Dear Listers: Considering that the census information is released every one hundred years, can any of you recommend a way to research family going forward from 1901? PR's can only help you if families remain in same towns & villages. All I have are names. And for obvious reasons, I have not found any relatives in the last known towns. Any/all suggestions will be appreciated. Best Regards, George Wilson

----- Original Message ----- From: <AEW91097@aol.com> > Considering that the census information is released every one > hundred years, can any of you recommend a way to research > family going forward from 1901? > > PR's can only help you if families remain in same towns & villages. > All I have are names. And for obvious reasons, I have not found any > relatives in the last known towns. > George Wilson Hello George Tracing forward can be more difficult than going backwards and involves using several sources. To explain, I'll give a very simple example, it can often be more difficult but this is just to illustrate the sort of thing that you can do: Say in the 1881 census you have a chap called George Wilson, occupation given as Saggar maker's bottom knocker, aged 30, married and having two children, Ernest aged 4 and Elizabeth aged 2 I'd start by using Kellys, Post Office, and other directories to see how far forward in time I can trace George Wilson. Directories are usually indexed and simple to use. They'll just mention the head of the house and his address. For the sake of argument, you find George alive in a Norwich directory of 1910, but no trace of him in 1920. He may well be living with family elsewhere, but there's a chance that he died between these dates, it narrows the initial search. Go to the index of wills and admons (Letters of administration granted when there was no will). These are simple to use and the index usually contain enough information to identify whether or not the entry you've found is the one you want. Okay, let's say that you find an entry in the wills index in 1914 for George Wilson, Saggar maker of Norwich, with probate granted to Ernest Wilson (son) of Nottingham. To check that you've got the right George Wilson, go to the GRO deaths index and check that the age ties up with the age from the 1881 census return (using this example, he should be 63-ish) You get a copy of the will and in it George Wilson leaves the bulk of his estate to his children Ernest of 1, High Street, Nottingham and his daughter Elizabeth Smith of 1, Lower Street, Bedford; he also leaves a small amount of money to his grandchildren George Ernest Wilson and Mary Elizabeth Smith. The will was made in 1909. With this, you have some important new information. You know the addresses of his children in 1909, you know the married name of his daughter and so this makes it an awful lot easier to find her marriage. You also have the names of grandchildren and know they were alive in 1909. Don't forget to try local newspapers' obit columns to see if there is any record. Now, go to the directories again and see if you can find Ernest Wilson in 1920. Suppose there's no trace - go to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Website and see if he died in WW1. You find he died in France in 1916. You might now go to find his marriage, he was born 1877 and had a child by 1909, so the chances are that he married between 1897 and 1908. The marriage gives his wife's name, and she may appear in a street directory. You locate a marriage in 1906 and subsequently find that his son George Ernest was born in 1907. See if you can locate a marriage certificate for George Ernest, start about 1927 and work forward in time. Say that he marries in 1930 to Jane Crowe, important because you now have his wife's maiden name. You can now confidently search the GRO birth index for his children, because since 1917 the mother's maiden name is listed in the index. Pick out all the Wilson entries where the mother's maiden name matches up. You find that he has three children in the GRO index, the first born 1931 in Nottingham, the second 1934 in Birmingham and the third 1937 in Croydon. Just using the index you've tracked his movement around the country. Some libraries keep old telephone directories, see if he turns up in any of them and you'll get an address. Try and find the marriages of his children. You get them and in the first two in 1953 and 1955 the father's name and occupation is given, but in the third in 1960 records the father as George Ernest Wilson (deceased). Okay, George Ernest Wilson appears to have died 1955-1960. Search the wills index and there you find he died in 1959. Are there any notices in the obit column of the local newspapers? These often give hints at the names of other relatives. In his will he mentions his children and their addresses. Search the births index for the grandchildren of George Ernest Wilson. You find them and their marriages in the 1980's. Did they have any children? Try the births index. Sooner or later you'll get an address for someone close enough in time to the present day, to chance writing a letter in the hope that they either still live at the address, or someone there knows how to contact them. Try the BT website to see if you can locate relatives. This is a very simplified example, it is often more difficult and you do have to think of how to work around a problem, but there's usually a way of doing so. If the above is as clear as mud, let me know and I'll try to clarify things for you. Good luck Geoffers Charlbury, Oxfordshire