Further Travels of Walking Boots

In the research article Boots Made For Walking, I uncovered the story of a maternal ancestor using pre-census and pre-civil registration information: a cordwainer (boot and shoe maker) who had travelled to-and-fro between Leicester and Nottingham.

Then, just when I thought I understood his family background, something unexpected popped out of the woodwork. The following presents the available evidence in the context of a working theory, but it cannot be construed as a reliable proof argument.

On 20 Apr 2017, during the writing of my previous article, I'd left a comment on a FamilySearch tree that the creator had included an inappropriate child of John³ and Elizabeth Hammond, namely a Mary Ann, because her baptism in 1823 was attended by a William and Elizabeth Hammond. Quite some time later, in Nov 2018, the tree creator (Duke Smith-Holley) contacted me from New Zealand. He admitted that the baptismal parents looked wrong, but noted that Mary Ann's subsequent marriage cited her father as a cordwainer named John Hammond, i.e. the one I had written about.

That was it: I was hooked and offered to collaborate on finding an answer.

So let's just examine this conflicting evidence. Mary Ann Hammond was baptised on 17 Oct 1823 at Leicester St Margaret to William (a "shoe maker") and Elizabeth Hammond of London Road.[1] Later, Mary Ann, of Pasture Lane (father John Hammond, cordwainer), married James Smith, cordwainer of Craven St (father John Smith,  cordwainer), on 8 May 1844.[2] So there was a difference in the father's given name; was it a simple clerical error? There were no other baptisms to this William and Elizabeth, and I could find no Leicestershire marriage of a William Hammond to an Elizabeth before 1875. Also, I could find no Hammond cordwainers in the county other than John³ and his first son, William (using trade directories, newspapers, and the 1841 census). It looked, for all the world, as though someone had stood in for John during the ceremony. Supporting this suggestion was the 11-year gap between John's first child (1820) and second child (1831) noted in my earlier article. Military service or imprisonment would have been obvious causes, but I could find no convincing evidence for either.

Important information from my previous article is that John³ Hammond was born c1796 in Whitwick, a small village in Leicestershire, and that his father was a woolstapler (dealer in wool; grader of wool) called William Hammond. Also, his father was not marked as deceased in John's 1840 marriage. So, his father was a "William", but with a quite different profession. Could the baptismal record be a combination of father-son details due to his father standing in for him?

Figure 1 – Whitwick St John the Baptist church; image credit: kev747, uploaded 11 Jan 2007; via Wikimedia Commons [CC-BY-SA-3.0].

Unfortunately, there was no record of a John Hammond born in Whitwick at that time, so could William have been his baptismal name? There was no William Hammond baptised anywhere in Leicestershire during 1796±5 so that possibility was ruled out. There were, however, two Hammond brothers living in that village during the same period: John² (a yeoman: a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate; a freeholder) and William. Considerable detail of the family was available in John's² will and its subsequent administration. Although no profession was mentioned for William, it is likely that both involved sheep in one way or another, e.g. via grazing or wool.

The following vital-event data for the associated Leicestershire hundred in later years puts the small local population into perspective. On the basis of this, it was decided that this William must have been the father of John³.

Year	Hundred of West Goscote[a]
	B	M	D
1821	1128	372	622
1822	1108	359	732
1823	1063	359	687
1824	1118	371	786
1825	1117	435	781
1830	973	345	704

Table 1 – Vital-event statistics for associated Leicestershire Hundred.[3]

[a] West Goscote: 31 parishes, including Whitwick.

John² Hammond had died in 1787, and his last will and testament mentioned his brother William, and three sisters: Ann West, Katherine Shuttlewood, and Sarah Hammond.[4]

In the name of God Amen. I John Hammond

of Whitwick in the county of Leicester Yeoman being weak

in Body but of sound and disposing mind and memory blessed

be allmighty [sic] God for the same do make and publish this

my last Will and Testament in Manner and Form following

(that is to say) First of all I will and require that all my

Just debts and funeral charges be paid and discharged by

my Executor hereinafter mentioned And First I give and

Devise to my loving Brother William Hammond all

that parcel of enclosed ground or enclosure lying in the

Liberty of Whitwick in the county of Leicester called the

Hollyhays to him his Heirs and assigns also. I give

and bequeath to my Three Sisters Ann West Katharine

Shuttlewood and Sarah Hammond all my right to and unto

the moneys arising from the Rents Profits or sale of the

Lands Tenement and Estate called the Waste Farm to be

equally divided amongst them share and share alike Also

I give and bequeath to Mary Upton of Whitwick Widow

the sum of Ten Pounds to be paid her by my Executor And

lastly I nominate and appoint my brother William

Hammond sole Executor of this my Last will and

Testament hereby revoking all former Wills by me

made. In witness where of I have hereunto set my Hand

and seal this Ninth Day of April in the Twenty Seventh

year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third

by his grace of God of Great Britain France and Ireland

King defender of the faith and so forth and in the year

of our Lord one thousand seven hundred eighty seven. [9 Apr 1787]

Signed sealed Published and Declared

by the above named John Hammond                  John Hammond

to be his Last Will and Testament in                    his Mark

the presence of us who have hereunto

subscribed our names as witness in the

presence and by the duties of the

Testator.

Benjamin Ward

John Rowells

Jonathan Fox

Locating John's² burial at Whitwick St John the Baptist on 10 May 1787 was straightforward,[5] but note that his will did not mention any wife, suggesting that he was either unmarried or that she had died before him.

Having the names of five siblings allowed their parents to be identified: John¹ (b.c1714, of Leicester St Martin, aged above 25) had married Sarah More (or Moor/Moore, b.c1718, of Whitwick, aged above 21) on 17 Sep 1739 at Shepshed.[6] By comparing the marriage register with the licence, it would appear that Sarah was originally from Shepshed, about 4 miles NE of Whitwick, and John² was originally from Leicester St Martin, about 13 miles SE. The licence gave permission for their marriage in either Whitwick or Shepshed, and they chose Shepshed. The licence also includes a bond of £200 and marriage allegations sworn by John. Findmypast's transcription gives John's occupation as "yeoman" although I cannot see such a mention in the images. A corresponding note was recorded in the Leicester St Martin marriage register because that was John's parish.

Given that Leicester St Martin was John's¹ original parish, it was found that he was baptised there on 16 Feb 1713 to a William and Catherine Hammond (note the familiar given names).[7] Sarah Moore was baptised 4 Aug 1717 at Whitwick St John the Baptist to a William and Elizabeth More.[8] A very close alternative in the same parish (18 Nov 1719) was ruled out, partly on Sarah's marriage age (21) and partly because the associated parents' names (George and Ann) were not carried forward in this family.

The Hammond siblings were identified further as follows.

Name	Baptism	Notes
Henry More	15 Aug 1742, Leic. St Martin [a]	Identifiable by middle name. Buried 30 Apr 1778 at Whitwick [h]
Ann	1 Jul 1746, Leic. St Martin [b]	Ann married Stephen West, of Northamptonshire, at Leic. St Martin on 29 Dec 1779. [i]
Katharine	5 Oct 1749, Leic. St Martin [c]	"Katherine Hammond", of Belgrave Leic., age 21, married Samuel Bonnett, of Whitwick, age 20, on 11 Feb 1776 at Belgrave St Peter. [j] "Catharine Bonet" later married John Shuttlewood on 18 Jun 1786 at Walton on the Wolds. [k] NB: she signed as "Katharine Bonnett". The associated licence (15 Jun 1786) indicated she was a widow. [m]
William	10 Jan 1750, Leic. St Martin [d]	Buried 18 Feb 1752 at Leic St Martin, aged 1 [n]
John2	13 Feb 1752, Leic. St Martin [e]	Born 16 Dec 1752. [e] Although this date may look higher than the baptism date, remember that the "old style" civil year began on 25 Mar at that time. This means that John was only 35 when he died.
Sarah	9 Dec 1756, Leic. St Martin [f]
William	20 Jun 1764, Whitwick [g]

Table 2 – Siblings of John² Hammond.

[a] Leic-Baptisms, p.163; citing archive ref. DE1564/1.

[b] Leic-Baptisms; citing archive ref. DE1564/1.

[c] Ibid.

[d] Leic-Baptisms, p.172; citing archive ref. DE1564/1.

[e] "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NPCG-B59 : accessed 17 Dec 2018, John Hammond, 16 Dec 1752); citing , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 596,720. Same record not visible on Findmypast.

[f] Leic-Baptisms; citing archive ref. DE1564/1.

[g] Leic-Baptisms, p.18; citing archive ref. DE1760/6.

[h] Leic-Burials; citing archive ref. DE1760/6.

[i] Leic-Marriages; citing archive ref. DE1564/6.

[j] Leic-Marriages; citing archive ref. 17D64/A/IV/1.

[k] Leic-Marriages; citing archive ref. DE2934/7; Walton on the Wolds is a village about 12 miles E-NE of Whitwick.

[m] "Leicestershire Marriage Licences, 1604-1891", Findmypast.

[n] Leic-Burials; citing archive ref. DE1564/14.

So where was this enclosure called Hollyhays? A quite detailed description of a walk, in 1834, places it near the Ashby and Leicester Road in Whitwick.

... pointed for White Horse Wood ; then bore away over the Loughborough and Ashby road to Whitwick Rocks, over Fenton's Allotment, along the Tin Meadows to Hollyhays, across the Ashby and Leicester road, pointing towards Ravenstone for two miles ...[9]

A later reference, in 1881, described it as "... Hollyhays — a wood near Whitwick", so its usage had clearly shifted by then from that of an agricultural plot.[10] Looking at an Ordnance Survey map of Whitwick from 1882 confirmed that there was a wood called Hollyhays, to the SE of the village, between the Leicester Road and the small local river.[11] Although the wood has since gone, there is even now a road there called "Holly Hayes Road".

Looking for Waste Farm initially ran into a red herring: many newspaper references to a Waste Farm (or sometimes Waste Hill Farm) near Hurley, in Warwickshire, during the 1840s. This was only about 20 miles SW of Whitwick and so it could have been correct, but then I spotted some later 1950s references to a Whitwick Waste Farm on the Greenhill Road in Coalville, just 1.5 miles S of Whitwick. Looking at an 1885 map of Coalville[12] showed that it had been a long-standing place, just to the east of the village, in an area known (unsurprisingly) as Whitwick Waste.

Although William Hammond was intended to be executor of his brother's will, he renounced this obligation.

Know all men by these presents that I William

Hammond the sole Executor named in the last Will and

Testament of John Hammond late of Whitwick in the county

and Archdeaconry of Leicester Yeoman deceased for divers good causes and

consideration we hereunto specially moving to hereby renounce the

Burthen of the Execution of the said Will and I do declare that at present I

have not intermeddled, nor for the future Will intermeddled in the

administration of the goods, chattels and credits of the said deceased and

to the end that this my renunciation may have its due effect in Law

I do hereby nominate constitute and appoint John Stockdale Notary

Public and one of the exercent proctors of the Archdeaconry court of Leicester

to be my true and lawful proctor for me and in my name to appear

before the worshipful Edward Taylor Esquire Bachelor of Law Official

of the Archdeaconry of Leicester lawfully constituted his Surrogate or some

other competent Judge in this behalf to exhibit this my proxy of

Renunciation of the Execution of the said Will as aforesaid and to pray the

same to be admitted and enacted And I do hereby promise to allow for

firm and valid all and whatsoever my said proctor shall lawfully do

or cause to be done for me and in my name in and touching the premises

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this thirteenth

day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and

eighty seven [13 Dec 1787]

Wm. Hammond

Sealed and delivered

in the presence of

W Harrison jun(r) [13]

His sister, Sarah Hammond, single and living in Narborough at the time, administered the will in his place.

Know all men by these presents that we Sarah

Hammond of Narborough in the county of Leicester

spinster, Caleb Lowdham of Leicester in the

said county Gentleman & John Stockdale

of the same place Gent

are held and firmly bound to Edward Taylor Esq B. L. L.

Official of the Archdeaconry of Leicester carefully

constituted with a sum of four hundred

pounds

of good and lawful money of Great Britain to be paid to the

said official

or his certain Attorney Executors Administrators or Assignes for

the true payment whereof we bind ourselves and every

of us by herself and himself for the whole our and every of our

Heirs Executors and Administrators ____ firmly

by these presents sealed with our seals Dated this twentieth

day of December in the twenty eighth year of the reign of our sovereign

Lord George the third by the grace of God of Great Britain ffrance [France]

and Ireland King Defender of the faith and soforth and in the

year of our Lord One Thousand Seven hundred and Eighty

Seven [20 Dec 1787].

Whereas John Hammond late of Whitwick in the

county and archdeaconry of Leicester Yeoman

deceased did whilst living being of sound

and disposing mind memory and understanding

duly make and execute this last Will and Testament

in writing dated 9th April 1787 and thereof appointed

his Brother William Hammond sole Executor who

hath duly renounced the burthen of the execution

of the said Will void the condition of this obligation

is such that if the above bound

Sarah Hammond and one of the natural & lawful

sisters of the said deceased and administratrix

with the said Will annexed of all and singular the

the goods chattels and credits of the said deceased do

make or cause to be made a true and perfect

inventory of all and singular the goods, chattels

and credits of the said Testator which have or

shall come to her hands possession or knowledge

and the same so mind & do exhibit or cause to be

exhibited into the Registry of the Archdeaconry court

of Leicester on or before the last day of March

next ensuing and the same goods chattels and

credits do well and duly administer that is to

say do pay the Debts of the said Testator

which he did owe at his death and then the

Legacies contained in the said Will so far as his

goods chattels and credits will thereto extend and

the Law change her and further do make or cause to

be made a true and just account of her said

administration when she shall be thereunto

lawfully required and all the rest and residue of the

said goods chattels and credits which shall be

found remaining upon her said account and

and not otherwise disposed of in the said Will the

same being first examined and allowed of by the

judge of the said court for the time being shall

distribute and dispose of in such manner and

form as shall be comitted [sic] by the discretion of the

said judge And lastly do at all times hereafter

clearly acquit discharge and save harmless the within

named official and all other officers of the said court

against all persons having or pretending to have

any right title or interest unto the said goods chattels

and credits of the said deceased then this obligation

to be void or else to remain in full force & virtue

Sealed and delivered

being first duly stamped                          S. Hammond

by the said Sarah Hammond

in the presence of

Tesse Berridge

Sealed and delivered by the                       Caleb Lowdham

said Caleb Lowdham and John

Stockdale in the presence of                      John Stockdale

W. Harrison jun(r) [14]

NB: Caleb Lowdham was also a witness to Katharine's first marriage, to Samuel Bonnett, in 1776.

Another document exists relating to Sarah's administration in the probate file containing the will. This is an interesting one because it is the only suggestion that John² had a wife; there is no mention of a wife in his will, and no evidence of him having married during his short life.

20th December 1787

Lot Letters of Administration of all and singular the

goods, chattels and credits of the within named John

Hammond deceased with his wife annex'd be made

out and committed under seal to the within bound

Sarah Hammond

She being duly sworn as well to the

faithful administration of all & singular

the goods chattels and credits of the said deceased according to the Tone & Effect

of his said will as that the same goods

chattels and credits do not amount

in value to the sum of three hundred

pounds

before me

J. Pigott jun(r) [15]

The only other reference to a William Hammond, woolstapler, was in an apprenticeship stamp book from 1796. This showed the stamp duty paid by William Hammond, woolstapler of Loughborough, for the 7-year indenture of apprentice John Bonnett on 13 Oct 1796.[16] As well as the proximity to Whitwick, note that the apprentice has the same surname as the first husband of Katharine Hammond, suggesting a possible family connection. In conjunction with the occupation, these observations support the theory that John's³ father was the William Hammond brother of John².

Looking at other probate entries uncovered an earlier will for a John Hammond. As it mentions two sons and three daughters with names identical to the five siblings identified above, then it was clearly that of John¹. The will itself comprises three of the five images available online, and they describe the apportionment of silverware, land, and property between the children of a "gent" [gentleman]. The land included the Swines Market in Leicester High Street, six acres of open field in Whitwick described as "Tippitts alias Tibbotts Waste", and four acres in Abbey Gate, Leicester. [17] The introductory page, transcribed below, mentions the same Caleb Lowdham we have observed elsewhere, and so he must have handled most of the family's legal affairs.

7th October 1776

Received of Mr John Stockdale Deputy Registrar of the Archdeacon's court

of Leicester the original Will of John Hammond Gent Deced (whereof the within

written purports to be a copy) in order to be proved in the Prerogative court

of Canterbury, he having effects at the time of his Death sufficient to

found the jurisdiction of that court

            Caleb Lowdham jnr

            one of the Executors named in the

            said Will [18]

Having found the will of John¹, it was straightforward to find that he was buried Leicester St Martin on 29 Nov 1775.[19]

There are some other Hammond deaths in Whitwick that are deserved of review:

• Sarah Hammond, buried St John the Baptist on 29 May 1768.[20] We have seen that the will of John¹ Hammond makes no mention of his wife, Sarah, and the fact that this death pre-dated his own death, in 1775, suggests that it must have been his wife.
• William Hammond, buried St John the Baptist on 10 Nov 1812.[21] This is the best candidate found for William Hammond, the father of John³.
• John Hammond, died aged 42, buried St John the Baptist on 28 Oct 1838.[22] Although his lineage was not determined, an account of his death due to catastrophic head injuries appeared in the newspapers of the time. He, John Bird, and William Bird died when a rope pulling soil up a shaft at Whitwick colliery snapped. [23]

Since there was no birth record for John³ in Whitwick, and no visible marriage for his father, it was considered that he was illegitimate, and that his father might never have married. Looking at the Whitwick baptisms for any John, there was only one good candidate, to single-woman Sarah Knight on 25 Jun 1797 at Whitwick, St John the Baptist.[24] The only other single-woman baptisms of a John at Whitwick during 1794–1798 were John Fewkes (Brown) on 12 Oct 1794 to Ann Brown, and John Shepherd on 1 Sep 1794 to Ann Shepherd, neither of which fitted well with the given date.

The mother, Sarah Knight, later married (by banns) John Barlow at Ashby-de-la-Zouch St Helen, about 6 miles W of Whitwick, on 10 Dec 1798;[25] the banns was not found. John and Sarah¹ Barlow had only one child together: Sarah² baptised to John (cordwainer) and Sarah Barlow on 24 Jul 1814 at Ashby-de-la-Zouch St Helen.[26] John³ would have been 17 at that time. There were more baptisms there for a John (labourer) and Sarah Barlow during 1837–1841, but they were clearly a different couple: Sarah Poyser had married a John Barlow in 1834, and had children Ann (1837), Mary (1838), and Jane (1841).

But we are getting somewhere because John Barlow was a cordwainer. This is an important occupation because John³ Hammond, John's son (WIlliam), James Smith (husband of Mary Ann Hammond), and James's father (John Smith), were all cordwainers. This is hardly surprising if John³ was raised by a cordwainer: John Barlow. Not only that, the fact that John³ did not follow in the line of gentlemen or land owners further supports an illegitimate lineage.

There's a burial of a John Barlow on 11 Jun 1815, aged 69, in Ashby-de-la-Zouch.[27] If that was the same John then he would have been a bit older than Sarah when he married her (52). I could not find Sarah¹ after that point — the other Sarah Barlow died in 1861 aged 85.

Sarah Knight was probably baptised 25 Nov 1778 at Whitwick, St John the Baptist to Joseph and Hannah.[28] That would make her 19 when John³ was born, and 36 when Sarah² was born — quite a gap.

Sarah² Barlow (then at Church Street) married a William Walker (farmer, 23, of Packington) on 29 Oct 1839 at Ashby-de-la-Zouch St Helen.[29] The couple can be found in the 1841 census, together with their children and William's father, at Mill Street, Packington, about 6 miles W of Whitwick.[30]

James Smith and Mary Ann Hammond went on to have several children during 1844–1863, but finding her in the 1841 census (three years before her marriage) was not easy. The best candidate was a "Mary Haman", a seamstress lodging or boarding on Upper Brown Street, Leicester St Mary.[31] Her age was given as 15 rather than 18 but remember that for persons aged 15 or more during this census, their ages were rounded down to the previous multiple of 5.

So, we've painted a picture of John³ Hammond as the illegitimate son of woolstapler William, a member of a comparatively wealthy family, but was he absent from the baptism of his second child, Mary Ann, and did his father stand on for him? If the 1812 death of the William in Whitwick was that of his father than it must mean that Mary Ann's baptism entry was the result of a clerical error. Even if this was true then where was John for the now 8-year gap between his second and third child (1823–1831)?

The following tree depicts the relationships presented here in conjunction with those presented in the previous article, and serves to help visualise who's who if you re-read it.

This article collects a large amount of evidence for John's family and assembles it into a story that is merely a working theory. It might never be possible to confirm this story to a better degree without some new evidence, but ideally the work may be referenced by future researchers.

---

[1] Leicester St Margaret Parish (Leicestershire), Baptism Register, p.67, no.533; “Leicestershire baptisms”, database with images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 13 Dec 2018), entry for Mary Ann Hammond, 17 Oct 1823; citing archive ref. 24D65/B3; Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland; database hereinafter cited as Leic-Baptisms.

[2] England, marriage certificate for James Smith and Mary Ann Hammond, married 8 May 1844; citing 15/146/112, registered Leicester Union, 1844/Jun [Q2]; General Register Office (GRO), Southport.

[3] "England and Wales, Parish Register Abstract, 1831", digital images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk : accessed 14 Dec 2018); hundred of West Goscote (p.163, img.176); although the 1831 census (taken on 30 May 1831) was published in 1833, the publisher is unidentified.

[4] "Leicestershire Wills And Probate Records, 1500-1939”, database with images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 14  Dec 2018), entry for John Hammond, 1787, yeoman of Whitwick, image 2 of 6; citing archive ref. 1787 A-M; Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland; images hereinafter cited as Will-JohnHammond2.

[5] Whitwick Parish (Leicestershire), Burial Register; “Leicestershire burials”, database with images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 13 Dec 2018), entry for John Hammond, 10 May 1787; citing archive ref. DE1760/6; Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland; database hereinafter cited as Leic-Burials.

[6] Shepshed Parish (Leicestershire), Marriage Register; “Leicestershire marriages”, database with images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 14 Dec 2018), entry for John Hammond and Sarah More, 17 Sep 1739; citing archive ref. DE610/5; Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland; database hereinafter cited as Leic-Marriages. "Leicestershire Marriage Licences, 1604-1891", database with images, 13 Sep 1739, two pages with bond, licence, and allegations.

[7] Leicester St Martin Parish, Leic-Baptisms, entry for John Hamond [Hammond], 16 Feb 1713; citing archive ref. DE1564/1.

[8] Whitwick Parish, Leic-Baptisms, p.12, entry for Sarah Moore, 4 Aug 1717; citing archive ref. DE1760/5.

[9] Will Careless, "Lord Hastings' Hounds and Neighbouring Parks", The Sporting Magazine, vol.8, series 2 (London: M. A. Pittman, 1834), p.301.

[10] "Hunting Notes", Leicester Chronicle (19 Mar 1881): p.3, col.6.

[11] "Old Maps of Whitwick: Whitwick, 1882", Francis Frith (https://www.francisfrith.com/whitwick/maps : accessed 14 Dec 2018), Ordnance Survey county edition, scale: 1:10560.

[12] "Map of Coalville, 1885", Francis Frith (https://www.francisfrith.com/coalville/coalville-1885_hosm34345 : accessed 15 Dec 2018), Ordnance Survey county edition, scale: 1:10560.

[13] Will-JohnHammond2, image 6.

[14] Will-JohnHammond2, images 3–4.

[15] Will-JohnHammond2, image 5.

[16] "Board of Stamps: Apprenticeship Books", Country Registers Feb.1796 - June 1798, The National Archives (http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C233915 : accessed 20 Dec 2018), images 305–6 of 458, ref. IR 1/68 f.153, entry for woolstaper William Hammond of Loughborough, payment date 13 Oct 1797; The National Archives of UK (TNA), Kew; explanatory notes at http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C9339.

[17] "Leicestershire Wills And Probate Records, 1500-1939”, database with images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 20  Dec 2018), entry for John Hammond, 1775, Gentleman of Belgrave, Leicester; citing archive ref. 1775 A-P.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Leicester St Martin Parish, Leic-Burials. entry for John Hammond, 29 Nov 1775; citing archive ref. DE1564/14.

[20] Whitwick Parish, Leic-Burials. entry for Sarah Hammond, 29 May 1768; citing archive ref. DE1760/6.

[21] Whitwick Parish, Leic-Burials. entry for William Hammond, 10 Nov 1812; citing archive ref. DE1760/7.

[22] Whitwick Parish, Leic-Burials. entry for John Hammond, 28 Oct 1838; citing archive ref. DE1760/15.

[23] "Melancholy Accident: Three Lives Lost", Leicester Chronicle (27 Oct 1838): p.3.

[24] Whitwick Parish, Leic-Baptisms, entry for John Knight, 25 Jun 1797; citing archive ref. DE1760/7.

[25] Ashby-de-la-Zouch Parish (Leicestershire), Leic-Marriages, entry for John Barlow and Sarah Knight, 10 Dec 1798; citing archive ref. DE1013/12.

[26] Ashby-de-la-Zouch Parish (Leicestershire), Leic-Baptisms, p.25, no. 200, entry for Sarah Barlow, 28 Jul 1814; citing archive ref. DE1013/4.

[27] Ashby-de-la-Zouch Parish, Leic-Burials, p.17, no.131, entry for John Barlow, 11 Jun 1815; citing archive ref. DE1013/18.

[28] Whitwick Parish, Leic-Baptisms, entry for Sarah Knight, 25 Nov 1778; citing archive ref. DE1760/6.

[29] Ashby-de-la-Zouch Parish, Leic-Marriages, p.44, no.87, entry for William Walker and Sarah Barlow, 29 Oct 1839; citing archive ref. DE1013/15.

[30] "1841 England Census", database with images,  Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk : accessed 14 Dec 2018), household of James Walker (age 70); citing  HO 107/192, bk.2, fo.7, p.9; TNA.

[31] "1841 England Census", database with images,  Ancestry (accessed 14 Dec 2018), household of Ann Coates (age 50); citing  HO 107/605, bk.8, fo.11, p.14; TNA.

Research in Online Trees

My previous post, The Future of Online Trees, prompted a flurry of reaction, most of which was positive; however, it did suggest, implicitly, that many people find it hard to think beyond their entrenched views, and that my explanation may have assumed too much.

This follow-up collects together some of the explanatory comments that I'd since posted around the Web, and tries to make a coherent  argument for what genealogical research should entail.

The previous article made several negative comments about existing online trees, including:

• That assembling their associated conclusions directly from raw digitalised information is not always easy, and gets very hard as you go further back in time (e.g. before census returns and civil registration).
• That it's hard to tell naive trees from properly researched ones, and that, no, a bunch of citations are not a useful indicator.
• That naive trees usually persist long after a creator may have  abandoned them, and could steer new researchers down the wrong path.
• That proof arguments (i.e. reasoned explanation), as opposed to simple proof statements (i.e. citations), are almost never provided.

The primary issue behind my article was that many genealogical conclusions require their research work to be written up in order for them to be assessed, and for that research to be cited either by trees or other research work. Proof statements alone are only applicable when the sources offer direct answers and do not conflict with each other, but identity problems and family reconstruction can require lengthy arguments that examine multiple sources. The results will often address groups of correlated people rather than just some specific person, and so it's not realistic to expect that work to be tucked away in a single person entity (on a tree) or in a single person page.

An associated issue is that the contributors to online trees — and probably the users of genealogy software in general — routinely talk about individual "claims", and the supporting sources for those claims, as though they're all independent of each other. This is fallacy! The idea that a specific claim can be justified in isolation, and linked directly to one or more sources that give a direct answer, is a huge oversimplification of the research process, and yet this is a mindset that is hard to argue with.

One of the positive things I suggested in my previous article (possibly the only one) was that there are researchers who do publish their work online (e.g. in blogs), and that online trees could reference their research as "authored works": a recognised source category that supplements those of "original" and "derivative". There is no issue at all with representing this in GEDCOM files — the data format most often used to transfer data between two places — nor any significant issue with online providers recognising such work as a specific source category.

Many traditional genealogists write-up their work in academic journals, but this is more about kudos than about helping a  community of genealogists; few of us will be subscribers to these journals. This is a shame because they cannot distance themselves from online genealogy, nor ignore the associated problems, because we're all tarnished with the same brush. If we describe our work as "genealogy" then it will be linked automatically to the prevailing impression of its most common form: online trees.

It may be hard to see what I'm getting at if you haven't participated in research in other fields. All the fields that I am aware of, such as in science and medicine, rely on published works. This could be in journals or online, but by far their biggest difference from what is currently considered genealogical research is that newer works cite older works. The consensus is then built up through layers of research, each of which may support or refute previous work. There's a saying about standing on the shoulders of giants, and it makes perfect sense: someone could have spent a lifetime solving one particular deep mystery, and so to expect someone else (beginner or otherwise) to find the same answer directly from raw online information is unrealistic. I cannot think of any other area of research that works as genealogy currently does, and where conclusions are either copied blindly from those of someone else or constructed independently from raw information. This is a little like a surgeon creating an independent textbook themselves by simply dissecting the evidence — a cadaver in this case. Knowledge and progress come from sharing research, and by building on the research of others. It's step-wise, progressive, and takes time. And without seeing any written research then you cannot tell whether someone made their conclusions in 30 minutes or 30 years.

So what size of work are we talking about? Is it just a single paragraph? Well, it could be, or it could be a couple of thousand words, as with several blog articles that I've encountered. I have two unpublished works of 5000 words, myself, that I want to contribute to the community, and for posterity, but also a work-in-progress that is already at 10,000 words — such is the complexity.

A note on the use of wikis as a medium for collaborative research is necessary because they were mentioned by a few people. It is true that wikis can be, and are, used for such research purposes, but they have significant weaknesses. They are often limited in the richness of their presentation — usually amounting to more of a protracted discussion, as the old BetterGEDCOM wiki demonstrated — but genealogical research requires support for rich formatting, images, tables, and citations. Not all blogs offer this, but there are usually ways of achieving it (see Summarised Blogger Tips for instance). Wikis have little, if any, editorial control, and no attribution support beyond their confines. Also, that they constitute a confined medium — forcing people to contribute outside any personal medium or prior work — would put too many people off. By contrast, blogs are not confined, they may be linked or associated with other work by the author, and their articles have immediate attribution. Wikipedia was also mentioned as an example of successful collaboration, but it has strict rules that prevent original work or theories being presented. It relies on secondary sources, and so implicitly collects information that is already in the mainstream. This certainly doesn't prevent edit wars but it does place it apart from collaborative wiki-based genealogy.

So, my suggestion is to separate attributable research work from tree-based conclusions, and to cite such work for the harder cases rather than just some raw information. This suggestion is not rocket science so why aren't we doing it?

The Future of Online Trees

Many people have written about the ills of online family trees, including me, but that won't stop me writing about them again. Yes, they're full of errors — more than some people want to admit — but is there an answer? Is there a future for them?

I first want to summarise some of those problems, and then suggest that the current situation is not sustainable. Much damage has already been done to the collective knowledge of our family histories, but also to the reputation of genealogy itself. If online trees are wrong then those errors will propagate through simplified collaboration, they will tarnish the interpretation of DNA data, and they will stymie any attempt to use AI technology to suggest further connections.

One basic problem is that users are encouraged to create their trees directly from raw digitised resources, including transcripts, held by the online provider. Although it is possible to include data from external sources, there is some debate about whether all providers acknowledge them when grading their trees. So what's the problem here? Is there any other way to create a tree?

Well, yes and no! A tree very rarely captures any of the logic employed when its relationships were determined, or of the histories of the individuals in the tree — usually prerequisite knowledge for solving the hard identity and relationship problems. Yes, they may include citations or electronic bookmarks to show where information came from, but that isn't the same as explaining why the information is correct or relevant. Also, they are incapable of supporting complex conclusions that have correlated information from multiple sources.

This sets the stage for errors that are unchecked, and when coupled with the ability to easily copy data from one tree to another then it means that the errors will proliferate. Not only that, the source of an error, whether known or not, will likely be permanent, even if the author abandoned their tree.

I came upon such a case just the day before writing this article. I don't want to pick on this specific person but it typified a very real problem with online trees. I had contacted this person because their tree appeared to offer solutions to a deep problem that I was collaborating on with another person. On looking at the tree, I could see that the conclusions were very wrong (e.g. conflating two given names to create a name found nowhere in the evidence, simply to tie-off an apparent anomalous reference), but there were no sources given. On approaching the owner they admitted that they had received a gift of membership to this provider, during the period of which they copied data from a cousin's tree, and that they were no longer a fully-paid member. So even though they no longer dabbled with genealogy, their naive tree would outlive their membership and be used by other beginners, ad infinitum. Ideally, the industry should be generating something of historical value, but all we have is a cauldron of ills and woes.

Such cases are compounded by the fact that no provider I know of offers a mechanism to flag a tree, or part thereof, as tentative, under-construction, or otherwise work-in-progress. This would be useful for experienced researchers as well as beginners, and could go some way to stopping the proliferation of erroneous conclusions.

A more complete solution would be to make room for research narrative — not just pieces of plain text stuffed into the records for specific persons or families — and I have proposed this several times before, e.g. Feeding the Trees. The problem here is that there isn't much inclination amongst providers to do this, possibly because they don't want to be first, or rich-text (formatted with images, tables, citations, etc.) is somehow harder to handle, or simply that they don't see the need when everyone has a word processor.

All is not lost, though, because there are genealogists out there who write-up their research and make it publicly accessible, usually via a blog. You must be able to see where I'm taking this, now. If there was a way to reference such research in an online tree then it would relieve the more-casual user of the burden of the heavy lifting. In effect, rather than reference raw digitised records directly, and with no logic explained, they could reference work contributed by others — work that explained how conclusions were reached as well as citing the relevant sources.

Well, I have proposed this before, too: Blogs as Genealogical Sources suggested that published research (especially in blogs) could be indexed as external sources by providers. Also, that the indexing of an article URL would be done with the author's permission, and with no bulk text being copied or indexed by the provider — actions that would violate copyright and divert traffic away from that author's article. This win-win scenario wouldn't require a large investment by the provider, and so it was strange that only one showed any interest and asked me for more details. Such work can already be found by researchers, but only via general-purpose search engines such as Google. How much more convenient if genealogy subscribers saw them as another source group and were allowed to perform genealogical searches that included them.

I had heard rumours of a past RootsTech announcement by Findmypast of an initiative called "verified reference trees" but I could find no official mention of it. It sounded good but would probably be impractical — who could produce them? How many would you be likely to generate? How much of a given pedigree could one contributor realistically cover?

What I'm saying here is that online trees need a rethink if they are to have a future. Simply putting more and more digitised resources at their disposal is not bad, but there are fundamental problems that need to be addressed, ones that will ultimately come back to bite those providers who are ignoring the future.

Will we still be working on the same trees in 20 years time, and in the same way? Some pundits have suggested that our family histories will have all been resolved by then through collaborative unified trees. ROTFLMAO! There are already more inaccurate conclusions online than accurate ones, and it is not easy to tell which are which — citations alone do not cut it! Some other pundits have suggested DNA testing will solve everything. ROTF again! Even limiting yourself to biological lineage, and ignoring much family history, there are cases for which DNA can never help. For instance, read my conclusion at Jesson Lesson.

There are two very broad categories of user that providers need to consider: those who are experienced and likely to do a lot of the research leg-work, sharing their research details with others; and those who want to play with online tools to create a simple tree of their own. Although the latter category may be able to contribute valuable knowledge and lore from recent generations, most would struggle to reconstruct older generations from raw information alone for the simple fact that it's hard.

So whose work should they use? Well, trees don't need to be officially "verified". Works of written research can be read by any user who can then judge for themselves on the depth of the research and of the soundness of the conclusions. I'm not suggesting that these users can't use raw information, only that published research will give them more rungs on the ladder; bigger pieces of the jigsaw to assemble.

Another RootsTech announcement that I recall was that of employing AI to find new connections in the data. This is worth a paragraph of its own before leaving this subject because AI is akin to black magic for many people. Applying AI to raw information is a recipe for disaster because, as any researcher knows, it can never be taken at face value. AI would simply be correlating information from many record groups and attempting naive identity resolution and family reconstruction. It would know nothing of real-life situations and the reasons that records may have lied or that families had moved, or of real human relationships and the reasons they may have been forged or broken. The naivety of such algorithms would ultimately manifest as the appearance of fictitious people, or of duplicates for the same person (merging of inappropriate people would also be a risk but probably to a lesser extent). There will always be the need for human researchers, and any application of AI must have their additional inputs.

So, has anyone seriously tried to envisage what genealogists will be doing in a couple of decades time? Will the same providers still be offering online trees for users to build from raw information, and will beginners be researching the same people as we are doing now? Will all of today's trees still be online then, and will the error rate in those trees be reduced? If so then how? Product Managers beware! Your industry's future is at stake unless some visionaries step forward. Genealogy is big business at the moment, but it cannot remain as it currently is. Companies may be throwing their hat at DNA testing, but what happens when that fad passes its peak and it is taken for granted? A company's valuation is dependent on a predicted future for its market, so buyer beware also.

[see follow-up at Research in Online Trees]

Organising Digital Resources

I want to take you on a brief tour of what it means to index your digital resources, and how this is a better method of organising them than creating physical connections. Although this articles is primarily about online genealogical resources, it equally applies to local ones on your personal computer.

A surprising number of Web sites still try to organise resources using a physical hierarchy between their pages. For instance, one that had pages related to places might be organised according to the associated geographical hierarchy.

Figure 1 – Naive implementation of hierarchical organisation.

As explained at Impermanent Links, this is a bad method for multiple reasons including the fact that it ties the URLs to one particular layout, and that layout is not particularly useful from the perspective of the Web server (e.g. for maintenance).

An earlier article, Hierarchical Sources, explained that organising physical resources by their provenance and then indexing them according to how you want to see or access them is not only preferential but would be the archival approach. But what do I mean by "indexing"?

In order to explain further, I need to review some terminology because people from different backgrounds may use the same terms in dissimilar ways. People who are familiar with academic articles and journal submissions will understand the difference between keywords and index-terms: keywords are specific terms identified by the author — usually in the abstract rather than in the body — and which would be found through a full-text search; index-terms are categories or topics used externally to aid document retrieval. Index-terms are not usually chosen by the author and are part of a controlled vocabulary, meaning that there are no problems with synonyms, variant spellings, or name clashes. However, in the field of database indexes, the term key is a synonym of index-term, and so terms such as keyword and keyword-search may then be ambiguous.

So, to summarise things so far, it is better to organise resources according their provenance, or their innate properties (as opposed to content), and to separately index them according to their subjects or categories. Grouping resources by provenance makes it easier to describe them (e.g. where and when they were obtained), to move/copy them, to supplement them (with related or new resources), or to support versioning. Any hierarchical organisation can then be done entirely through external indexing.

But aren't index-terms simply tags with no implied hierarchy? How would the place example (above) be handled? Index-terms are not tags — that's a description that better-fits the concept of keywords. Controlled Index-term vocabularies are very often defined to be hierarchical, and in the place example "Nottinghamshire" would be a term subordinate to "England". Whether the category name itself, e.g. "Place", is considered a top-level of the hierarchy is a design choice.

The definition of such a vocabulary would not only indicate which are subordinate to which, but may have associated meta-data that described each term and enumerated any alternative spellings or historical variations. Such meta-data would therefore assist in the selection of an appropriate index-term, after which resources matching that term would be unambiguous. Note, too, that if the term names had variations in other languages (e.g. occupations) then the controlled vocabulary is untouched, and those variations are enumerated in the same meta-data; whether the user selected "butcher" or "boucher", the retrieval of the resource would still use the index-term "Butcher".

Figure 2 – Organisation by two hierarchical indexes.

This diagram illustrates that a major advantage of this approach is that you can support multiple independent hierarchies. Organising resources according to both place and surname would not be possible using a single physical page hierarchy, and would be a maintenance nightmare if you tried to implement multiple physical hierarchies. A resource indexed by both the place terms "Epperstone" and "Screveton" could also be selected through the use of the common parent "Nottinghamshire", or even "England". Also, a resource relevant to both the surname Lincoln and the English town of Lincoln could be unambiguously indexed according to both with no confusion at all.

As many hierarchical indexes could be used as necessary, and new ones could be added without touching the underlying resources.

Figure 3 – Organising by multiple hierarchical indexes.

As well as being separately hierarchical, these indexes are inclusive. That means resources can be selected based on whether they are associated with terms in different dimensions. For instance, references to resources relevant to the Nottinghamshire village of Coddington (expressed here using the shorthand path "England.Nottinghamshire.Coddington"), "Surname.Astling", and "Occupation.Tailor". Not only that, resources can be selected using criteria involving Boolean operators, such as "England.Nottinghamshire" AND NOT "England.Nottinghamshire.Epperstone".

Relational databases can easily handle this style of indexing, including multiple indexes and Boolean queries. Each match would simply yield a physical identifier for the associated resource, such as a document or page name.