Tracing English Immigrants From Abroad: Difference between revisions

===Step 3: Search Indexes: Key to Finding Immigrants' Specific Place of Birth===

Proceed to find compiled indexes to primary sources in the host-country of settlement to step no. 4 (researching in the national and city records of England),be certain to search the records of the country of settlement. If you are researching strictly in England and if your ancestor came from outside an English city or large township, or from England’s countryside into a city, be sure to search the following records for further clues about your ancestor's birthplace.

*census records  

*church registers  

*civil registration certificates (marriages and births especially)  

*parish poor law records such as settlement, examination or removal records  

*apprenticeships

*directories, etc. for further clues about your ancestor’s birthplace

*Vital records of births, marriages and deaths located in state health and vital statistics offices around the USA have indexes to their vital records available to in-house patrons; some will conduct index searches over the telephone; contact them via [http://www.vitalrec.com/ www.vitalrec.com]

*Gateways to websites such as [http://www.cyndislist.com/ www.cyndislist.com]  

*The Family History Library’s Patron Desktop “Favorites” web links available at [http://www.fhlfavorites.info/ www.fhlfavorites.info ]to download free data-rich sites. Search billions of names using many websites at no—or low—cost! Search “England/[name of] County/[Name of] Parish or Subject Heading—i.e. ‘Church records’

*Private collections, i.e. marriage indexes (see [http://www.genuki.org.uk/ www.genuki.org.uk])

*[http://www.findmypast.co.uk/ www.findmypast.com] ($)

*[http://www.ancestry.com/ www.ancestry.com] ($)

*[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ www.rootsweb.com]

Search all of these in order to locate available indexes covering large cities. Indexes may be available for just about any genealogical record type. Numerous indexes have been published and many have been made available solely at archives and libraries. Many are also now posted online including indexes to church records, civil registration of births, marriages and deaths, and census. Indexes to wills, cemeteries, land ownership, military or militia lists may also be available, to a limited extent, and etc.  

After having successfully searched indexes to record sources, the researcher normally is led to actual entry found in the original records, which usually provides the precise place of former residence or place of birth in the mother country. Research in the records of the country of settlement is a critical step and usually an essential one at that. If the previous steps haven’t produced the critical place or locale of birth or residence in the city, then original records of the country of settlement must next be consulted. The following original records are the most helpful with i.e. birth data of a big-city emigrant from the mother country:  

*Funeral home records, where available, may be helpful

*Social Security Death Index – Form SS-5—“Social Security Number Record Third Party Request for Photocopy”

*Military U.S. and Canadian (“C” series) records may give birthplace/parentage

Example 2: Let’s suppose that your search in both family records and compiled sources reveals no Florence Beatrice Bradsell birthplace other than merely just “London”. The next step then is proceed to Step 3 and search in vital, church and other records of the state or province in the country of settlement such as Louisiana or New York or Ontario. In Florence Bradsell’s case, after searching in the most likely record sources in the state of Utah—including her tombstone and her newspaper obituary to no avail, you request a copy of her death certificate from the state department of health statistics.  

===Step 4: Researching in England’s Records to Determine and Prove Place of Birth===

The challenge of researching in England’s large cities is in dealing with the large task of searching in huge population bases. Along with large populations comes the challenge of searching through bloated records—i.e. church registers often containing tens of thousands of entries for not just one single parish, but sometimes numerous parishes. Add to this already daunting task, the task of researching in several additional genealogical record types! The sheer number of inhabitants in Greater London and other large cities in England places fact-finding into slow-motion and it becomes the biggest source of frustration, and challenges the very best of researchers. Thus, availability of complete data-bases or “indexes” then, is incredibly helpful and is an enormous boon to genealogists when researching in especially big cities because indexes help you find next-generation ancestry in a mere fraction of the time, versus normal research the ‘old fashioned way’—parish by parish, by parish, and etc.!