hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1045.txt

Episode: 1045
Title: HPR1045: Genealogy
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1045/hpr1045.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 17:53:16

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Hello and welcome to Hacker Public Radio. My name is Mike Hingley and in this episode
I'm going to be talking about genealogy. So I've been studying my family tree since
the end of 2011. We got hold of a partial family tree from one of the air hunter companies
and I've been trying to fill in the blanks because locally there was a company called
Hingley's a Netherton and they're famous for making the anchors and chain for the Titanic.
So I've been wondering if I am somehow related to those Hingley's and there's quite a number
of cool ways we can use technology and software to actually fill in those blanks.
So we're going to need somewhere to store our family tree and there's a couple of solutions
for that. I'm currently using Ancestry that coded UK but there is a really cool program called
Gramps which is available in most repositories. It's definitely available under Ubuntu. You can get
it to work on Macintosh, Windows and Linux and you can download it from Gramps-project.org.
I'm using Ancestry because I happen to have a free trial at the moment for six months.
So I'm using that but you can extract from Ancestry and upload into Gramps. So I'm taking
an advantage of that Ancestry backend to do the research for me. Ancestry is able to link
your tree with other family trees that are also using Ancestry as well as other data sources such
free BMD and census records. So I'm using that to flesh out my trees much as possible
then I'll be exporting it and importing it into Gramps to maintain it going forward.
So that's Ancestry.co.uk and Gramps-project.org.
Ancestry itself uses a couple of web services and websites to provide its data. So here in the UK
it uses information available on sites such as free BMD. So there's a website called free
BMD.org.uk which is a volunteer based project to transcribe some of the government records.
Since the registration of marriages became a legal requirement. There's been a government
records office which is storing information about what marriages and births and deaths have taken
place and all the certificates and records that are stored centrally. They can also be stored
at a parish level but the free BMD.org.uk project attempts and is aiming to transcribe more of those
so they can become searchable and that's what Ancestry uses to provide some of its research material.
In addition there's another web project called UKBMD.org.uk which contains it's a project to
transcribe all of the parish registers. So how do we use this in practice? Well I filled in
what I knew of my family tree on Ancestry and there were a few blanks like I didn't know when
my grandparents got married. I didn't know the date of that. So I popped on to West Midlands
BMD.org.uk and let's say a local version of the UKBMD.org.uk database
and I did a quick search for Annie Page and Horace Hingley and I found throughout all the whole
database there were four records that matched the surnames but it was only one for a Horace Hingley
and Annie Page and from that I was able to determine that they got married in 1942 in Rally
Regis at St Jarl's Church and the registers for that were stored at the sandal register office.
Using that information I was able to go to my local archives and pull the parish records
for Rally Regis at St Jarl's Church and from that I was able to pull their marriage certificate
and that was amazing to actually see my grandparents signatures on their marriage certificate.
Brilliant, absolutely amazing feeling. I got a print out and it cost me 60 pence.
I was able to take the home and scan it in and if you
want to buy my family tree on ancestry.uk and you can see I think you can I'm not sure
you'd be able to see their signatures, you'd be able to see my grandparents marriage certificate.
Absolutely brilliant. It's a damn sight cheaper to buy those parish
certificates than to go to the government records office or if you're doing it for ancestry,
do it for ancestry. A marriage certificate or death certificate from government records
office will cost you nine pounds and 25 pence to get a certificate from your local council will
cost you approximately a tenor, what does do here. Getting one printed yourself from
microfiche parish records 60 p. There's a big difference. Do that same thing for ancestry and
it's 19 pence. So here's a piece of advice. If you aren't ancestry and you find a government
record reference number for a certificate that you want don't bite through ancestry,
take the information put to one side go to gyro.gov.uk to government records office and you can use
the same code information there to buy the certificate 10 pence cheaper. Got to be right.
Ancestry is also quite good because you can link to other family trees because
ancestry itself is a collection of family trees. You can find other people who are also
researching their family tree and where your family trees intersect. You can find things like
photos and stories and all sorts of great stuff. So far I've been looking as I say since the end
of last year and I've not found anything so far. My thoughts are that I probably aren't related
to the Noah Hingley that settled Hingley's in Netherton. I'm just not that lucky.
Hint's tips advice for people looking to start their own family tree. There are loads of guides
go to sites like ancestry.uk. I know it's not particularly Hackerish to go to a site which
sells the service of being a genealogy site but take their advice and use it yourself.
So there's hints and guides about doing things like write down what you currently know
and then talk to the people that are still alive in your family and get their information and
record that. Don't forget to check out your local archives. They're a great source of information.
For me it's one of the things that got me hooked was when I visited my local archive
and was able to pick up my grandparents' marriage certificate. That was amazing.
There are plenty of free websites out there to assist you in researching your family tree.
We've already spoken about free bmd.org.uk and ukbmd.org.uk but you can also get access through your
library to things like the 1911 census or even to ancestry itself using the UK Library membership.
My local library has got a library membership with ancestry which means I could use it to research
things like passenger lists to the US and immigration and immigration records. That kind of thing
which I could get to under my current level of membership. So I'd like to say thanks for listening.
Hopefully that's given you all the information you need to start researching your own family trees.
Thanks. Bye.
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