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A good non-fiction writer must get his/her facts right which means doing a lot of research. This also applies to fiction which is often based on facts. Charles Dickens did a lot of research for his books and it shows. Using Archives Archivists have a dual responsibilty to preserve the records in their care while making them available to researchers. The handling of documents inevitably leads to deterioration after a time and so various methods of copying originals have been developed. You will find transcripts, typed copies, photocopies, microfilm, microfiche and digitised records on computer. There are pitfalls for the unwary using these copies and the following should be borne in mind.These notes and tips will be useful for those doing research in genealogy and any other purpose. Transcripts. These are mainly handwritten copies of legal documents such as WILLS. They were prepared by an army of Dickensian style clerks using quill pens and Indian ink. If you order a copy of a Will, you will get a copy of the transcript. The original Will is never used except by special request in exceptional circumstances. The basic problem with transcripts is that the original signatures are missing. The clerks copied the signatures too but in their own handwriting. I saw a recent biography in which the author had mistaken a transcript copy as a copy of the original Will. He was correct to say that it was not like the signature of the testatrix but failed to realise why. Be aware then that you are not seeing a copy of the original will and the signatures are therefore meaningless. - Typed Copies. Some years ago, I was shown a transcript of a marriage certificate with the names of the couple typed in where they would have signed. For some reason, we wanted to verify that they were literate. We were allowed to see the original Church register and it was then obvious that the bride could not write her name. She had signed with an X. If you want to check signatures, you must see the originals.
- Other Copy Media. Find out if the original documents were used in the preparation. If so, you should have the signatures ok but you may be missing other important information because it was too faint to reproduce. I'm thinking about notes which were sometimes added by the clerks working on the documents when they were live files. Such notes were often added in pencil or inferior ink and can't be seen by scanners. There are also notes to be found on the back of originals and they too may be valuable to a researcher.
CATALOGUES & MISSING RECORDS The first thing a researcher has to do is find the information using the catalogues and/or indexes provided. Inevitably, there will be errors and omissions in such finding aids. For example, the cataloguer may have used the wrong spelling or the index lists the wrong year. It's necessary to check several variations of a name if it's not where you expect it to be. On occasion, the files may have been tampered with shortly after creation. In that case, you will be lucky to find anything. In 1904, a senior official in the Home Office called for three files on suspicious deaths in the 1870's but two had already gone missing from Police files at that time. (At least, we know that there were investigations and case files prepared.) The third file was short of some documents. A cover up instigated by a wealthy and influential family member? A witness at an inquest was ordered to hand in an (to him) expensive book on horse medicine. When he asked for it back, after he was cleared of any wrong doing, it had disappeared and he was given no compensation. The care and control of documents clearly left a lot to be desired. A wealthy individual could obtain documents for a suitable bribe. Sometimes, they were misfiled rather than destroyed. That way, they could be produced by those who knew where they were - maybe for blackmailing purposes. { I know of one such case but I won't quote it here} Census returns for entire villages went missing. One wonders if a local inhabitant wanted to hide something. All the Census returns for Ireland were destroyed rather than hand them over to a new regime. Parish registers have been found in the basements and lofts of former Church officials. One wonders why they took them in the first place? Did they want to preserve them or prevent access to what they knew was 'sensitive' information. A secret marriage or child birth for example. Were they blackmailers? Case Study- Notes on Original Document As mentioned above, notes were occasionally made on documents as an aide memoire for the clerks using them. They may appear insignificant to you and perhaps some are. They are often in a margin in pencil. A General Greenshields Power died in 1863 and no will could be found for him in the five years after that. However, there was an Estate Duty record on file and this had the number 1901 written on it. Following instinct, I went and looked at the Will Index for that year and sure enough, there it was. A Will filed for Probate 38 years after the death of the testator! It appears that the scoundrel son who was entrusted with the Executorship failed to act. It was left to the sole surviving daughter of the General to apply for probate which she needed to deal with the property she inherited. The General left nothing bar a valuable heirloom piece of jewellery to each of his sons.The rest of his estate went to his two daughters but possibly to add insult to injury, the General appointed his son George as his Executor. He made a mistake there and it's doubtful if any of the other siblings received their bits of jewellery. George's wife left a lot of valuable jewellery in her will. I'd say the missing heirlooms were part of it. George Power didn't destroy the Will because he wanted it to claim the property for himself if his sisters died. This was an estate in Pau, France which the General probably acquired when serving with Wellington in the region. Home |
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