FRENCH CANNINGS: Doing Genealogical Research

FRENCH CANNINGS: Doing Genealogical Research

Online Sources

Must rush. Will fill in soon. The major online genealogical source is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' famous Family History Library information, called "Family Search". It is at http://www.familysearch.org. It now includes the 1881 census of England, and the 1880 census of the United States, and zillions more names.

There is a wonderful effort by volunteers in England to put up all public "BMD" (birth, marriage, death) records since 1837. It is called FreeBMD and is at http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/, and is ongoing, with millions of records now indexed. It provides the index only. Once you locate your ancestor in the index, it tells you how to order the record from England. See XE-trade at http://www.xe.com/ for a nifty way to pay the few pounds these records cost, without paying any exchange fee, or even postage! I use them exclusively.

To find a top-quality English genealogist to do work for you, the best source is AGRA, the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives, at http://www.agra.org.uk/

Genforum hosts bulletin-board discussions of every conceivable family name. The Canning board is at http://genforum.genealogy.com/canning/. Your messages stay up there forever. Anyone searching for names you post will find you through this. Put up alternate contact info, because your email address will probably change before your message is taken down.

Cyndi's List is one of those encyclopedic compendiums that boggle the mind. She cross-references as many genealogical entities as the Internet can hold, or so it seems.

One of the best ways to locate ancestors in by using censuses. They show you everyone in the household, their ages, place of birth, occupation, and relationship to head of household. The 1901 English Census is now online at http://www.census.pro.gov.uk/index.html. It also is an index, but a very informative one. You locate your ancestors. When you have accumulated several, you can sign up using VISA for a $20 session that lasts I think 72 hours. During that time, you can download either the original image of the records, or a typed version, as many as you want.

England's first census was 1841. They did not index it!

The 1841 English Census

From A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your English Ancestors by Paul Milner and Linda Jonas. Betterway Books, Cincinnati, Ohio 2000 www.familytreemagazine.com This is THE research guide to have, as attested by the British Isles Family History Society and many others.

Page 110:
"The 1841 census is quite different from the later ones...there is no index."

Orientation

You will be going to your local Family History Center (or FH Library, if fortunate) a minimum of three times to get a record from the 1841 census. First, to order the Census Register which you will need to look up the next item you need, which is the specific microfilm for your ancestor's area. Second, to view the Census Register when it arrives, and order your microfilm. Finally, when your microfilm arrives, you get to begin work, which, if lucky, will be done in one visit. But more realistically, expect several more visits of about 1 or 2 hours' work each, as you read through the microfilm, valuing the idea of an index more with each page you read.

To find your nearest Family History Center, contact the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints closest to you. If none, contact the church headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Contact information is available at their website, http://www.familysearch.org.

Getting the Census Register:

The Census Register is on microfiche ("fiche") number 6024509. If you are near a Family History Library (there are only a few of them; they are huge) you can view the Census Register there. If not, you can order it at your local Family History Center, for about $3 or $4. An assistant will guide you through filling out the little order form. You may need the complete title of the Census Register which is

Index of Place Names Showing the Library Microform Numbers for the 1841-1891 Census Records of England, Wales, Channel islands and the Isle of Man: Arranged by Names of Places and Showing the Parish in Which Situated.

A microfiche is a single piece of film about 4 by 7 inches or so, that you slide into a viewer. It contains lots of miniaturized information. You can familiarize yourself with it by studying what you see.

Getting the Microfilm:

In the Census Register fiche, look for the "1841 Film Number" for your ancestor's area. Write it down. Order that microfilm ("film"), using the same procedure you used to order the Census Register. A microfilm also costs about $3 to borrow, and can usually be renewed without extra fee to extend your time for several weeks, if necessary. (Also write down the 1851, 1861, and 1871 film numbers, for later use.)

Working with the Microfilm:

A microfilm is a reel of film about 4 inches in diameter, a little over an inch wide, and many feet long. It consists of photographs of the original pages of the census, often as they were recorded in the field by the census takers as they went door to door in a prescribed plan. Sometimes, however, it is apparent that the original record has been re- written for some reason. And there are a few, sometimes very frustrating, obliterations.

To work on that microfilm, the assistant will instruct you. What they might not tell you is that putting a goldenrod-colored piece of paper under the projector makes the handwriting much more clear --- take one with you. It is a bright yellow-light-orange color, a standard color for 8x11 papers.

Scroll through that film for the area, then for the street (if known) that your ancestor was living on. If no known street, you will be reading through the census for that entire area. Be prepared with a new spiral notebook or other record-keeping material, as you may become interested to record some of what you find. The census was planned so that it could be taken all on a single night, and an army of census takers covered virtually the whole country in systematized style. You will soon realize that you are strolling through London, on census night, 1841, and being invited into every single occupied room. Not only invited in, you are told the names, the relationships, the ages, the profession, and whether English or foreign-born, for everyone in the room. More than that, you can sense by the handwriting style what mood the census taker was in: wealthy tenants often get gorgeous handwriting, while poor areas are scrawled through, as if in a hurry to get done with the job. You see inside the workhouses and childrens' institutions, how many attendants and teachers are on hand for how many children, or how old some of the "workers" are in the largely-over-60 workhouses. In all, it is a fascinating expedition. Any consistent indexing you do will be invaluable to other researchers.

Recording what you find:

Jonas and Milner say:
"There are several Enumeration Books on the film, each with its own title page. We will want to look at each title page because the title pages contain the name and description of the area being enumerated. [The title pages are where you find your area. You can tell them as you fast-wind the film, because they are all white and catch your eye. --- ks]

"It is important to pay attention to the Enumeration Book number and not to the enumeration district number. The book numbers are consecutive on the film, and each may contain several districts. For example, on this film Enumeration Book 4 contains parts of enumeration districts 5, 17, 12, and 14. You can see how difficult it might be to locate a census record if you extract the enumeration district number instead of the book number."

"Before we do anything else, we will want to record where we found the census return. Always do this first, because once you start reading the census record, you may get so excited that you will forget to record where you found it. Remember that the 1841 census is not cited the same as other censuses.

"To record the 1841 census, you will need five pieces of information: the class code, piece number, enumeration book number, folio, and page number. Do not record the enumeration district number. The class code for the entire 1841 census is HO 107. The piece number in which this [example] record was found is 824. In this case, the title page has the fraction 824/14, so the book number is 14. The folio number is stamped in the upper right corner of the folios. A page without a folio number is the reverse side of the previous folio."

"The full reference [for the example] is HO 107/824/14, f 9, p 13 (Class code HO 107, piece 824, book 14, folio 9, page 13). We will record it like this:

"FHL film 438887, PRO reference HO 107/824/14, f 9, p 13"

Do means "ditto"

Film numbers Our Cannings might find useful:

Rotherhithe, London --- birthplace of Baltriune Canning in 1837; death place of his father Alfred (D?) Canning in 1857

1841----474659+
1851----174819 p. 1-530
1861----542628+, 542629+
1871----818934-937

Worcester-St. Martin --- marriage place of Alfred D. Canning and Anne Powell in 1817

1841----464215 1851----087450 p. 421-606

Note: The 1881 census is online and searchable at Family Search. A plus after a film number indicates some indexing for that film (gooood luck!).

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