Quick questions

[Northside lass]

Hi All
         just wondering if you lot could help out with a couple of questions,
    Is there any way to find out if you have all the siblings in the family I'm finding bros & sisters of my Grandparents ( some of who died in childhood) that family now didn't know about
 And the second
 Has anyone here used the site Emerald Ancestors just wondering if to part with a tenner to try it out.
                                              Susan

[Nick29]

As far as I'm aware, there's four ways of finding siblings.....

1. Census records, but these are often no good for finding those who died very young.

2. Go to the IGI index, find the batch or film number with one of the children on it, and you may find more when you type in just the surname and film or batch number.

3. Search through the parish records of baptisms and burials, which usually list the parents of children baptised and interred.

4. (The best way if you can find it) - via family documents like Bibles with family trees and records inside.

Sorry, can't help you with the second query.

[Nick29]

Post deleted by Nick29

[behindthefrogs]

There is no way that you can be absolutely certain that you have found all the siblings in a family.  Even if you have found a child born every year between the marriage and death of of the parents, you don't know whether there is a missing twin, a child born before the marriage or even one that was fathered on the side.

It is not logically possible for such a record to exist.

David

[Nick29]

The problem is that you don't know who you are looking for.  When my g.grandmother's Bible was found by a distant cousin, we found that she had written down the names of all her children, and I was surprised to find twins that she had as her first-born, who only survived a few weeks.  I was always a little puzzled that she appeared to have been married for well over a year before her (apparent) first child, and this explained why.  I checked out the names of the twins, and found their death records.  I don't think that any of the other children would have been aware of their twin siblings - neither myself or any of the cousins that I have spoken to have any recollection of my grandmother ever mentioning them.

[Northside lass]

Thanks Nick & David for your replies, theres no family bibles or records that I'm aware of so I'll just keep digging.I'll give the IGI a go and see what I come up with.
                     Thanks again Susan       

[trish251]

Hi Susan

I assume you are speaking of England/Wales information? For some countries bdm indexes contain the names of both parents & in some places death certificates name parents, spouses and children. Thus said, as David mentioned, some may still be missed. I live in Australia where children are supposedly recorded on death certificates, but names are usually only given for living children and informants are well known to sometimes miss some children.

If you are checking post civil registration in England, in theory you could search for all births at the appropriate time, for the given surname. it could become expensive to get all the records found checked. If it is post 1911, it could be easier, as birth indexes include the mother's maiden name.

As a slight variation on the IGI, you could look for the actual parish records, or film of same, if you think the children would have been baptised. If the time is before civil registration, parish records become the main source.

I think there have been a few posts on the Emerald Ancestors site - try looking in Ireland, General or try the search option - centre top 

Trish

[Jean McGurn]

I found the census records a great help. I started out with just two names gt grandfather and gr grandmother. My initial info from the family was that he had been one of 17 children.

I have been able to prove he was one of 10 although there may well have been others because of gaps in years. I was helped by the fact that the line I was researching was Irish and my particular branch line usually gave two names to each child.

Most of these names have also gone down the lines eveen to the extent of finding the same names, or combination of names, of children to different parents during the same time lines.

It also helped that the family all stayed in Liverpool, most in West Derby district, others in Liverpool have been found to be connected being related to gt gt grandfather. I discovered this when sending off for birth certs of what I thought was my branch line only to find it was a sibling of gt gt grandfathers brother.

Strangely I didn't find the IGI much help on my paternal line but have with the maternal line. FreeBMD is quite good, if you know the county or district it will give you names that you can check via the census records.

However, as Nick29 says, if any born/died between census records they may never be found.

Good luck with your search Susan and I hope you find the 'keystone'. Mine was that if the person had two names it was odds on they were in my line.

Jean

[Cell]

Hi,
Northside lass,
are you referring to Irish records? as you menton Emerald ancestors.
Irish info on certs ( and indexing)  is the same as England and Wales.

yes to your last question. I subscribe to Emerald ancestors and find it very good value for money

If your whole question is about Irish records - Emerald ancestors is not complete, very, very far from it. If you want it just for births - they hold some births, not many ( it's pretty much hit or miss with births - for example I have only found a  Small handful of my family's births on there  for the ones that I already do have known exact dates/certs for  )  - but  they are very good for marriages( they have most of my known 1800's civil  marriages on there ). It also depends on what era you are searching - You say you're looking for grandparent's siblings - what decades are you looking at? As if it's in the 1900's , say 1930's etc Emerald ancestors wouldn't be that much help to you


Emerald ancestors transcribed  birth records. It will you give the names of both parents (Christian and maiden for mother) , exactly when born and where registered, etc -  enough details to order the certificate. More info that is actually in the  NI GRO indexes
Is  Emerald ancestors  site worth it ? I find it very good value for money  ( it is one of the cheapest sites I have ever subscribed to regarding North of Ireland records , and one of the most I have had value for my money with the records I have found regarding my own family)  I first took a month's sub with them ages ago, and have very recently taken a year sub out .

If you  want a person(s)looked up with them, there are a few of us who have subs and probably  wouldn't mind doing a look up for you  .
If you want to search for lots of your family yourself, yes I think it's very good value for money

Hope that is of some help
Kind regards