Changing Places

In one of the first Ruby blog posts, I wrote about the challenge and rewards of moving outside of one's geographic comfort zone.   Nikki Brown this month has written about her research experiences moving for the first time out of the UK, in this case, all the way to Australia.  Crucial to her experience was collaboration from some of our colleagues.  Let us know what your experience has been by adding a comment! Check the end of the blog for a few New Zealand search tips provided by Jill Williams.  

  Even though I have been doing my One-Name Study for 5 years, it is still in its early stages and very much focused in England, and almost all the people, were in or near London. I have not ignored the rest of the world, but even for the UK, I found no Pullums in Wales and only two births in Scotland, one of which, in his own biography admits that he was only born there because his father was in the Royal Air Force and stationed at Turnberry in Ayrshire at the end of the Second World War.

Therefore, when I joined the Ruby team, naturally I started compiling families in London. After a while however, and I am still not sure how, I found myself in Australia (not literally of course). I found I had to change my way of working and thinking. 

Australia was a part of the world that I had covered in my own study, but the only ones in Australia, originated from 3 brothers from Shoreditch, and despite becoming quite successful, the name died out in 1982. So, I had never built an Australian family from only Australian records.

With UK records, to build families for a ONS, it is usual to start with the 1881 census. This of course, will normally have recorded the relationship between family members. From there the path for most I am sure will to be use the GRO Index to find the mother’s maiden of the children, then search for the parent’s marriage in the parish registers. So, with a few records and in no time at all (😏) you have the skeleton of a family of 3 generations on which to start building.

For some reason I assumed that this is the way most people do things and had no reason to think it would be different in other countries. I should have thought more about this but hadn’t.

I soon discovered that, in Australia, all National censuses were destroyed after statistical information was collected. Although Australian states also took censuses, many of those also did not survive either and of those that did, only a few are on line and most are indices only. Family Search Wiki talks of “census substitutes”. The commonest is the Electoral Rolls. But it is more difficult to build families from these.

For example:

On an 1881 UK census there is, 39-year-old Thomas Ruby, a fish porter, is living at 48 Brook Street, Hackney, London, England with his wife Harriet and seven children. The mother’s maiden name in the GRO Index for (most of) the children was Vandome. So, after finding the marriage for Thomas and Harriet, two fathers can be added, and we already have a tree of 3 generations with 10 individuals.

However, in Australia on the 1942 Electoral roll, William Sergeant Ruby, an agent, is at 24 Melbourne Street, Oakleigh, Victoria, Australia with five women. No relationships or ages are recorded. It is reasonable to expect that they are his wife and daughters. But one might be his mother, some might be his sisters, daughter’s in-law, sisters-in-law etc. It takes a little more detective work to find out who is who. Another disadvantage with the electoral rolls of course is that the children must have reached voting age before they are included.

There are some things in Australia where the records help more than in the UK. The mother’s forename as well as maiden name is usually given in the birth index. Also, the death index gives the parent’s names, which is great for confirming marriages of daughters. Unlike sites with British newspaper archives, there are similar Australian sites that gives free access, so family notices may confirm findings and articles often add some nice details about the families’ lives.

I feel I have learnt a lot while working on Rubys in Australia. I have had a lot of help from team members pointing me to the right sites to search, looking up things that I couldn’t access and giving feedback on what I had found. Working on the Ruby team has been great, everyone I have had contact with has been enthusiastic and supportive.  
Although it has made me realise that there is still so much more to learn as I move into other parts of the world, I now feel more equipped and informed, so the task is a little less daunting. I have a lot of new ideas for my own study now, so I am hoping it becomes truly world-wide, maybe in the next five years!

Now that Nikki has had her Australian experience, Jill Williams has provided tips for searching in New Zealand, which has a number of similarities with Australia.  Thank you Jill!

• Like Australia New Zealand does not keep census records.  Using the Electoral Rolls is similar to Australia and you don't know who is married to who.  If there are a number of people with the same surname living at the same address you can presume they are family.   These records are on Ancestry up to 1981.  Some Genealogy Societies have later electoral rolls and public libraries have the latest copy. 
• Historical BDM are on the Internal AffairsWebsite and are searchable.  Births that occurred at least 100 years ago.  Still births at least 50 years ago, marriages that occurred at least 80 years ago. and deaths that occurred at least 50 years ago or if the deceased date of birth was at least 80 years ago.
• With the births if you know the name of the child you can then search for the mother and that will give you a list of all the children.  You are able to put in alphabetical order  the first name column or the mother and father column which is very useful.
• Unfortunately these do not give the place of birth or death.  Before we had this website we had to search the old fashion way with fiche.  These fiche are still available and go up to 1990 in some public libraries.   The folio number on the fiche in conjunction with the district keys books gave you the place of birth or death.   The folio numbers on these fiche are different to the numbers on the Historical BDM website.