ONE of the most exhilarating aspects of family history is discovering what your ancestors did for a living.

You will be surprised at the variety of occupations you will come across in the BMD certificates and Census returns.

Birth certificates give the occupation of the father, while death certificates will give the occupation of the deceased. Marriage certificates will give the occupation of both the bride and groom's father as well as the couple being married.

Apart from establishing family links, marriages etc. the most interesting pieces of information in the Census returns are usually found in the occupations column.

The information given here is usually very specific and gives a fascinating insight into the lives and occupations of our ancestors.

An interesting site which includes information on Liverpool occupations in the 19th century can be found at http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/census/index.jsp
In the data you will find a breakdown by age groups of the jobs undertaken by our ancestors in mid-Victorian Liverpool. The site gives a good overview of life in the city. In 1841 we find professions as diverse as bakers, blacksmiths, boot and shoe makers, actors, gun and pistol makers, bellows makers, boiler makers and bone dealers. The site contains a thorough breakdown of all the Census returns with associated statistics on our ancestors' occupations.

In Victorian times even the most lowly families can be found with servants in the household with many teenagers serving in homes many miles from their place of birth. One reason for this was the booming industrial revolution which was attracting millions of people into the towns and cities through the growth industries of coal and cotton. This is worth bearing in mind when you cannot identify an ancestor in his or her place of birth. With the exception of the 1841 Census which only gives the county of birth, all Census returns give the town or place of birth.

Many occupations in Liverpool were of course connected with the sea and the river. There are master mariners in Toxteth Park, Warehousemen, river pilots, dock workers and dredgermen. Elsewhere in the crowded alleys and squares in Toxteth and Scotland Road can be found dress makers, washerwomen, hawkers and seamstresses. A close study of the Liverpool Census returns will help you build up a vivid pictures of the occupations of your ancestors and the conditions in which they lived and worked.

Another useful tool for researching the occupations in a particular area is to access a local directory for the period. Many of these are now accessible on-line and are also published by the various family history societies.

A useful site for discovering names and descriptions of old occupations is
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/thursday.handleigh/demography/occupations-wages-money/old-occupations/index.htm

Some of the most romantic stories from that time centre round the coastguard and lifeboat service. The exploits of dramatic sea rescues and Mersey tragedies are well documented and there are some excellent archives which are well worth looking at, both in official records and the newspapers of the time.

One of the most famous incidents involved the sailing barque the Mexico which foundered in a storm off AInsdale in 1886.

The Southport lifeboat Eliza Fernley was launched with a crew of 16 hands in a desperate attempt to save the crew of the ship. After a battle of heroic proportions the lifeboat got within 20 yards and there were reports that the lifeboatmen had managed to throw a line to the stricken crew, but at that moment a huge sea swamped the lifeboat and it capsized, throwing her crew into the sea.

The Eliza Fernley remained bottom upwards, and was blown onto the beach. Three of the crew managed to get hold of the upturned boat and drifted ashore with her in safety; but the other 13 were drowned, three of the bodies being found under the boat when she beached. The remaining ten bodies were washed ashore the next day.

A second lifeboat – the Laura Janet from St Annes – and her 14-strong crew was also lost in the attempt to save the crew of the Mexico. The lifeboat was discovered the next day, minus mast and sails, opposite the Palace Hotel at Birkdale.

A third lifeboat, the Charles Biggs of Lytham, succeeded in reaching the Mexico and rescuing its crew of twelve.

Twenty-seven lifeboat men, fourteen from Southport and thirteen from St. Annes, were lost, making it Britain’s worst lifeboat disaster.

The Mexico was later refloated and became a tourist attraction off Lytham St Annes. She later completed a journey to the Falklands and back but was lost off the coast of Scotland in 1890.

The Botanic Gardens Museum in Churchtown Southport has a display and lots of useful information about the tragedy.

Seafaring sources
Merseyside Maritime Museum is the starting point for your research for seafaring ancestors in the region. Visit http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/
More information on the Mexico disaster and other information about your seafaring ancestors can be found
at www.mightyseas.co.uk/articles/lifeboat_disasters.htm and also at www.martyngriff.co.uk/page01.htm
An excellent resource for lighthouse keepers and the Mersey lightships etc can be found in the book Lighthouses of Liverpool Bay by John Robinson, Diane Robinson
ISBN: 0752442090. This work is readily available in the local history section of the major local booksellers and on the internet.

Trade directories were initially born out of the need for advertising local services and products and to enable buyers and sellers to meet each other before the advent of a reliable national mail service, telegrams and the telephone.

The usual format is a general introduction to the area with a detailed breakdown of its institutions and people of note – ‘local worthies’ or ‘nobility and gentry’ are the terms often used.

If we look at an early Liverpool directory – Gore’s directory of 1800 – its title reads: ‘Gore’s Liverpool directory, or, alphabetical list, of the merchants, tradesmen, and principal inhabitants, of the town of Liverpool, with the numbers as they are (or ought to be) affixed to their houses ...’

The advantage for the family historian is that trade/street directories contain a list of tradesmen for each town or village, under specific headings: Bakers, Brewers, Draymen,farmers etc. In many instances there is also a list of private residents. Sometimes searching a directory will be the only way you will be able to discover the profession of a 19th century ancestor, particularly if it is contained in a pre-1841 directory. For example, if you can identify an ancestor in the Census, it will list the street/road where they live. If you can find the same person listed in an earlier directory, you will often find a fuller description of his/her profession.

To illustrate this I had discovered one of my wife’s ancestors variously listed as ‘sea captain’ and ‘captain Royal Navy’ in the Census returns. He was listed as living in Toxteth Park. A search of the Toxteth Park area of a Liverpool street directory described him as ‘master, Crosby lightship,’ thus giving me the man’s specific trade and location.

A close study of a directory will give you a real sense of the community in which your ancestor lived and worked, particularly if you look at it in conjunction with one of the many 19th century local maps. It gives a geographic perspective to the place your ancestor lived in, along with detailed information about postal deliveries and the times of the coaches to various towns and cities.

Many of these directories are available on fiche or CD-rom from local family history societies. However, many of them can now be accessed on line via the free site: www.historicaldirectories.org/
This site is the result of a project undertaken by the University of Leicester, using a grant of £335,000 from Lottery funds. Researchers can use the site to trawl through some 600 directories containing information published by Pigot, Kelly, White and Slater etc, dating back to 1750.

The site contains high-quality digital images. It is not the most user-friendly site I have come across but once you have found how to navigate your way around it you will get hours of pleasure attempting to find that elusive ancestor

Population movement in the 19th century was massive, helped primarily by the growth of rail travel and the surge of city development during the industrial revolution. For many, London was a huge attraction, and even if whole families did not move there, there were thousands of young, single people who were eager to seek work as servants in the capital’s homes.

But as in most cities there were areas of imposing housing and others -such as London’s East End – where there was horrendous poverty, crime and early mortality.

Three of my ancestors lived in Wiltshire, Kent and Lincolnshire, but as the 19th century progressed all made their way to the capital, if not to seek their fortune, at least to find some meaningful employment. Through the Census records I was able to discover that my Lincolnshire ancestor had moved to London and married a postman; my Wiltshire ancestor became a gardener at a posh house in Wandsworth, while my ancestor from Kent trained as a publican near St Paul’s Cathedral.

But apart from the fairly straightforward Census records, tracing your London ancestor can be a bit of a minefield. There are millions of records and hundreds of archives. There are now some excellent on-line catalogues you can consult, but in the main, the records (particularly church records) need to be researched in their individual repositories - a time-consuming and expensive means of research.

The genealogist’s problems are compounded by the sheer complexity of the parochial and civil governance of the capital. Before you start searching it is worth reading the notes on the GENUKI site to get an overview of London’s administrative units: http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/genuki/LND/ The site has links to maps of London and its constituent areas.

When looking for parish records also bear in mind that since each parish within the City of London comprises at most a few streets, the parishes are usually known by the name of the church, NOT the location. The Gendocs web page contains a list of churches, amongst many other useful guides, including a Victorian street index: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/index.html

You can undertake a free census search of names in the capital from 1841 to 1901 by logging on to: www.londoncensus.co.uk/census_search.htm The search is free and downloads of the actual data are available for a fee.

A must-visit site is the London Metropolitan Archives: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/leisure_heritage/libraries_archives_museums_galleries/lma/
Its pages give an insight into its massive range of archives along with practical advice on making the most of a visit to LMA, and a database of its most popular genealogical sources.

The National Archives site at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ will also lead you to a wealth of a material and research guides.

There are hundreds more excellent internet sites, but the ones listed above will give you a good start. The key to London research is to be armed with a good map; know which parish you are looking for, and with a bit of luck you will reap your rewards.

The results conclude that from the genetic samples obtained the north west of England was once heavily populated by Scandinavian settlers.

The study has revealed that the genetic signals in the present population in Wirral and West Lancashire are on a par with that of the Orkney Islands, well known for its Viking links.

The announcement of the findings in Wirral coincided with the published of a much-heralded paper in the science journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

To establish the people to be tested for Viking links the team pored through old historical documents to discover surnames known to still exist today. The documents included tax lists dating back to the time of Henry XIII and inhabitants who had promised to help pay for a priest in Ormskirk in 1366. The surnames included: Taylor, Forshaw, Rigby, Rimmer, Robinson Oxton, Scarisbrick and Melling. DNA tests were then carried out on the volunteers.

Although the surnames themselves were only established after the Viking settlements, many of them contain Viking place name elements. Some 37 males were tested in Wirral and 40 from West Lancashire. Males were used because the Y chromosome, which determines a man’s paternal ancestry, is only passed down the male line. Occasionally the y chromosome undergoes a slight chance or ‘mutation.’ These provide a unique signal enabling researchers to trace a person’s deep ancestral roots and can be compared with other known examples in Scandinavian countries.

Place names played a major role in the study: Thingwall literally means ‘parliament’ in the Viking translation, while other local Viking names include, Irby, Meols, Tranmere, Kirkby, Skelmersdale, Aigburth, Formby, Crosby, Toxteth and Croxteth.

Professor Harding said that after their expulsion from Dublin in 902AD the Wirral Vikings, initially led by the Norwegian Viking Ingimund, would have landed in their boats along the north Wirral coastline probably between what is now the lighthouse at Lingham (Old Norse lyng-holmr), Hoylake/Meols (Melr), West Kirby (vestri Kirkjubyr) and Thurstaston (Thorsteinn’s tun). They spread throughout the peninsula as far as south Chester and across the Mersey to populate South West Lancashire, joining another large group of Vikings who had populated West Lancashire

Commenting on the findings, professor Harding said: “We knew this area had a potentially strong Viking area, but didn’t think it would be this strong. Up to 50% of the blood of men in Wirral and West Lancs appears to be Scandinavian.�

The full research and its conclusions is now available on-line at http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/25/2/301

Access professor Harding’s Vikings’ site at: www.nottingham.ac.uk/-sczsteve/

A marriage certificate is a goldmine for genealogists. It gives the name of bride and groom; the date and place of marriage; the groom's occupation, along with the names of both fathers and their occupations. It also gives the parties' ages, but, if over 21, the age is usually given as 'full'. Up to the age of 20 the parties are described as 'minors'. Sometimes (but not always) it will indicate if one of the parties' fathers has died with the word 'deceased' under the name. If the father's name is different to the bride or groom, it could indicate illegitimacy or remarriage, or in more recent times that the father was a foster/adoptive parent. Sometimes witnesses named on the certificate (there are usually two) provide useful clues about family links.

On many early certificates the parties to the marriage would, if illiterate, write an X (their 'mark.') However, the certificates rarely contain original signatures – these being on the civil/church registers themselves.

When searching for a marriage do not think that the marriage would take place at least nine months before the first-born – in the mid 19th century around one third of all brides were pregnant when they got married.

Death certificates tend to get overlooked by researchers, but they do give some very useful information – the name of the deceased and his occupation; date and time of death; the cause of death and any witnesses present.

A good site to learn about the whereabouts and use of birth/marriage/death certificates is: www.dixons.clara.co.uk/Certificates/indexbd.htm This site aims to help people tracing their family history by explaining the usage of the different entries on certificates. The entries on the certificate and their interpretation has changed over the years and the site gives some useful information on the registration practices in force at the time.

Internet access is really useful in attempting to trackBMD records. The best (free) database is http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/ Although not complete, it lists all the registrations from 1837 onwards. Since that date every marriage has been registered by the Registrar General. A copy is kept at the local office and another one held centrally. The database provides access to downloadable images of the index entries and their reference numbers. With this information there is a direct list to the General registry Office website (www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates) where you can order a copy of the original certificate on line. Fees vary depending how quickly you need the certificate, but the basic service is £7 per certificate.

With the information you have discovered on for example your father’s birth certificate you can work backwards to discover your grandparents’ marriage certificate. Once you find this, it will reveal their ages, which will in turn help you track down their dates of birth and hence their birth certificates.

There will be instances where you just can’t find a record that you know should be there and there are a number of reasons for this: a name may be spelled incorrectly or a birth may have been registered in a different area than the actual place of birth. Occasionally you may be forced to purchase a certificate that you only suspect of being the correct one. It is a disappointment (and a waste of £7) when it arrives and your hopes are not realised. But don’t be discouraged – I am still searching for my great grandmother’s marriage certificate!

One great resource from the mid 19th-century are the tithe maps which give an extremely detailed picture of life in Victorian England. Tithe maps are the first systematic mapping survey of most of the land in England and Wales, compared with estate maps which were drawn up by landowners, mainly for private use. They also pre-date the Ordnance Survey series of 25 inch to the mile maps.

The maps, which were made between 1841 and 1845, list all the land holdings in specific parishes along with a schedule detailing the landholder. These were not necessarily owners, but literally everyone who maintained or farmed the land. They are an invaluable tool and enable you to get a detailed understanding of the area your ancestor lived in or farmed.

You can use the tithe maps to discover Where did your ancestors lived; who lived in your village or even your house; what was land in your area was used for and the owner of the land.
You can also compare the tithe maps with later Ordnance Survey maps and aerial photographs.

Many of the maps in various counties have now been digitised and are available on line. A good example is the Cheshire tithe maps which can be found at http://maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemaps/

Almost 500 Cheshire tithe maps are available online. Together with the information recorded in tithe schdule or ‘apportionments’, they are a unique record of land ownership, occupancy and use in Cheshire 150 years ago.

You will find tithe maps at the county records offices along with the accompanying tithe schedule. All the holdings on the map are numbered and these correspond with the name of the person holding the land on the schedule. Many tithe records are available on CD from family history societies or are available on line.

Estate maps, many of which contain detailed information about an area from as early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are another useful tool in analysing the development of a particular area. Some of these, particularly the early ones, are rough and ready, often with childlike sketches of houses. But many of these will have the names of the inhabitants written next to them - a goldmine for the family historian.

Local record offices have detailed catalogues of their map collections and these are the first stop when beginning your research. Solicitors’ accumulations too often contain many detailed sketches and plans of property. Where these have been deposited with the local record office they too can provide valuable information.

You can access a directory of UK map collections at the British Cartographic Society’s site: www.cartography.org.uk/Pages/Publicat/Ukdir/Local14.html
The Lancashire County Council website www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/oldmap/index.asp is a useful resource for the location of Lancashire parish maps
www.ponies.me.uk/maps/osmap.html enables you to view old OS maps online
www.old-maps.co.uk/ enables you to search and purchase maps from 1846 onwards.
www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/ Alann Godfrey Maps is an excellent resource for the family historian. More than 2,000 titles have been issued in a series of reprints of Old Ordnance Survey Maps of towns throughout Britain and Ireland. The complete catalogue can be viewed on line.

It got me thinking about our own family heroes. Many of us have old service medals handed down from father to son. Most are gathering dust in cupboard drawers, but all have a story to tell. So many men served in the First World War that the vast majority of families have a member who served, or who was killed, in the first great conflict of the 20th century.

Millions of servicemen were awarded campaign medals after WW1 and you can discover whether your ancestor was a recipient though the Medal Cards Index. This has been digitised and is available on The National Archives database at www.documentsonline.nationalarchives.gov.uk

There are 5.5 million cards, but finding the one that refers to your particular ancestor has been made quite easy by following TNA's information and search details. There are a number of search options but remember that abbreviations may have been used e.g. Thomas may have been shortened to Thos or even just the initial T. Don’t forget, if you have the actual medals, the personal service number inscribed on the medal can be cross-referenced with the service number on the index card. Copies of each card can be downloaded (cost £3.50).

It is not just military personnel who were entitled to medals – civilians who served in military establishments were also honoured. Some 50,000 women also served abroad in WW1, working as nurses, cooks and administrators.

The Medal Cards Index lists the recipients, the campaigns and theatres of war in which they served, along with their units, rank and personal service number. Changes in rank are noted along with the medals awarded. Thus, from just this card you can trace your ancestor's army career from 1914-1918.

There are six medal categories which can be listed, along with a Mention in Despatches – the lowest form of recognition for an act of gallantry. The medal cards for your ancestor may refer to the following awards:

1914 Star: For service in France and Flanders in 1914.
1914/15 Star: Awarded for service on France and Flanders from November 1914 to December 1915 and any other theatre of war from August 1914-December 1915.
Victory Medal 1914-1919: Awarded to all individuals who saved on a unit in a theatre of war.
Silver War Badge: Awarded to soldiers who were discharged because of sickness or injuries received during WW1, either at home or abroad.
British War Medal 1914-1920: Awarded to all personnel who entered service overseas between 1914 and 1918. It was extended to include service in Russia from 1919-1920.
Territorial Force Medal:The recipient had to have been a Territorial Force member on or before 1914 and to have served in an operational unit abroad between 1914- and 1918.

If you trace your ancestors back to say the 18th century you will find most of them will have had some connection with the land, working either as farmers or the generic 'ag labs' (agricultural labourers) referred to in the later census records. Other may have been wheelwrights, game keepers, carters, blacksmiths, shoemakers or servants to the many landed gentry and lesser squires.

But as you come to records in the 19th century and the industrial revolution there is a gradual change in occupations. The rural poor, attracted to the industries in the growing urban centres saw a chance to improve their lot. However, in many cases the working classes found life very tough. Long hours in the cotton mills and factories coupled with unsanitary conditions in their homes, made for a miserable existence. In Liverpool the problems were compounded by the influx of thousands of Irishmen and women driven by hunger to search for a new life abroad.Here, as in other developing cities, infant mortality was high and life expectancy short.

Parish registers are a good source for discovering your ancestors' occupations. Many are quite detailed and enable you to build up a family just from the references to the occupation of a particular person. For example, one of my ancestors was a Thomas Rigby who lived in Rainhill around 1730. He was described as a 'shoemaker' in his children's baptismal records. As he was the only 'Thomas Rigby, shoemaker' listed in the records at that time I was able to build up a list of his children quite easily.

Wills are also a very good source for discovering occupations. Many early wills refer to a testator as a 'yeoman' i.e. an owner of land. But even people with very lowly occupations made wills and a growing number can now be accessed on-line (see below) Many make fascinating reading and give an interesting insight into your ancestor's daily life. Some wills include inventories of all the goods possessed by the deceased, often going into minute detail, enabling you to build up a vivid picture of how your ancestor lived and worked.

The many trade directories of the late 18th and 19th centuries list hundreds of occupations for people living in even quite small villages. These often specify a particular street or area where your ancestor lived and worked. Another source can be found in apprenticeship records. Some of these can be accessed at county records offices, the National Archives or the Society of Genealogists. Many have also been transcribed by local family history societies.

General Record Office certificates (birth, marriage and deaths) are also an excellent source for occupations. Through a marriage certificate I discovered one of my ancestors had lived in Lewisham in the 1840s. The certificate described him as an 'ostler' - a person who looked after the stabling of horses at an inn. Ten years later, in a Lewisham trade directory, he is still listed but is described as a 'beershop keeper.' By using such records we can trace a person's profession through his working life.

A good starting point for researching occupations is at www.genuki.org.uk/big/Occupations.html

For trade directories, a really useful on-line site is www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/index.asp
Descriptions of old occupations can be found at rmhh.co.uk/occup/index.html

Online wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) can be
accessed at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/wills.asp
The site contains a selection of pre-1858 wills and can be downloaded (for a £3.50 fee.)
An index of Lancashire wills can be found at www.xmission.com/~nelsonb/lws.htm

Photographs of villages in the 19th century help you understand more about life from the Victorian era. I had discovered that one of my ancestors had worked as a blacksmith at a village in Kent. It was only by idly surfing the internet that I discovered a page of the Illustrated London News for sale containing a picture of the actual blacksmith’s shop in the village where he lived. Such discoveries can only enhance your knowledge of places where your ancestors lived, the churches where they got married and the schools their children attended.

In many cases you will be keen to put a date to your old family photographs - particularly those from the 19th century. There are many clues which can help you do this, not least the clothing worn by the people in the photograph. There are plenty of books and internet sites available to help you do this (see below).

Nowadays it is normal practice to take photographs of people in casual poses or in an unsuspecting moment, but in Victorian and Edwardian times having your photograph taken was very much a formal occasion. The visit to a photographer was an event for which you made an appointment and dressed in your Sunday best. In these early photographs there was no such thing as ‘smiling for the camera’, with the vast majority of photographs containing images of starched, staid and totally glum-looking individuals!

The settings the photographs were taken in can also give a clue to dates - for example in the 1860s studio props such as a chair, curtain or ornate pillar might be used while later photographs might involve a country house style interior. The backs of original photographs also provide many clues from the official stamps of the photographic studio where they were taken. The more complex the design, the later the photograph.

There is plenty of information readily available on the internet and family history magazines to give you a thorough insight into how to date your family photographs.

A very useful site, containing hundreds of old images is: Victorian and Edwardian Photographs - Roger Vaughan Personal Collection. This can be accessed at www.rogerco.freeserve.co.uk/

A growing free on-line resource is English Heritage’s public archive: www.english-heritage.org.uk This archive contains around 25,000 old photographs on an easily -searchable database, ranging from 1850 to the present day.

A guide to dating Victorian photographs from dress details can be found on the Hampshire County Council site at: www3.hants.gov.uk/museum/dress-and-textiles/dating-photos-from-costume.htm
A definitive book Dating Nineteenth Century Photographs by Robert Pols £5.95 can be ordered through the National Archives site www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/bookshop/details.aspx?titleId=355

Before 1858 all wills were proved by ecclesiastical courts. There is a bewildering array of such courts and jurisdictions and it can be hard for the beginner to fathom out just how to access an ancestor’s will.

In England and Wales there are will registers for the Prerogatives Courts of Canterbury (at The National Archives) and York (at the Borthwick Institute, York) that go up to 1858. Since then all English wills have been registered and collated by the Principal Probate Registry, London.

Wills registered in local diocesan courts can be found in the county or diocesan record office.

Thanks to local and county record offices and family history societies, help is available and it is usually a fairly simple process to establish whether a will exists for your particular ancestor. For example, Lancashire County Records Office at Preston has a comprehensive list of wills for the north west, while there are many printed volumes by the various historic societies containing the names of testators and the whereabouts of their wills.

Wills and inventories can be an eye-opener to the lifestyle and possessions of your ancestors. In the 17th and 18th centuries even relatively poor people would have their household items listed in an inventory attached to the will.

One difficulty for the beginner in this field of research will be making sense of the handwriting. The wills of the 16th and 17th centuries were written in what is known as ‘secretary hand’ (the forerunner of cursive script). This, coupled with old-fashioned spelling and the formation of individual letters, can make them hard to decipher, even for more experienced researchers. But don’t be put off – you will find staff at record offices extremely helpful and you can always get a copy of the will enlarged and study it at your leisure. Of course the further back you go you will encounter Latin wills and these need specialist knowledge to decipher.

If you don’t know when your ancestor died, finding a will is more of a challenge, but again the various indexes at record offices will narrow the search. Also remember that a considerable amount of time may have elapsed after the will was made and before it was proved for probate purposes. Some will indexes are also available on-line. A simple search, eg ‘Lancashire wills’ will bring up a list of options and information.

Bear in mind that the cost of making a will meant that they were rarely made unless a) the testator was really old or b) was ill and likely to die – anyone who contracted a serious illness 200plus years ago was not likely to survive.

There are many things you will discover in researching a will e.g: where the testator lived, the property he owned, his profession and family names and connections. Beneficiaries of course are listed along with names of the executors and witnesses.

Lancashire Records Office gives good overview to will resources at www.lancashire.gov.uk/education/record_office/services/enquiries_research.asp

A useful and growing resource is the Documents On Line service from NationalArchives. This contains a fully-searchable wills database which will often yield results – I discovered the will of my x3 great grandfather from Lewisham, Kent, by this method. Once you have identified your will it costs £3.50 to download. Log on to www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/
Cheshire.gov.uk/recordoffice/wills contains 130,000 probate documents proved at Chester, mainly for Cheshire residents.

The McGlaughlin guides: ‘Reading Old Handwriting’ and ‘Wills before 1858’ by Eve McLaughlin are also essential reading in the search for and deciphering of old wills. These are available through most family history societies and bookshops.

Various rules have applied at different times and in different cultures. Some marriages take place between specific family groups; western society is monogamous (where a man takes one wife) others are polygamous, where many wives are taken as the norm.

In many societies the visual mark of marriage is the wearing of a wedding ring, a tradition which is believed to have been established in ancient Rome when it was thought the vein in the ring finger led directly to the heart – proving that romance and love has been the key to a lasting union.

It was in Rome that adultery was eventually outlawed, leading to the establishment of the western outlook on marriage. The early church added weight to this by decreeing that marriage had been sanctioned by God and should be recognised by a Christian ceremony.

The later records of these ceremonies provide a rich hunting ground for the genealogist and family historian.

Until the 1750s marriage was usually conducted out of the spotlight between the two parties and their families.They had been recorded as a matter of course in some parish registers from the mid-16th century but mainly in a bid to prevent clandestine marriages, Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 gave the state full control of marriage. From that point marriages which had not taken place in the Church of England or the synagogue were rendered invalid.

This new law led to great resentment from people who did not want the ‘nanny state’ interfering with their alleged common law rights. Quakers, nonconformists and Roman Catholics in particular felt it to be a great infringement of their rights.

A woman sacrificed much when she got married. She was considered her husband’s chattel – all her possessions passed to the husband on marriage and she had little or no rights, except as provided under the wills of their husbands.

A widow was usually granted a ‘third’ or widow’s dower - entitling her to live in the family house, ‘if she remain unwed’ in the future. This contrasts with today’s view of marriage which is as an equal partnership or contract which can be annulled, though usually at some cost, to the parties involved.

Rules regarding courtship and marriage in Victorian England were particularly strict. A man had to be formally introduced to a prospective partner and only after various meetings in the company of chaperones were they allowed to be seen out together. The formalities as seen today in the TV dramatisations of Jane Austen et al are a true reflection of how it was.

For the genealogist, marriage certificates which date from 1837 onwards are a huge source of information. They identify the name, age and status of the parties (giving you the wife’s maiden name); date and place of marriage; occupation of the husband and the names of the parties’ fathers, along with their occupations. Witnesses to the marriage are also recorded.
If the father's name is different to the bride or groom, it could indicate illegitimacy or remarriage, or in more recent times that the father was a foster/adoptive parent.

On many early certifcates the parties to the marriage would either sign or, if illiterate, write an X (their 'mark.') However, the certificates rarely contain original signatures - these being on the civil/church registers themselves.

When searching for a marriage do not think that the marriage would take place at least nine months before the first-born - in the mid 19th century around one third of all brides were pregnant when they got married.

Prior to 1837 parish registers are the best source, with banns books and marriage bonds also worth consulting. If you are fortunate enough to have Quaker ancestors their records give very detailed accounts of both parties’ genealogy. Some nonconformist registers also contain quite full entries.

If you can not find an entry in the parish record you are consulting, try a neighbouring parish - population movements before the advent of the railways were fairly limited. Marriage usually, but not always, took place in the bride’s parish and the rules of marriage as laid down in the Church book of Common Prayer were sacrosanct. For example, I was trying to find a marriage record of my x2 great grandmother, Margaret Mawdsley. I thought she was married to a man called William Seddon as I had traced the couple’s gravestone at Bickerstaffe parish church. However all I found in the parish register was the marriage of Margaret Mawdsley to a Richard Seddon. It turned out Richard had died and Margaret had subsequently co-habited and had children by, his brother. As a woman could not marry her husband’s brother, there was no official record of the union.

The Mormon church website – www.familysearch.org – contains thousands of marriages. As mentioned in earlier articles, these entries need cross referencing with the original parish register entry before you accept them as fact. There needs to be a good reason why your Mr Smith from Liverpool married a Mrs Jones from London in Cornwall - even though the dates match!

The freebmd website www.freebmd.org.uk/ gives access to many of the civil registration marriage records (from 1837). Although incomplete, it enables you to locate a possible marriage and send for the marriage certificate.

The GenUki database www.genuki.org.uk/ is a fantastic resource for the location of parish registers and on-line resources. The Society of Genealogists www.sog.org.uk/ will also steer you in the right direction.

Liverpool Record Office archive.liverpool.gov.uk/ has a number of helpful guides and an on-line catalogue to consult.

And that is the parish registers.

In a few parishes meticulous records are in existence form 1538 onwards, but in reality many churches did not begin keeping records until a further notice was sent out in 1558, and even then, many did not comply.

In 1597, Queen Elizabeth I decreed at all existing records should be copied into "fair parchment books� but again there was opposition, with many churches complaining about the cost and sheer size of the task.

Many records have been subsequently lost and in most cases there is a large gap in the 17th century during the civil war period, and the Commonwealth period which followed it. However, from the 18th century onwards there is a wealth of material. Some parish records have been painstakingly transcribed by local historical societies - for example, the Lancashire Parish Record Society www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/lprs/ has many published volumes containing thousands of entries for the county’s parishes. Where these volumes exist they are a huge resource for the family historian. Many contain useful information about the area, list of occupations and other interesting facts.

If your luck is in the parish register you want may be available on the Web. Try http://www.freereg.org.uk

One of the best sources of information on the parish registers is your local family history society www.liverpool-genealogy.org.uk/home.htm
who will often have parish register CDs/fiche for sale.
Most of the original parish registers are now stored in the county record offices, although a few are still in possession of the individual churches.

At the record offices it is usually necessary to search the microfiche/films line by line to search for a particular record. It is a long and tedious task, particularly if you do not know the specific year when your ancestor was baptized/married/buried.

A really useful internet resource is The International Genealogical Index (IGI) index at www.familysearch.org/ This is the database of the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS). It is also available for viewing at all LDS Family History Centres, on microfiche or CD ROM.

However, although it is easily accessible on the internet, this resource must be treated with caution. Although not a complete record it is a fantastically useful guide, but it does contain errors and in some cases, unsupported data from LDS members. Many of the entries are from the Bishop’s Transcripts – official copies of the original registers – so the golden rule is to check the IGI entries against the original parish register entry. A comprehensive list of the sources is provided on the IGI site.

Church records are complicated by the existence in many areas - and particularly the North West - of nonconformist chapels. These chapels sprang up in rural communities after their congregations broke away from the established church. Many kept their own registers. Again these can be tracked down at the county records offices and local records offices. Sometimes these nonconformist entries will appear in the main parish register - particularly if a burial took place at the established churchyard.

So if you cannot find a suspected event in the parish register, search for any nonconformist chapels/meeting houses which were in the area at the time – I spent hours attempting to track an ancestor’s birth, eventually to discover it listed in the nonconformist register of a neighbouring parish.

If anyone knows the whereabouts of these people or has any more information, please leave your details in the comments section and I will pass them on to Cherie.

All the country gentry employed a head gardener who had a high status in society. His work would not only involve maintenance duties but the development of the garden. He would have served a lengthy apprenticeship, perhaps as a nurseryman, landscaper or seedsman. However, the early years of training were ones of toil - usually involving the mundane tasks of digging, raking and hoeing.

Everyone involved in the profession underwent rigorous training - it was an era of innovation and scientific gardening; the development of new tools and propagation methods. Exotic plants were flooding into Britain during this period of colonial expansion and thousands of experiments were taking place in Britain’s greenhouses and centres of excellence –notably, Kew, Chiswick, Hampton Court and Chatsworth.

The Victorian era marked the heyday of the gardener, for the 20th century, which saw the First World War and then the Great Depression, left little or no money to spend on the upkeep of the large estates –from the middle of the century very few were left to carry on the tradition of working the great English formal gardens.

One of my ancestors was a gardener in South London. Robert Vincent was the head gardener at the home of a merchant from the East India Company in the 1850s. The merchant had a small estate bordering Wandsworth Common but with enough room to provide a cottage for his gardener and family. Robert is described as ’gardener (not domestic)’ in the Census records of the time.

He passed his skills onto his son who started his working life in the profession. It was hardly surprising that there was such continuity of service within families - not many jobs gave such security of tenure and guaranteed income as that of the Victorian gardener.

Many local history libraries hold very old horticultural journals which can be a gold mine for genealogists. For a general overview of horticultural history log on to:
The Garden History Society www.gardenhistorysociety.org
Royal Horticultural Society www.rhs.org.uk
Timothy Mowl: garden history and historic gardens in the UK www.timothymowl.co.uk