, you the British Empire was at its peak and then pretty soon it would begin its decline. You've got ⁓ US is is growing in in its stature on the w international stage post World War One. You've got yeah, that's it's it's so it's gotta be, yeah, super interesting to think about that.

Jen (20:09)
Absolutely.

It's It

really is so um, the 1921 census was actually delayed by a couple months. There was some um political anxiety if you will in the north part of the country, um, and the miners were were suggesting another large strike So they delayed the census to make sure that they got an accurate count, which means that the census was taken in june What also happens to be happening in june is the first?

big ⁓ meeting of all the Commonwealth countries coming back together after the war. So you have in the census, you have representatives from Canada, Australia, ⁓ New Zealand, India, all in London in the capital, ⁓ recorded in the census of England and Wales because they just happened to be there because the census gets delayed. It's just the whole story around the census is really interesting.

Jonathan Thomas (21:16)
that's crazy. Even today the the census can get very political. ⁓ and so it's interesting to note that back then it was very political as well.

Jen (21:19)
Yeah.

Very political,

throughout time, think. One of my favorite, sorry, another story, because this one's good. One of the earlier censuses, when this ⁓ whole policy was starting to unravel, I think it was 1841, there's a newspaper article from Ireland, and there's this rumor going around that they're going to use the census to tax you ⁓ extra based on what you report in the census. And there was this large belief across Ireland.

Jonathan Thomas (21:26)
It's yeah.

Jen (21:51)
that they were going to tax based on the number of chickens that you had. And so there's this rush the week of the census to kill all the chickens so that you don't get extra taxes after the census is built in.

Jonathan Thomas (22:02)
Well, and and not to get too into the weeds of history here, but I suspect the census for Ireland between the difference between eighteen forty one and eighteen fifty one would be very revealing to British government agricultural policy.

Jen (22:05)
Yeah.

⁓ it's very significant, yes.

Unfortunately, most of those records didn't survive out of Ireland. So that's a different story.

Jonathan Thomas (22:26)
I'm curious. Okay. All right. So you've kind of touched on this already, but what else can you actually learn from these records besides just who these people were and where they lived? Can you give us a sense of how much of a person's life starts to come into focus when you can look at these records?

Jen (22:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, think, know, census especially really, it's like a door opens and you get to kind of walk into their house and look around for that moment in time. Like that's how it feels when you first encounter one of these records for, you know, a new family member or someone you haven't seen before. But when you add that to the information that you have, right, occupations, addresses, family relationships, it all starts to create just much more distinct fuller picture.

And a person really starts to emerge from that paperwork, right? They start, they stop being two dimensional and they really become three dimensional. So you think about the impact across the country of kind of these large occupations, right? Let's just take like the Royal Navy and sailors. You suddenly seeing them in a very different light because maybe they're at home with their family, maybe they're aboard ship, maybe they're at ⁓ you know, station somewhere with the rest of their.

the rest of their sailors and accompanied by a bunch of other people in the military, it gives you a completely different perspective of what they're doing in that moment and how they're living. So it's really a combination of putting all of these little bits and pieces together and kind of pulling out a picture that looks very different than I think a lot of us really start with, right? Even...

something like an agricultural laborer. kind of have a mental image of what that person might look like or what they might do. But when you start actually bringing in all the evidence of these historical records, suddenly you've got a much different understanding of their day-to-day experience.

Jonathan Thomas (24:15)
Well and and it it makes me think of ⁓ have you been to the Birmingham back to backs?

Jen (24:21)
I have not been, but I've researched them.

Jonathan Thomas (24:24)
Yeah, so

the the primary records that they would have used to figure out the lives of the people who lived there were the census records. And when I did the tour about ten years now, which makes me feel old, ⁓ you know, it they were able to build a very realistic portrait of the lives of the people who lived in these back to backs through different in different time periods. So it it it's

Jen (24:33)
Right. Right.

You

Yeah. Yep.

Jonathan Thomas (24:52)
It's amazing to think what an incredible resource just a simple thing as a census is, because it's it's so it's so can be so ⁓ thorough.

Jen (24:59)
Yeah, yeah. So actually, I'm so happy that you brought that up. Because when we released the 1921 census, we actually worked with the National Trust and did a bunch of research for some of their properties. The back to backs was one of them. So I was able to research the back to backs in the 1921 census, which was really cool. sure I'm the first person to be able to do that in that new record set. And one of the locations that I found, same block, right, that you would have done the tour on,

Jonathan Thomas (25:16)
wow.

Jen (25:28)
the house itself had seven different households at the same address. So they were literally had a routine of who got to use the bed and when, right? Because there's only two rooms usually in the back-to-backs. So they were all on like a sleeping schedule. While one person was at work, the other family was in the kitchen, and then family three was in the bedroom sleeping, and then family four was, you know, whatever, doing what they were doing. And they worked off of rotation that way. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (25:32)
my god.

Jen (25:56)
Just imagine that seven different groups of house of family in one address.

Jonathan Thomas (26:02)
Yeah, and that that's and they sh they kind of show that to you on the tour. They show the sleeping arrangements everything. And if you want to imagine the office behind me, like this is probably the size of one of those rooms and there were multiple families living in it. And and yeah, ⁓ the f the b this isn't an advertiser for the National Trust, but go see the back to back to backs if you can. 'cause it's it's well it's such a it's the weirdest thing. modern Birmingham

Jen (26:14)
Right.

Go see the back to backs.

Jonathan Thomas (26:30)
was largely destroyed by the blitz. So there were lots of there's lots of skyscrapers there and tall buildings and parking garages. And then you turn a corner and then there's this Victorian terrace street. And it's like it's like stepping back in time. It's really cool.

All right. So let's let's get practical when it comes to starting that family tree. ⁓ for a complete beginner who's using a tool like Find My Past, how do you keep it simple and not get overwhelmed at the start? Because it's it's easy to look at your family and go, Okay, well, I'm the most recent in all of human history. So how do you even how do you look at that and go, I'm never gonna find out anything interesting?

Jen (27:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, keep it simple, right? My favorite acronym is KISS. Keep it simple, someone. So that's not it, we'll let that fly. So you start with yourself and then your parents and then your grandparents, just one generation at a time. You don't want to go too quickly because if you make a mistake along the way, it's much harder to go back and correct that than it is to just take your time and get it right the first time.

Jonathan Thomas (27:16)
That's not it, but well we'll we'll allow it.

Jen (27:36)
So I think the best piece of his advice really is that slow is fast in genealogy. If you take your time and really make sure that you know exactly what you're looking at and you have these relationships correct, then you will help yourself. For future you will thank you significantly for taking that initial step at a slow pace, right? Nobody begins with 500 ancestors. And there's a lot of people out there who really love to just.

collect people on their family tree, right? And that's a noble endeavor and it's what people enjoy and that's completely fine. But you will come across people who have thousands of people in their family tree. That's not where anybody starts. Everybody starts with one person and that's you. So take it back one generation at a time. You wanna find a way to keep it all clear in your head, which is why I suggested the Find My Past Family Tree earlier, because it really does help just keep everything organized. I'm a very visual person, a visual learner.

Having that just pedigree chart in front of me and having just, you know, having it listed out on the screen just makes it that much easier. You can also do the same thing with a really simple timeline, right? If you just write out on a sketch, you know, piece of paper or on your favorite app, whatever application you want to use, it just jot down exactly who was born and when and where and to their parents were. Some people use an Excel spreadsheet. That's a really good way to do it as well. ⁓

but find a system that works for you so that you know that you'll stick with it. And then just make sure that you write everything down.

Jonathan Thomas (29:05)
So what are some common mistakes that beginners can make? Is it guessing, skipping generations, grabbing the wrong record or putting the wrong dates in? So h how do you avoid those mistakes and how do you know when you've actually verified something versus just thinking you knew it?

Jen (29:21)
I think everything you just listed are probably some of the most common mistakes that beginners can make. There are a number of ways and probably methodologies that will tell you to do this or do that. Let's again, keep it simple. If you find a baptismal certificate that has a first, middle and last name that has the right name of the parents, it's in the right location in the world, wherever that is.

And all of it lines up. So most baptismal certificates have witnesses on them. If the witness is a brother or sister to the parent, you've probably got the right family. ⁓ I think in genealogy, common sense is king, actually. I should say queen. Common sense is queen. ⁓ It really does come down to that.

If you're looking at two different situations and you have a Jonathan Thomas that was born in Yorkshire and then a Jonathan Thomas that was born in Devon, but the whole family is in Yorkshire the whole time and every other thing that you have says Yorkshire, why would suddenly someone be born in Devon? Right, so let that common sense guide you. As you get into this and as you start this process, you'll become more and more familiar. The names will start to become familiar.

the name of the village will start to become familiar. And while our ancestors did move around, they tended to stay within about a 20 mile radius of where they were born traditionally. So it's just the more modern generations, like our generation and our parents that actually move around significantly. So once you kind of establish that pattern, you'll begin to recognize them. And I think at some point you get to the point where instinct just kind of takes over and you just go, that just feels right.

And then you go, okay, I'm going to chase that down. I'm going to find some additional evidence. Might be a military record or a newspaper clipping or something else that confirms that yes, Jonathan Thomas, his spouse was Jane. Okay, great. Now I have two or three pieces of evidence that are telling me that he married this same person. So I'm going to go ahead and theorize that yeah, they are a couple and they probably had children together. And that happens to be my third great grandfather.

Jonathan Thomas (31:34)
So and forgive me, this question isn't on the on the list, but did the did the Commonwealth realms largely keep similar records as they did in Britain? Because so to give you an example, ⁓ my I know this a branch of my family came from Durham in Northern England, village called Shincliffe. ⁓ but they didn't come directly to the United States, they came to Canada.

Jen (31:47)
Great question.

Mm.

Jonathan Thomas (32:03)
And settled in Canada for a generation or two and then came United States. So d does do the records allow for you to to kind of track that path rather than just say they came from Britain at one point? Can you f also find those records in in places like Canada or other Commonwealth realms?

Jen (32:20)
So

it depends on the Commonwealth territory. Of course, the answer is it depends. ⁓ The one thing that is fairly consistent across all of the countries that had some association with the empire ⁓ is religious records. ⁓ baptism, ⁓ marriage, and burial versus birth, marriage, and death, right? So two different sets of records. Parish records tend to travel ⁓ and are consistently kept.

on all of the different country levels. Now that's not always necessarily true, and it does depend on how the Commonwealth country was governing itself. ⁓ Canada is a great example. They had an early establishment of parish records, but early Canada was predominantly Catholic. And so the Catholic tradition already kind of had that in play. So it's not necessarily because it was part of the Commonwealth, it's because they were predominantly Catholic, right?

If you look at Australia, as another good example, many of the early white England descendant settlers were of course transported convicts. So their early records are parish records, but also crime records, right? Prison records and transportation records. So it's a different set of material for the earliest phases of that particular territory.

Jonathan Thomas (33:39)
Yeah, and and that that brings up another question. Sorry, I knew we would I knew we'd be an onion here. So ⁓ how easy is it to to search through those old criminal records and see if y you know, you had a a misbehaving ancestor?

Jen (33:42)
It's okay. Me too. It's all right.

So actually, ⁓ Find My Past has the largest collection of British or UK, I should say, ⁓ crime and criminal registers available online. So the database is actually pretty significant. You can just go on Find My Past and search for the individual. But what you're going to run into is ⁓ common names, misspellings of names, ⁓ different ways of spelling the same person. And then

a series of they were in trial, they were in court, they got sentenced to transportation, then they never really went. They got arrested again, they go back to court, they have another trial, they get sentenced to transportation, they never really go. and then they finally go. And then when they get to Australia or New Zealand, they tend to get lost a little bit. The great part about that though, is that the genealogy community in those countries,

have done a lot of work to preserve those stories. So actually the transport history, the convict history in Australia is actually pretty well established and well known. So once you actually are able to say, I think he did go, then it's pretty findable. there are a lot of people in these countries and territories that are really specialists and experts in that particular type of research, right? So what you get into is a community of people who will help guide you along the way.

Jonathan Thomas (35:12)
And then this is I highly recommend ⁓ reading up on the history of the convict transportation because it's way more interesting than just wait, they sent their prisoners to Australia. Well, no, it it was a microcosm of Georgian England and the types of social problems they were having, and they thought that they could tr they could get rid of them by sending people to an alien planet. And there's a great book about it called The Fatal Shore. ⁓ that yeah.

Jen (35:19)
yeah.

Absolutely.

It's an excellent book.

Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (35:38)
That's yeah,

it's not just the history of Australia, it's a history of Georgian England and how they they dealt with these things. And it it it's so interesting 'cause it I know a lot of people are like, Australian history is kinda boring. No, it's actually su it's not boring at all. It's

Jen (35:49)
⁓ it's really, really interesting. And

don't forget that they sent convicts to the American colonies before Australia, right? So there's a path there. ⁓ Another really great way to get into criminal history, actually, if we want to talk about that for a minute, is the newspapers, the historical newspapers. Just like today, everybody loves a good true crime story. So everything is published in the newspapers. One of the maybe most saddest ones I've ever found, I think, was like a seven-year-old who

Jonathan Thomas (35:57)
Yeah.

Jen (36:19)
stole a pound and he was transporting to Australia. It's crazy. Yeah. A single pound.

Jonathan Thomas (36:28)
Yeah, and so you have to wonder if sometimes they were just filling the boats to get people to Australia rather than actually dis you know dealing with the crime. Yeah. So well let's let's pivot a little bit to to to crime in the newspaper archive. and I I know we'll probably talk about the newspaper archive in the in the next episode, but let's touch on on that. What

Jen (36:34)
Stop times. Yeah. Yes.

Sure.

Jonathan Thomas (36:52)
Tell us about the Find My Pass newspaper archive. What is there? And it 'cause it's not just like the Times, it's like every newspaper.

Jen (36:57)
Yeah,

yeah. So the Find My Past Newspaper Archive is also the same material. on the British Newspaper Archive website, if people are familiar with that. It's a partnership with the British Library. We're now on year 12 or 13 or 14 of that partnership, I think. And the goal is to digitize every newspaper in their holdings, which if you're familiar with the British Library collection, it's one of the largest in the world. If you printed a newspaper, if you printed anything actually, in

Britain, at one point, of course, included all of the empire countries, then you had to send a copy to the British Library. ⁓ That material was, a lot of it was microfilms back in the day. And so we're scanning all of those microfilms and original newspapers and making them available online. ⁓ It's an incredible collection.

Thousands and thousands, millions really, millions of images of newspaper prints starting in the early 1700s and running all the way to modern day. And they cover everything. So it is the big national titles, but it's also these tiny little regional titles that only survived for two years. Or you have political papers or you have papers that specialize in sports. One that's coming out soon, we just learned about is a newspaper that's devoted entirely to cats.

And I'm a cat owner, so I'm really excited about that one. There are newspapers about the shipping industry. There are newspapers that cover the different types of politics, Right leaning and left leaning newspaper coverage. If you can think of it, you can probably find it on the newspaper collection. It's incredible. There's nothing like it.

Jonathan Thomas (38:38)
It it

it is. I I've I've used it a few times for research for our articles in my books and you can easily spend days just getting lost in the rabbit hole the of of the rabbit warren of British newspapers. It's yeah, it's wild.

Jen (38:48)
days.

One of the things

that's so great about it is it because so, you know, obviously, when newspapers first started, they were expensive, they were hard to print, the the the literacy rates across the country were very low, so pretty limited audience. But as those things change, right, so you get into the industrial revolution, and suddenly newspaper is not that hard to print. And it's much more economical. So there's newspapers everywhere, they're all over the country. But that means you've got everything from these big national events, all the way down to

weddings, local gossip, football scores, the school prizes, right? There are notices of marriages where it describes the bride's dress and the flowers that she had. ⁓ There are tons of photos in the newspapers. The advertisements are really interesting to review. ⁓ True crime, like we've talked about. ⁓ There are stories, the war stories are incredible, especially World War I is, I mean, I could just read it for days and days and days. I think newspapers give us

personality of our ancestors. It's not just another piece of paper like historical evidence. It's really a chance to see them as who they were. And it's where we can really delve deeper into their lives actually, because that's where those little nuggets of information live. So just to give you another story, right? So I was raised in Washington state, a tiny little town outside of Seattle. There's only one Enumclaw in the whole world, and I know that for sure, right? So.

I occasionally will go and search on the British newspaper archive for my town of Enumclaw just to see what pops up. And I'm telling you, these papers cover everything because there's now over 75 articles about Enumclaw, Washington, including one that described a fire in the town where they put every all the women and children on this train and they raced the train very dramatically through town with the flames hitting the sides of the train. And it was very dramatic.

I had never found that in a United States newspaper. only found it in a Scottish newspaper.

Jonathan Thomas (40:50)
Well, that's so we can learn the secrets of America's past in these big newspapers. Yeah. Well, let's let let's do do a section here where we we leave listeners with some quick wins for their beginning of the research. So let's say if if a listener does just one thing after listening to this podcast and can do it this week, you suggest speaking to one relative. So who should they call and and what kind of questions should they ask?

Jen (40:54)
It's international coverage.

So call the oldest person in your family. Start with them. Or I should say probably the most vulnerable person in your family, right? The oldest may be very healthy and have another 20 years. I hope they do. But call somebody. Call somebody in your family who has stories, who was that person who never stopped talking at the Thanksgiving dinner table. That's the person you want to get on the phone or even better ⁓ on a video recording. ⁓ Ask, make sure that you get permission to record them.

start asking those questions. It's like opening a time capsule. It really is. My dad is a prolific storyteller, and I've been listening to his stories my entire life. And he's still coming up with new ones that I've never heard before. And I've been doing oral interviews with him for a good 20 years. So please, please, please talk to a family member while those memories still remain, and you can still get those memories.

Jonathan Thomas (42:12)
Yeah, and I would second that notion that make sure you record it. And because now with AI you can transcribe it and you'll have a written you'll have a written record as well, not just a video and audio. And that that written record can be used in any, many different permutations. So so let's let's for a second quick win, let's say send somebody on a quest to go find a single census entry online on Find My Past Can you talk us through how achievable that really is and say they want to go do it right now?

Jen (42:19)
Yeah.

Yes

Yeah. ⁓ so actually it's, it's actually really straightforward. You open, find my past, find my past.com for those in the U S or find my past.co.uk in the UK. ⁓ you hit the search, ⁓ the search menu comes up on the front screen. ⁓ you, if you don't have an account, you'll want to create a free account at least to start. ⁓ it will prompt you to start a family tree. So I recommend you do that too.

Jonathan Thomas (42:43)
How do they do it?

Jen (43:06)
But go to the search box, fill in the name of the person that you're looking for. Now, keep in mind, census records are 100 years or older, so you're not going to find yourself in a census record. You need to be searching for a grandparent or a great-grandparent, someone who at least was alive in 1939, but to get the actual census, 1921 is better. You put in their information, start with as little as possible, and add more as you go.

Don't fill in every box right away. Put in Jonathan Thomas, born 1900, and then just see how many of them there are. And then you can say, OK, well, he was actually born 1900 in Yorkshire. All right, fine. Now we've got our list narrowed down to just those people in York. OK, great. Now do I know what village he was in, or do I know a parent's name, or a sibling's name, or someone else that might have been in the household, or I know his occupation? I can narrow it down even further. Eventually,

You're going to fill in enough information to be able to actually say, that's the one. You click on that result, and it gives you a transcription first. So it'll give you kind of all those details printed out, easy to read. And then you click on the original image. Make sure you look at the original image, because that's where the good stuff is. And that's where the handwriting is. That's where the personality comes alive. It's where all the little notations come in. If there's any one of those political statements we talked about earlier, that's where you'll see it.

Jonathan Thomas (44:28)
So and the third quick win is just to start that basic family tree with your parents and your grandparents. Why is getting those first few names towns such an important first step?

Jen (44:38)
Yeah, it's really important that you set the foundation for your family as you know it, right? So, and keep in mind, there is no perfect tree here. There's no sense that you have to get it all right on the very first try. Curiosity actually is more important. So even if you don't know everything, if you just have a general idea of where they lived, or even at this point, you can say, I know he was from England. I know he's from Ireland, but I don't know anything else. Or I know he's from Pennsylvania. It doesn't matter.

as long as you've got something in there. Everything you know at this early phase can go in that tree. I will tell you, even professionals consistently use family trees and constantly learn from them. So every time I start a new project, as the genealogist for Find My Past, the first thing I do is start a new tree for that person for that case study. Because again, it helps you keep your research organized, but it's also gonna give you hints.

And that's going to help feed you in terms of what information is available. ⁓ Pay attention to the name of that tool, though they are hints. We're not necessarily saying this is exactly the right person in exactly the right scenario. This is definitely your family member. It's a way for you to learn about the records that are available and to learn about this is an opportunity for me to research.

Jonathan Thomas (45:55)
So for someone who finishes this episode and they feel inspired but still a little nervous, what's your one piece of encouragement, the thing you'd most want them to hear before they begin? So they so they sit down and do it.

Jen (46:07)
So sit down and do it. Yeah, that's what I want to know. No one knows your family better than you do. So as much as we sometimes would love to open up a website or an AI tool and have it just listed out in front of the in front of us, no one can do that for you. This is exciting and it's history and it's fun and it's addictive and it

can be very challenging. It's like playing detective all the time, but it is a lifelong hobby that I guarantee will give you a lot of satisfaction. But you won't know until you actually just sit down and do it.

Jonathan Thomas (46:45)
Well, and to tee up the next episode in our conversation, once someone has these basics down, what's waiting for them when they get ready to go deeper, which we'll cover in the next episode.

Jen (46:54)
gosh.

Yeah, there's so much. And we've kind of hinted at it already, but the census collection still has so much to offer. The 1939 register right on the eve of World War II, the newspaper collection, we have crime records and pension records and school records, right? In some cases you can see ⁓ when your ancestors skipped school or what kind of grades they got. It's just so much opportunity and we publish more records every week. So that opportunity never ends.

Jonathan Thomas (47:20)
Well, Jen, this has been such a warm and encouraging introduction. Yeah, you're inspiring me to to get get my family tree set up again. It's just I need to do it. I think you've just given a lot of people the nudge they needed to finally begin. So thank you so much for joining us on the Angotopia podcast. And good news for everyone listening. This is the first of two episodes with Jen. So be sure to stay tuned for the next one, where we will build on these foundations to connect your family story to the wider sweep of British history. And thanks.

Jen (47:22)
Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (47:47)
Once more to today's sponsor, Find My Past. It's this conversation that has you itching to trace your own family story. There's no better place to begin than the UK and Irish records at Find My Past. You can start a free trial at findmypast.com in the US or findmypast.co.uk in the UK. And the link will be in the show notes. And you could be making your first discovery tonight. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, or comment and tell us who you're hoping to find on your own family tree over on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook.

And if you love the Anglotopia podcast, please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club, where you can get early access to new episodes and connect with other Britain enthusiasts. So join us next time as we continue exploring the people, places, and stories that make Britain's history so endlessly fascinating. Thank you, Jen.