Genealogy is apparently the third most populat websearch, after e-commerce and pornography, so it’s no wonder that family historians are excited about the launch of the UK 1911 census online. The last time a census was made available like this the servers fell over after just a few minutes, such was the demand. this time, the infrastructure must be much more robust. When I tried it earlier today, the searches were done without a hitch. If you’re British, or have got British ancestry, you’re going to love it.
There’s a couple of caveats. Most important, not every county’s records are up yet. And if you’re expecting it to be free, you’ll be disappointed. But I’m sure hat this is a valuable tool in the family historians arsenal, especially if you don’t have the time or inclination to go down to the Public Record Office.
Alwyn ap Huw has been pondering the mathematics of family history
The mathematics of family history are similar. I have 2 parents, 4 grand parents, 8 great grandparents etc. Every generation doubles, so playing the long terms odds game must eventually enable me to to hit pay dirt in proving that I am descended from importance, somewhere along the line - and it has!
The funny thing is though, the more one researches family history, the great and the good become less important. When one learns about the miner, the shepherd and the whore, the common folk who have fought adversity to enable me to be me, they become my real ancestral heroes.
I don’t think it is quite true that the number of our ancestors doubles every generation. Many of our forebears were disposed to marry their cousins, which can drastically reduce the number of individual ancestors. I read somewhere that researchers have shown that any survivor of the Black Death who had children is likely to be your ancestor.
I do very much agree with Alwyn’s main point. I haven’t looked seriously at my family tree for a few years (though the launch of the census is likely to change that) but I have had a bit of success with ancestor collecting and I’m reasonably confident that I’ve got some of my lines pre-1700. So far, every single one of my ancestors has been some sort of miner — usually coal or lead — an agricultural labourer, or some doing some other manual work. And I do take a certain pride in that. But looking through my little collection of ancestors is also a powerful warning against sentimentalizing the past. Their lives must have been very hard, and many died young.
A sobering thought.
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Alwyn ap Huw 01.17.09 at 2:11 am
Thanks for the link, Richard. I did point out that all of my Ancestors have common descent from Adam and Noah
My children are of very mixed stock. My wife is from a local farming family who have farmed the hills around the area where we have lived for generations. the number of common ancestors that she has is huge. Cousins marrying cousins, two sisters marrying two brothers etc, positively incestuous! She has a very small family tree compared to mine.
My mother’s family is one of descending social mobility. I have to go to the beginning of the downward trend to find people who are related to her twice. Again its owning the farm that seems to make people want to keep it in the family.
My father’s family are as common as muck, and in 12 generations I have found no common relations for him - although I have found the odd illegitimate working on a farm owned by my mother’s family, so I may have unprovable common ancestors there!
I also have a lot of Shropshire lead miners in the tree. Lead miners seem to defy one of the rules of life, the men seem to be widowed more often than the women. I have been told that this is because the men would drink ale, but that the women would be more likely to drink water poisoned by the workings!
Most of my lead-mining ancestors were Wesleyan Methodists and that seemed to help them through their short lives and to appreciate life more than many in today’s “200 Queens-telegrams- a-day” days do.