Advanced Techniques for Census, Parish Register, Probate, and Land Records - International Institute: Difference between revisions

{{Infobox NIFGS|June 2012|{{Methodology, parts 1-6}}|Louise St Denis, Brenda Dougall Merriman and Dr. Penelope Christensen}}  

In our quest to find at least three pieces of evidence to prove each point, the census is one of the five main original sources. Censuses can provide:  

An understanding of how the census returns for your country are arranged on the films will assist you in making economies of time and money. Experienced genealogists know that families usually stayed fairly close together for mutual support. Reading censuses of nearby parishes is usually productive in finding relatives.  

For England and Wales the parish register may be available in one or more of these forms, and similar situations occur in other countries.  

The FamilySearch Catalog is more up-to-date and gives a much fuller description of each film, including missing dates and all other items on the films such as banns, burials, vaccinations for smallpox, arrivals and departures from parish, clerical surveys, etc. as appropriate for your country.

So far, there is no way to assess whether items on the Internet version of the FamilySearch Catalog have been extracted, but this may be added later. However, there is another [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/ website] that serves this purpose: There may be restrictions on reading registers containing material that falls within the privacy period for that jurisdiction. For example, say you wish to see christenings 1855-1880 and the christening register covers 1852-1924. There is a 100-year privacy rule so you are not allowed to view the whole book. There are at least three ways to overcome this:  

2. Look on the FamilySearch Catalog, now being updated daily, to see if the material has been filmed by the GSU. They frequently film material up to the deadline year and not the restricted later part. These films would be available through FSCs and the holding archive would also have a copy. <br>  

'''How to Focus Your Research Using the Parish and Vital Records Listing and the FamilySearch Catalog'''  

[[Image:How to Focus Your Research.jpg|center|How to Focus Your Research.jpg]]  

Probate records, especially wills, are one of the most reliable of the main original sources because they relate to the inheritance of property and have to be sworn to by the testator and the executor. When giving away his belongings, a man is going to accurately identify his property and his relatives and friends.  

Use our Probate Abstract form to assist you with extracting information from probate files.  

Land records are one of the most reliable of the main original sources because they relate to the legal disposition of land, its sale, mortgaging, leasing, inheritance and accompanying rights. There are many different kinds of land records in different countries, from manorial courts baron and leet in England, sasines in Scotland to homestead and bounty lands records in North America.  

*Immigrant country of origin

<br>__________________________________________________________________<br>  

We welcome updates and additions to this Wiki page.