Module 3 - Sources and Information
The original sources which I have used in my resources include:
Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates.
Parish registers for Baptisms, Marriage and Burials.
Personal, first hand knowledge
Hospital admission books
Military documentation i.e. Pension Records / Service Records
The availability of digitized original records via the internet has made this much easier, although I must admit I still love going to the record office and viewing the original documents (like hospital admission books / workhouse records) or using the microfilm to view parish registers.
The derivative sources which I have used include:
Websites dedicated to One Name or one branch of my family
A secondary piece of information would be the age of death on a death certificate or headstone. My great grandfather died in 1932 aged 31. I have his death certificate, which indicates as much. He was killed in a road traffic accident so I also have details about the accident in newspaper clippings and personal letters of my great grandmother regarding the resulting court case and associated costs. I digress. When he died all the family could afford to mark his grave was a rose bush. When his eldest son died a few years ago his ashes were put with his father, his wife and children decided to erect a stone which remembered both him and my great grandfather. The age of death they put on the gravestone was 36.
I verified his age at death using his birth certificate. I also have his baptism entry photographed from the microfilmed parish register and his original marriage certificate.
Module 4 - Confusing Situations
I have not (yet) come across any surname changes in my research on my maternal side, but on my paternal side I have PULESTON / DE PULESTON / DE PYVELSDON.
However the common changes that I have to deal with are the boundary changes of
North Wales, especially Flintshire and Denbighshire which changed during my father’s lifetime (in 1974) and then again in my own (in 1996). In fact according to some mail I still live in Clwyd! It is made more confusing by the fact that Flintshire pre 1974 is different to the Flintshire post 1996!