Putting it into practice

Challenge 1

Review your records

If you have not already done so, be sure to add your ancestors’ siblings to your family tree.

First look at the census and make a note of all siblings recorded there.

Second, revisit the parish baptism records and birth indexes and identify possible siblings.

Challenge 2

Enrich your research

Having built out the branches of your family tree using the key collections in Challenge 1, now explore, as David did, further records for details of your extended family in times’ past, such as:

• trade directories – for details of addresses

• wills – for details of family relationships

Also explore information such as:

• witnesses’ names on marriage records

• extended family inhabiting different households on the census

The take-aways?

There are key, valuable lessons that we can learn from David’s research.

• Very often a single record does not provide us with concrete information.

• Rather than just decide that we have a ‘brick wall’, by piecing together clues from many sources we can build up a plausible theory.

• While, taken individually, each of these clues do not provide compelling evidence; analysed collectively they may provide the proof we so sorely seek.

David Annal has been involved in the family history world for more than 30 years and is a former principal family history specialist at The National Archives. He is an experienced lecturer and the author of a number of best-selling family history books, including Easy Family History and (with Peter Christian) Census: The Family Historian’s Guide. David now runs his own family history research business, Lifelines Research.

If you have ideas for subjects or research skills that you would like to see covered on the Family Tree Academy pages, please email helen.t@ family-tree.co.uk and we would be very interested to hear from you.