The season of Family Gatherings is upon us and as the clock ticks closer to Christmas, many people will find themselves among relatives who they don’t see all that often. And sometimes with good reason; a few sherries in and old Aunty Martha starts trotting out the family stories, “Back when I was a child, my grandfather used to tell me we came off the barges…”
But this is actually a very good time to start researching your family history and sorting out whether Aunty Martha is on to something or talking a load of baubles. With Black Friday adverts still ringing in your ears, you might find yourself clicking buy-it-now on a bargain genealogy subscription and a few clicks later you’re astonished to find that your ancestor does indeed appear to be a boatman. But now what?
Boaters are notoriously difficult to track, so here's a few tips and tricks to help you navigate the murky waters of canal genealogy.
Start with the basics:
1) Talk to people
Still got some older folk in the family? Go ask them for details. Them, their parents, their siblings, their spouse, their in-laws, their grandparents, their cousins, everyone they can recall. Get names, birthdays, places, weddings, occupations, deaths and (this one can be vital so don’t skip it) nicknames. Write it all down, and consider this your shoe-box full of clues, a clue-box if you will.
2) Check for old paperwork.
In a perfect world, you’re looking for Birth, Marriage or Death certificates. These are goldmines of information, as they’ll give you names, dates, places and occupations. They’ll also tell you whether or not your ancestor was literate, and in some cases can give you a specific boat name, which will open up another line of research.
But other papers can be helpful too; newspaper clippings, insurance papers, even receipts can point you in the right direction.
Birth Marriage and Death certificates ©Bill Pearson
3) Check for bibles.
This one is a rare occurrence in boating families, who were often illiterate, but you may find that a family bible has a section in it wherein the owner has noted down names and dates. Sometimes they’re highly specific; the writer of my family’s bible made a point of noting down times and places as well.
Once you’ve got your basic clue-box, put together a rough family tree. You may find it helpful to have a hard copy that you can carry around with you and scribble notes on, as well as making one online. The main genealogy sites have tree inbuilt, which then allows their own technology to suggest relevant information. This leads me to my first word of caution:
Don’t trust the internet!
Don’t get me wrong, the algorithms these sites use to trawl through records and find potentially useful records is very clever, but it is not foolproof. Always check what it’s telling you before you accept it.
‘Ancestry’ in particular will try to link your family tree to other members trees based on matching information, which is fine if that tree owner has got it right. However, I’ve seen trees where people have clicked “accept-hint” on everything and ended up with an ancestor whose first child was born when they were 6, who was buried in 6 different cemeteries and whose mother had died before they were born. Very messy.
Parish Register
So you’ve got your basic family tree and your boating ancestor is Frederick James Bloggs of Braunston, Northamptonshire, but you can’t find him online. Now what?
1) Think laterally
What diminutives come from the name? Start with the obvious, look for Fred instead of Frederick. Adjust the spelling- Blogs or Blogges for example. Sometimes the extra letter is all that’s needed. Then move to the middle name if there’s still no hits; try James or Jim Bloggs.
This is where the nicknames come in, did granny mention a Great Uncle Jemmy?
Especially the further back you go, the more likely you are to come across boaters using by-names. I once spent weeks trawling through records searching for a chap everyone recorded as Harry, but it turned out his name was actually William; he’d gained the name Harry as a young man because he harried the ladies!
2) Sound it out
When faced with an odd name, be it place or person, try saying it out loud to see what else it could sound like.
Always remember that many boaters wouldn’t have been able to read and write, so rarely would they be able to correct any miss-spellings a clerk may have made in their name; for example a vicar recorded William Stirrup, while William himself spelt his name Strup
By the same token, the writer may not be familiar with the dialect the boater is speaking and have gotten it completely wrong – Hardings Wood becomes Arden Wood, Saint Helens becomes Senelen.
3) Follow the waterways
If your elusive ancestor is a boater, there’s a good chance they’re on the move. Follow the canals where you last found them and widen the search.
When you’re searching the censuses particularly, don’t be too alarmed if your ancestor has been missed entirely- their inclusion relies solely on whether their boat was close enough for the census recorder for the area to get to, and whether both the recorder and the boater wanted to speak to one another.
Some censuses and certificates note the name of the boat your ancestor worked on and even the company name, and this will open up a whole new field of study. Post 1877, you may be able to find your ancestor and their boat in a Canal Boat Register. These are absolute goldmines of information, telling you what the boat was carrying, how many people she carried, her cargo, her master and her owner. Toll books too will flesh out the work (although be suspicious to a degree, many records were falsified!)
Canal Boat Registers ©Yorkshire Waterways Heritage Society