What is genealogy?
What genealogy and family history actually involve, the difference between the two, what a pedigree and a descendant tree are, and why evidence matters more than names.
Genealogy is the study of lines of descent: who your parents were, who theirs were, and so on back through the generations, each link proved by evidence. Family history is the broader hobby that grows out of it: not just the names and dates, but where people lived, what they did, how they died and what their world was like. Most people start with the first and end up doing the second.
Genealogy versus family history
A genealogist's output is a tree: individuals connected by birth and marriage, each connection supported by a record. A family historian's output is a story: the agricultural labourer who became a railway porter in the 1850s, the three children who died in one winter, the brother who emigrated. The distinction matters because the tree has to come first. A story attached to the wrong ancestor is fiction, however well researched.
Kinds of tree
- Pedigree (ancestor) chart. You at the left, your two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, doubling each generation. This is what "tracing your family tree" usually means. Ten generations back you have 1,024 direct ancestors, most of whom lived within thirty miles of each other.
- Descendant tree. Starts with one couple and comes forwards through all their children and children's children. Used for one-name studies and for finding living cousins.
- Family group. One couple and their children, with all the dates and places for each. The building block that the other two are made from.
The charts guide shows how each is laid out and numbered.
Evidence, not names
The thing that separates genealogy from collecting names is proof. For each parent-child link you want a record created at the time that states the relationship: a birth certificate naming the parents, a baptism entry, a census household showing a son or daughter, a will naming children. Where no single record does it, several records that agree with each other will. Where you can't prove a link, you mark it as a hypothesis and keep looking; you don't fill it in because it looks likely.
The professional standard for this is called the genealogical proof standard: a reasonably exhaustive search, complete source citations, analysis of the evidence, resolution of any conflicts and a written conclusion. You don't need to be a professional to borrow the habit of asking "how do I know that?" about every fact.
Primary and secondary sources
A record made at the time by someone with direct knowledge (the registrar who recorded a birth, the vicar who performed a marriage) is primary evidence for the event it records. A record made later or from hearsay (a death certificate's age at death, given by a grieving relative; a published family history; an online tree) is secondary and can be wrong. Both are useful; the point is to know which you are looking at.
Why British research is good value
England, Wales and Scotland have continuous civil registration since the 1830s and 1850s, a complete census every ten years from 1841 to 1921, and parish registers that in many places go back to the 1500s, most of it indexed and much of it free. Ireland is harder because so much was lost in 1922, but far from hopeless. Few countries make it so possible to take an ordinary family back three or four centuries from a kitchen table.
What you'll need
Patience, scepticism, a notebook or program to record what you find and where you found it, and an internet connection. Subscriptions help later but aren't needed to start. Our beginners' guide sets out the order of work and where to begin gives the first ten steps.