Off topic: chat

That's great, thanks Mick. Bookmarked both of those pages and have taken note of all of the above, especially including historical events to add some context.

I found this book earlier today and it's sort of what I have in mind. Obviously they're fortunate to have an abundance of family photographs, so I'll have less of those but more newspaper clippings relevant to the area at the time.

How are you handling citations and sources?

mindhorn wrote: »

.............I found this book earlier today and it's sort of what I have in mind. Obviously they're fortunate to have an abundance of family photographs,...........How are you handling citations and sources?

It’s a good question and I’ve not yet fully decided. For the moment I’ve gone with the format of putting all my source notes as endnotes because I believe they interrupt the flow when they are footnotes and are a hindrance there to all except nerds. Keep the endnotes for sources, not for descriptive text. Check a style manual and keep to the same format for all notes (there are rules, use them from the outset). When I get an opportunity, I just write stuff, often roughly and cutting/pasting from the ‘person notes’ on my FTM tree. Get it down ‘on paper’ (hard drive), you can strip it out/tidy it up eventually. The important thing is to get it written down. You will be surprised at the large amount you have!

Are you writing your book with a view to it being given free to family or sold to them? That will govern your two choices, you write one for genealogists or you write one that will entertain and educate your relatives about their ancestry (i.e. one that will be read/ sold!). The former would be quite turgid were it filled with copies of every BMD cert and riddled with source notes. The latter would include just one or two ‘typical’ GRO certs (e.g. with a note saying this is the first of the family registered when compulsory registration was brought in during 1864). Then contrast that with an image of the spidery writing Parish register variety. Or perhaps use a cert if it has interesting sponsors or witnesses. (E.g., Sponsor Jim, an uncle of the newborn, later married sponsor Mary, they emigrated and are the ancestors of the family now in Brooklyn, NY.) Try to stitch all together, make it a narrative if possible. I can go back quite far, so have branches in a few countries and I give each of them a chapter (eventually!).

I don’t like the book you linked to, it’s more of a photo album, not a family story. It shows that an abundance of photos can be a hindrance! Nor do I like the trees or the way the maps are included – a county map showing where marriage partners/families hailed from make much more sense, showing distances between homesteads and- even better - a larger scale one of the townlands on which the family is centred. (Or if urban, e.g. a Dublin docker family.showing streets and proximity to work area.) But I see little point in having large-scale maps unless they really illustrate a point. Same with census data – strip it to an image of the family entry if they are sharing a house, no point in including the people on the same landing! People love newspaper clippings, although not all are easily reproduced.
Photos – if you don’t have them you can use images from Wiki that are not copyright. I have ancestors who were ‘active’ in the War of Independence and in writing about them I included a piece on a distant relative who had a pub in Cork in the early 1900’s that was destroyed in the ‘Burning of Cork’ in 1920 - I’ve no photo of them, so just used a photo of smouldering city ruins to illustrate their story and it is more evocative than an image of a few uniformed soldiers/Tans. Works fine! Family photos can be over-rated, too many of the same individuals is plain boring. They need to be edited, it’s a book not a photo album.

Start, keep writing and polish it periodically (but not too often)!

Mick Tator wrote: »

It’s a good question and I’ve not yet fully decided. For the moment I’ve gone with the format of putting all my source notes as endnotes because I believe they interrupt the flow when they are footnotes and are a hindrance there to all except nerds. Keep the endnotes for sources, not for descriptive text. Check a style manual and keep to the same format for all notes (there are rules, use them from the outset). When I get an opportunity, I just write stuff, often roughly and cutting/pasting from the ‘person notes’ on my FTM tree. Get it down ‘on paper’ (hard drive), you can strip it out/tidy it up eventually. The important thing is to get it written down. You will be surprised at the large amount you have!

Are you writing your book with a view to it being given free to family or sold to them? That will govern your two choices, you write one for genealogists or you write one that will entertain and educate your relatives about their ancestry (i.e. one that will be read/ sold!). The former would be quite turgid were it filled with copies of every BMD cert and riddled with source notes. The latter would include just one or two ‘typical’ GRO certs (e.g. with a note saying this is the first of the family registered when compulsory registration was brought in during 1864). Then contrast that with an image of the spidery writing Parish register variety. Or perhaps use a cert if it has interesting sponsors or witnesses. (E.g., Sponsor Jim, an uncle of the newborn, later married sponsor Mary, they emigrated and are the ancestors of the family now in Brooklyn, NY.) Try to stitch all together, make it a narrative if possible. I can go back quite far, so have branches in a few countries and I give each of them a chapter (eventually!).

I don’t like the book you linked to, it’s more of a photo album, not a family story. It shows that an abundance of photos can be a hindrance! Nor do I like the trees or the way the maps are included – a county map showing where marriage partners/families hailed from make much more sense, showing distances between homesteads and- even better - a larger scale one of the townlands on which the family is centred. (Or if urban, e.g. a Dublin docker family.showing streets and proximity to work area.) But I see little point in having large-scale maps unless they really illustrate a point. Same with census data – strip it to an image of the family entry if they are sharing a house, no point in including the people on the same landing! People love newspaper clippings, although not all are easily reproduced.
Photos – if you don’t have them you can use images from Wiki that are not copyright. I have ancestors who were ‘active’ in the War of Independence and in writing about them I included a piece on a distant relative who had a pub in Cork in the early 1900’s that was destroyed in the ‘Burning of Cork’ in 1920 - I’ve no photo of them, so just used a photo of smouldering city ruins to illustrate their story and it is more evocative than an image of a few uniformed soldiers/Tans. Works fine! Family photos can be over-rated, too many of the same individuals is plain boring. They need to be edited, it’s a book not a photo album.

Start, keep writing and polish it periodically (but not too often)!

Thanks. I'm definitely not going with the footnotes option as agreed, more of a hindrance. Writing it with a view to giving it for free to some family members. I was originally planning to include all the certificates I have but it may be a bit overkill. I'll start compiling and see how it looks after a handful of pages.

Like I said, it's sort of what I have in mind but not exactly what I'm planning to do. The photo album aspect doesn't bother me - an abundance of photos may be a hindrance but if used correctly then they add a whole lot to it IMO. I have some sortware that I use that generate various trees/reports so my plan is to incorporate them into the book.

Naive of me but didn't even consider the issue of copyright as this will be for immediate family members only. I was taking some screenshots of some old maps/photos without even giving it a second thought.

Depends on the relationship of the person to the deceased. I have two cases 1959 and 1937 in Dublin where son supplied the information and age out by c 7 yrs.

tabbey wrote: »

Age at death is most unreliable.
Even today, the informant often does not know the age of the deceased when registering the death. If the informant was asked again a couple of weeks later, a different age would often be given.
In the 19th century It was even more unreliable.

Perhaps it's just with my own ancestors then. Whenever im looking for a birth record - I use age of death and work back. 95% of the time it's within one year of the estimated birth.
Same when searching for deaths - I search for whatever age the person would have been based on their birth record - and I find the death record exactly.
In my personal experience the ages on census records are shocking.
I wont generalise and say it's the same for everyone - but in my experience this is the case. I find death ages very reliable !

kanadams123 wrote: »

Perhaps it's just with my own ancestors then. Whenever im looking for a birth record - I use age of death and work back. 95% of the time it's within one year of the estimated birth.
Same when searching for deaths - I search for whatever age the person would have been based on their birth record - and I find the death record exactly.
In my personal experience the ages on census records are shocking.
I wont generalise and say it's the same for everyone - but in my experience this is the case. I find death ages very reliable !

Perhaps this has been said before but there are a number of reasons why the age on the Census can be unreliable. First of all, the form asked for age and there were significant increases in years ending 0 and 5. When date of birth became the question, this problem disappeared. Secondly, if people could not read or write the enumerator filled out the form and may well have guessed the age. Thirdly (based on a family I checked) a single man may have understated his age and then reverted to the correct age at the next Census if then married. Lastly, the introduction of he old age pension led to ages being overstated in the hope of getting the pension early.

pinkypinky wrote: »

The pension age thing is a bit of an urban legend. Age wasn't the only criterion.

It really comes down to people not having to be precise about their age in the past, so they often didn't know exactly.

Try to explain this (no real necessity for paperwork etc)to some people and you would wonder if they actually think you are joking.

Couple of examples.
My godfather born c.1930 told me that when he went looking for his baptismal cert in order to get married in adjoining parish the priest couldn't find it.
He knew his birthday and year but never realised that he was christened (and on civil register )under a totally different given name as to what he was called all his life.Found entry in register and when he asked his mother she told him that she had actually forgotten about it.

My father never knew exactly what age his own mother was until he went to register her death .This would have been the early 1970's.

My aunt ,born 1933 had a birth cert dated 14th February and 15th February on passport.
She was actually born 12th February 1933 as her mothers diary has "Eileen Mary born 12th Feb. at 4:35am weighing x pounds.Presume if anyone should know its the mother !!

Have in my tree a cousin of my grandfather who died in USA in 1912.
According to his New York death cert he died 16 March 1912 aged 42 years ie born c.1870.
His naturalisation paperwork says he was born 1873 while according to his marriage cert he was born in 1871.

His headstone (mentioned on family tombstone )says he died aged 45 on 20th March 1912 in New York City (actually the day he was buried according to New York paperwork) whilst his memory card (printed in Ireland)states he died 18th March 1912.

He was born (well baptised anyways) on 14th September 1864 so aged 48 on death.
No mistake with baptismal or civil birth record as parents on both and no other child born to them with same or even similar names ie name reused for sibling after first child of that name dies at or shortly after birth.