Modern genealogy

Amateurs in the subject of genealogy are almost always actuated by the desire to trace their own family history. In the course of so doing they discover and work with general principles which apply to pedigrees other than their own, though records other than those applicable to their own case do not interest them. The professional genealogist is concerned not with one family but with many, and with the principles of genealogical research which arise from a wide study. As there are few university courses in the subject and therefore few degrees or other certificates of professional proficiency, the professional must be largely self-taught.

The disciplines required of a professional genealogist include a deep knowledge of the history of the country with which he is concerned and of its neighbours. National history determines the form of national genealogy, and genealogy can illuminate many aspects of national history that might otherwise remain obscure. The Wars of the Roses, for example, are hard to grasp unless genealogical trees showing relationships of the contestants are studied, and the course of the American Revolution is easier to understand when the links between George Washington and his compeers with the old English landed families who overthrew the Stuarts are comprehended. An understanding of the principles of law, especially of land law, the ability to decipher court hand or medieval script, an understanding of heraldry, and an intimate knowledge of the study of surnames and place names are also essential to the genealogist. Variations in surname spelling can be bewildering. The key is in the sound of the name, for a medieval scribe could not ask the illiterate person before him to spell his name.

The main task undertaken by professional genealogists is the tracing of pedigrees for clients, this being the staple of their work. Clients often consult genealogists when they wish to establish their family background, or, when having tried to trace it, they have come to a stop.

The writing of private family histories by professionals is very common. The material has usually been worked out by others who wish it to be checked and written by a professional.

Amateur genealogists, as already mentioned, are usually concerned only with their own families. The standard of amateur work varies with the individual, from the truly bad to the excellent.

Amateur genealogical work has increased greatly since 1945. In the United States there has been a long interest in the subject. The New England Historic Genealogical Society, the Augustan Society (based in California) and many state societies are of note. The Mormons (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) have built up in Salt Lake City, Utah, a microfilm library of genealogical records from Britain and continental Europe, which is probably unequalled. In Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa the study of genealogy by private persons and by associations is growing rapidly. In England there is a Society of Genealogists, and there are corresponding bodies for Ireland and Scotland. In Denmark there is an International Confederation of Genealogy and Heraldry, which since 1954 has organized international congresses held in many European capitals at intervals of two years. In Czechoslovakia, by way of contrast, the national Genealogical Society was dissolved, and in general it has not been feasible to obtain genealogical details from communist countries, though it is probable that changes are now occurring in this respect. Jewish records are in a separate class. With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, a very great effort has been made to centralize information about the Jews of continental Europe under the care and direction of The Central Archives for the Study of the Jewish Peoples, in Jerusalem.

In tracing family history, the worker follows certain rules. He works backward from the present. This is an elementary caution constantly put on one side by amateurs, who tend to trace forward from a person of the same name who may well be unrelated. As there cannot in the nature of things be a gap in a pedigree, no assumptions as to relationship can be allowed without very strong reason to accept them. Good and bad features in the ancestry have to be accepted. An ancestor’s wrongdoing must also be allowed for, though with passage of time this is usually taken in a romantic sense. Registration of birth, marriage, and death first became compulsory in England in 1837. Public records in most other Western countries began at varying dates in the 19th century. Census records are of great importance. They began in the United States as early as 1791; in Britain in 1801 (papers kept only from 1841); and even earlier in French Canada, in 1655–66. Parish registers began in England in 1538, though they are rarely preserved from that date. In most countries they begin later, but in Spain the oldest extant is dated 1394, and there are 1,636 parishes having records prior to 1570. In England, Nonconformist records have been kept by various bodies, and many are now held officially at Somerset House, London, or at the National Archives. In America the settlers were generally trying to get away from established church and controlling state. They were vigorous individualists who kept careful records of their lives and of the organization of their new communities. Examples of detail in New England records can be seen in many of the 1,600 pedigrees contained in American Families with British Ancestry (500-page supplement to Burke’s Landed Gentry, 1939), in A.M. Burke’s Prominent Families of the United States of America, and in the many volumes of family history produced in the United States.

Wills are of the utmost importance as a source of genealogical information. Ships’ lists of passengers are useful in supplying dates for immigrant ancestors’ departure for the New World, but since they do not indicate place of origin, but only the port of departure, the original habitat must be sought elsewhere. Without knowledge of the ancestor’s place of origin in the homeland it is useless in almost all cases to attempt a search.

With the aid of the type of record mentioned above, and with help from family Bibles, tombstones, and plaques and brasses in churches, it is as a rule possible for a person of English antecedents to trace some 250–300 years of ancestry. Before the 17th century, everything depends on the social position of the ancestors. Tax records, lawsuits, and purchases and sales of land are the chief sources for tracing a family before 1600. The Pipe Rolls extend from the reign of Henry II (1154–89) to that of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), with an interrupted beginning also in the time of Henry I (1100–35). Monastic records are of great importance as showing grants or ownership of land. The pleas of the crown deal with suits at law and contain much detail about families. There are many Rolls besides those of the Pipe that give a great deal of incidental genealogical information. Inquisitiones post mortem show the position of an heir—i.e., his age and other details. As the centuries are passed, the numbers of those who can prove a descent by the male line dwindle, until by the time of the Norman Conquest scarcely half a dozen pedigrees can be traced in the male line for either Saxon or Norman.

Regarding deposition of public records, two principles have been followed by archivists: that of centralization and that of diffused local holdings. The former has many obvious advantages and was adopted in Scotland and in Ireland. It has one disadvantage—destruction of the records at one stroke. This happened in Dublin on April 13, 1922, when Irish factions fighting with each other burned most of the Irish records. The second system, by which records are stored in a number of depositories, prevails to a considerable extent in England. Although the Public Record Office, Somerset House, and the British Museum library are places of centralized record, the parish registers remain outside them, scattered in numerous parishes or county offices. County records contain masses of material not to be found in London.

From the 16th century there has been an increasing accumulation of written material, which deals either exclusively or incidentally with genealogy. William Camden (1551–1623), a learned English antiquary and historian, did much to raise the standards of genealogical research. He was the first English writer on surnames, and his work was not resumed for nearly 200 years. Sir William Dugdale, a younger contemporary of Camden, made a beginning with his Antiquities of Warwickshire to the great output of county histories written between the 17th and 19th centuries. The revolution in modern genealogy was the application to its study of canons of historical and literary criticism formulated in Europe from 1800. Their application to genealogy was fairly late, as is illustrated by the fact that the 19th-century English historian Thomas Macaulay, critically perceptive in most other spheres, accepted what amounted to family myths as true genealogy. Later writers, including J.H. Round, W. Farrer, C. Lewis Loyd, C.T. Clay, and the editors of the Complete Peerage, are of the greatest importance.