They provide a unique snapshot of domestic occupancy during the Restoration period.    If your ancestors occupied a substantial property there is very fair chance their names will be recorded provided they lived in one of those counties where records are extant and reasonably complete, such as Kent or Yorkshire.  Here are some of the frequently asked questions about the Hearth Tax.

1       What was the Hearth Tax?

The Hearth Tax was an emergency measure, and was introduced at a time of severe fiscal shortfall.   King Charles had to find a quick way to boost the coffers of the Exchequer, so he introduced a tax on households to be paid every six months at Michaelmas in the autumn and on Lady Day in the spring.   The amount due was based on the number of hearths in a house, the value of the house and the income of the occupiers.

2       How was it administered?

Because it was levied on people as well as on property, it was inherently complicated, and the administration was both complex and confusing.  At one period government officials administered the tax directly from the centre.   At other times the collection was farmed out to private tax collectors.   Under this latter arrangement they paid a fixed sum for the privilege of extracting the taxes from those who were deemed to be eligible.  Strangely enough these ‘farmers’ were not required to send in regular returns to the Exchequer.

3       Who had to pay the tax?

Everyone had to pay the Hearth Tax unless they were exempted.  You paid if your house was worth more than 20 shillings a year and you contributed to the local church and poor rates.

However, bearing in mind the two disparate methods of collection mentioned above it is not surprising if there was a degree of uncertainty amongst local officials about the criteria to be applied in all circumstances.  The very poorest members of society were consistently exempted, but there may have been borderline cases that could have gone either way.

4       Where do we find the records?

At the National Archives in Kew the E179 database is the main portal for medieval and early modern taxation demands on the population.  The majority of Hearth Tax documents can now be found there.  However the picture is still far from complete.  To remedy this gap in the data the Centre for Hearth Tax Research was established in 1995 under the direction of Professor Margaret Spufford, FBA, and supported by Roehampton University  Two major projects are now under way. One concerns the fresh analysis of the situation in London during the Great Fire (1666) and the other is concerned with the publication of records county by county.

5       What can we gain from the records?

When researching we do need to remember that the administrative units were very different in the late 17^th century.  There were counties, hundreds, boroughs and parishes, and of course in any instances place names will have changed as well.    Officially everyone should have been listed, either as having to pay the tax or as being exempted.  In some cases the list of the exempted became a simple number and no lists of names of the poorer inhabitants survive.

However, once one has negotiated these potential pitfalls and found the right list of householders it can be very rewarding to be able to confirm who belonged to the family tree at that time.  Sometimes comments made by the officials who were compiling the returns added interesting points of detail serving to enrich and fill out the story of your family chronicle in that period of time.

A Census is a complete population count for a given area or place taken on a specific date. The first National Census held in the United Kingdom was in 1801, the year when the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland was passed, and also the year when the Union Jack was newly authorized.  This  first Census was a useful but rather limited start.

The first Census of particular value to genealogists was held on 6 June 1841, when names were systematically recorded for the first time.  It was held on a Sunday when most people could be expected to be at home.   Whereas the population was a little over 10 million in 1801, by 1841 it had risen to 18.5 million in Great Britain and 8 million in Ireland mainly as a result of the phenomenal growth of the Industrial Revolution in parts of England.   The population of the United States was a modest 17 million at that time.

2          Where are they found?

For many years researchers had to physically visit a library or record office for the information they needed.  Since the dawn of the Internet all that has changed.  The Family Records Centre is located at 1, Myddelton Street, London.  It’s the new home for all material once held at St. Catherine’s House and the Census Reading Rooms.    The National Archives are housed at Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU, a short distance from Kew Gardens.  Check out their website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

The Census Records from 1841 through to 1891 are available on microfilm, and the records for 1901 are now available on microfiche.

The 1911 Census Records can now be accessed online at www.1911census.co.uk Their sister site is at www.findmypast.co.uk There is a two-stage entry procedure.  You can search for free the whole census, and once you have located the person or persons you are researching you can pay to view the detailed information, at the rate of £6.95 for 60 credits valid for a period of 90 days.   Other sites offering this service will be similar in cost and presentation.

3           How did they develop?

In 1841 we only find limited information about the family unit, namely the name, age, gender, occupation and address of those listed at a certain address.  From 1851 right through to 1881 we have the extra information about place of birth, relationship to the head of the household and marital status.  In the Census Returns of 1891 and 1901 we also find the employment status given.   In 1911, which is the latest Census to be released to the public, we also discover the nationality, duration of current marriage, and details of children both living and deceased.  While we expect to find comprehensive data in recent Census Returns, we have to remember that we will find fewer entries and less information as we work back through these ten-yearly returns.

4          What benefits do they provide?

Because these population counts were taken every ten years, we can usefully scan the entries for significant changes in our family history over time.   It is recommended that those who are starting out with little information about their ancestors should begin with the 1901Census.  Then you only need to know your forbear’s name, with a guess at the ‘Birth Year’ and ‘Lived in Location’.

Having found the right person you can click on ‘View Image’ and check the address and occupation.  Assuming that you have located the right household you will now have the names of other family members listed according to age.  Then go back a decade to 1891 and find young adults as children still living with their parents.   The further you go back, the more names you acquire and by the same token you will be adding yet more generations to your rapidly expanding tree.

5          What problems may emerge?

Finally you will want to check over all the collateral information possible from certificates of Births, Marriages and Deaths.  Some of these will be in your possession, but many others will have to be paid for.   These primary sources are very important as errors will have crept into the Census Returns here and there.  In the first place, there will be those who deliberately or accidentally missed the encounter with the enumerator on the day, and so weren’t included.

Then there will be the inevitable clerical errors, such as omission of a name altogether from the list, or repetition of the same name, or the misspelling of a name so that a ‘winifred’ becomes a ‘wilfred’ thereby unwittingly changing the gender of the person listed.  However, by and large, you will find the Census Returns to be a very useful resource, often providing those key pieces of information that are unavailable anywhere else.

In the first place United States probate law derived from English common law and from Spanish community property law, depending on the state.   If you wish to consult probate documents for the original English colonies before Independence go to the American Colonial Probate Records article which offers important data for these colonial records.

In the United Kingdom probate has been administered by different official bodies over the years.  Before 1858 all probate proceedings were dealt with by hundreds of local Church Courts.  Then when the Court of Probate Act established the Principal Probate Registry 40 district registries were set up to take care of all probate cases in the country.

If you are searching for a will prior to 1858 you may visit the National Archives at Kew, and consult the relevant index on site.     If however you wish to research online you may visit the Prerogative Court of Canterbury [1384-1858]. Not surprisingly these records mainly relate to testators who were resident in the south of England.  And of course local archives may be consulted if required.

Now in the UK we have free access to the National Probate Calendar. This provides a vital link to wills and probate records created in England and Wales between 1861 and 1941.  In fact this is the first time that this data has been made available online.

To search these records you simply enter a name, and, if you know it, the date and place of death.   When you find a match that you are reasonably confident is the person you are looking for you can click on ‘View Original Image’.     This entry should then provide details of the executor or executrix, their relationship with the deceased [who was often a family member] the occupation of the deceased, and the value of the estate.

When you have found the entry of your ancestor you can proceed to order a copy of the relevant probate records from the Principal Probate Registry.  You need to fill in the PDF Application Form, carefully noting the statutory requirements, and all being well you should receive your documents within 21 working days, that is about a calendar month.  There is a modest fee to cover the cost of this service.

One of the most exciting aspects of probate research is the discovery of family members you didn’t even know existed.   You may know the names of one or two children of a certain couple on your tree.  Then when you examine the probate records you may well find the names of others – and this was probably the only way you would ever have stumbled on those names.  Sometimes you find names of three generations on one single will, where the deceased remembered a spouse, siblings, cousins, as well as children and grandchildren.

You will not be disappointed!

Cyndi’s List This is a huge website dedicated to cataloguing genealogy websites all over the internet.  It’s an absolute mine of information, but don’t go under with the sheer volume of information presented.  This site really is an amazing achievement.  www.cyndislist.com For a very useful review go to thegoodwebguide.co.uk

Family Search This is now a major data website sponsored by the LDS Church [Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons] and includes instructions and reference help.   You land on the updated site and can navigate to the previous site and evaluate what it still has to offer. www.familysearch.org

Family Tree Maker Online This is the homepage for the genealogical software    of Ancestry.com.   It provides a very popular resource that may well suit your style of ancestral research and charting.   Yes, it may be a commercial site but it has a lot to offer, including a 115-million-name Family Index Finder.   www.familytreemaker.com

Free BMD This is an online searchable index of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales from 1837 based on General Register Office records, but as it’s an ongoing project there are still some sizeable gaps.  The aim is to provide free internet access to all these records.  At the time of writing there are a little under 20 million distinct records available online.

www.freebmd.org.uk

Genes Reunited You can upload your family tree and then see which other Family Tree holders have listed family members who might also belong on the branches of your tree.  This is a great way to meet people with common genealogical interests.  It can be surprising how much research has already been done by other people.  Of course there are lots of independent privately sponsored web sites that provide a great deal of valuable information as well and accessing these can save hours of work.

www.genesreunited.co.uk

Roots Web is a major data site, with free instruction and reference.

It offers a range of services to the enthusiastic researcher.   It claims to be the internet’s oldest and largest free genealogical community.   In fact it’s more about offering useful links to actual information than links to links which can be rather frustrating!

www.rootsweb.ancestry.com

US GenWeb is offering free genealogical and family history online. If you are researching in the United States you will want to get familiar with US GenWeb which serves as a portal to a major project involving thousands of volunteers across the US.  Once you are into the site you can access information at state level as well.

www.usgenweb.org

When they fled the Continent at peak times of persecution many of them arrived in London or at the port of Dover.   Typical places where Huguenots migrated to were Spitalfields in London and Canterbury in Kent.

In America they mostly settled on the Eastern seaboard, from Florida in the South to New York in the North; congregations were established in Virginia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.  In the course of time some of them migrated further West.

Who were they?  They were French Protestants who wanted the privilege of worshipping in their own distinctive Protestant traditions amongst a nation many of whose members were devoted Catholics and who wanted everyone else to worship in their way.     This tussle went on for decades.   It is not a pretty story, with religion and politics getting inextricably bound up together.

After the St. Bartholomew Day massacre of 1572 thousands of Huguenots sought sanctuary abroad.   The Edict of Nantes in 1598 brought a respite of sorts, but when the edict was revoked in 1685 vast numbers of Protestants fled persecution in their homeland and sought freedom and a new life elsewhere.

Do you have Huguenot links in your family? Sometimes the give-away will be a French-sounding surname appearing in the family tree back in the 16^th or 17^th centuries. In some situations the original surnames might become anglicized.    Quite early on French sounding given names were changed into their English equivalents.   The process of assimilation into English culture occurred more quickly than one might have imagined.   Children baptized in Norwich or in Canterbury for example were given English names very early on.

When researching for evidence of Huguenot roots one needs first of all to go through the standard primary procedures of consulting Birth and Marriage certificates; hopefully this will take you back to 1837 or even earlier.   When these primary sources have been fully tapped one can check out the Quarto Series provided by the Huguenot Society. [see below]

Which web site should I consult?   I’m going to mention three sites that definitely shouldn’t be ignored.

The Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland is well established and has a great deal of helpful material to assist you at a stage when you have a fair idea of what you are looking for.  To find out what they can offer.

Go to www.huguenotsociety.org.uk

Researchers in North America will want to find out more about the National Huguenot Society based in the States.

Go to www.huguenot.netnation.com

Wherever you are living and researching you would be wise to check out what Cyndi can do for you.  Her website is quite extraordinary and attracts millions of visitors every year.  Under Huguenots you will find almost any conceivable sub topic you could possibly need.

Go to www.cyndislist.com

What sort of life did your parents live?  Did they spend time in foreign parts?  I know someone whose father nearly got cooked in a cannibal’s pot – luckily he got wind of it and escaped in the nick of time!  That episode alone would serve to liven up their family chronicle!  Had your mother been distantly related to Michael Palin it might explain her travels in exotic places!

So what needs to be done at the start? It’s very helpful to find out whether branches of your family tree have already appeared on genealogical sites published on the web.    This can save hours and hours of work especially when you are new to the game and taking time to grapple with the many aspect of your research activity.    One can discover which tree-owners have done a lot of the spade work for you, and most of them are only too happy to share their findings with you.

If you want to incorporate their work into your tree as appropriate it would of course be a basic courtesy to gain their knowledge and permission to do so.  And this will work both ways, for as your researches prosper who will come across primary data which will help to confirm the accuracy of their findings as well as your own.   You are likely to know more about those relatives who are nearest to you on the tree that you share.    You may have a photo of a person who is just a name to them.

So what goes into your chronicle?   Basically everything that is factual and helpful to build up a picture of a person, a family or a community.  There may be diaries still in existence, and probate wills to help confirm who belonged to that particular nuclear family.  So often the same names crop up and you have to be sure where they fit into the tree, and on which branch.   Some of us have photos going back to the early 19^t century.  We are fortunate indeed if our ancestors engaged in photography within the family circle or were able to afford a studio sitting.   This visual side of our ancestral record greatly enriches our enjoyment of the whole endeavour.

This whole exercise can develop in a simple way with modest input, or it can develop into a major publishing venture.   If your ancestors were pilots, naval engineers or merchant shipmen for example there would be a lot of material available about conditions at sea in that era which you can build into your history.  Mind you if your forbears came from Cornwall you might not wish to find out too much about the wrecking and smuggling that went on in earlier times.   You have to be ready to take on board the good and the bad, the noble and the less-than-noble.  Your ancestors won’t have been paragons in every aspect of living any more than the current generation could claim to be!

So when you have accumulated a lot of material you should be able to bring together  background notes of the period under review, images of all kinds, charts of the family tree, presented in sections and carefully labelled, with notes on ‘side-shoots’ [ interesting In-laws who are not in the blood-line].  There might be extracts from diaries and wills, maps of family locations, and much more.  Above all it will be your own, personal, unique record of a group of people whom you have come to know, and hopefully to respect and love.   You will discover a unique bond that no one else can experience or savour as well as you, for you are part of them as much as they are part of you.

In our genealogical researches while building our family tree we have come across a number of interesting surnames.   Cardinall is found with lots of variant spellings, such as Carnell, Carnelley, Carbonell and Cardinal. This particular name has two possible origins.

On the first hand it was an occupational name for a crossbow man who specialized in fighting from the battlements of castles. It derives from the Anglo-Norman French “carnel” battlement, embrasure. Secondly, it may be a contracted form of the surnames Carbonell and Cardinal. Carbonell derives from the Old French “carbon”, charcoal, a nickname for one with a swarthy complexion or hair black as coal, the essential characteristic of charcoal.

The name was sometimes confused with the surname Cardinal and became Carnall. The surname Cardinal comes from the Old French “Cardinal”, cardinal, the church dignitary, a pageant-name or a nickname for one like a cardinal or someone who habitually dressed in red. One Hugo de la Karnell appears in Huntingdonshire, UK, in 1247. On 9 Sept 1629, Andrew Carnall was christened in Whitechapel, London.  The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de la Kernel, which was dated 1244. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to “develop” often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

Claringbold is of Norman origin, introduced into England after the conquest of 1066 in the forms “Clarembald” and Clarebaut”, a personal name from the Old German “Clarembald”. The name is composed of the hybrid elements “Clarus”, the latin for “famous”, and the Old German  meaning “bold”. Interestingly, the name was again introduced into England in the late 17^th Century, as part of the great influx of French and Flemish Huguenots, escaping religious persecution on the Continent.

Some modern-day bearers of the name may derive it from that source as in “Anthoine Clerembault”, married to “Judeth Bosquett” in the French Huguenot Church in Threadneedle St. London in 1705. “John Claringbold” was married to “Sarah Bridges” on the 8 July 1688 at St. James’, Duke’s Place, London, The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Roger Clerenbald, which was dated 1223.

Janeway also has Huguenot connections. This unusual and interesting surname originally denoted an Italian national, from Genoa in the province of Liguria. The name “Janaway(s)” is the medieval English spelling of the Old French word “Genoveis”, meaning a Genoese, in Italian, “Genovese”.  In the Middle Ages there was a busy trade with England especially in silks and spices.  Merchants and master mariners from Genoa were to be found in all the costal and trading towns of Europe.

There is some indication that the name “Janaway” was used as a nickname for a clever, resourceful person, since this was the opinion held of the Genoese in medieval times. The modern surname can be found recorded as Jan(n)away(s), Jan(e)way, Gannaway and Jennaway. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Janna, which was dated 1273, in the “Hundred Rolls of Kent”, during the reign of King Edward 1, known as “The Hammer of the Scots”, 1272 – 1307.

Most of us will probably discover the surnames on our family tree to have been spelt differently from time to time, as we take our researches further back and further afield across the continents.   Spellings were only stabilized in quite recent times.   Often  the family name might ‘develop’ quite independently of the random spellings made by the sexton or clerk. 

You may well find that this will be adequate for your needs, as the whole process can be successfully handled without a computer.  But it’s more than likely you will gain a great deal by loading everything significant into a computer software program.   With regular back-up and storage of hard copy you are unlikely to lose much of lasting value.   As always you can sample what is being offered before deciding to go for a low-cost program or one that has extended options.

Firstly may we introduce you to a free download called the Family Tree Builder.  This is available from www.myheritage.com/family-tree-builder This software has been downloaded millions of times already and would be a useful starting-point.  It offers a private family site that can be shared with family members, smart matching technology, a section for photos, automatic face tagging, charts to make you proud and very easy to use.

If and when you feel the need to go a little more up-market and avail yourself of a number of extra powerful features you can go for the Family Tree Maker from Ancestry.com.  This software is very popular and is probably one of the best but you have to pay for it.  It’s available at www.familytreemaker.com It has many features; in addition to creating charts, time-lines and family trees, you can upload your own videos, audio clips and pictures.

You will come across lots of material on other sites on the internet and all the information you glean in this way can be incorporated into the program and organized as you wish.  Another excellent feature is the printing option.  You have the facility for printing out keepsakes by using the online printing service at the associated Ancestry.com You can print out family history books or even family posters on this system.

One very useful feature is the way in which you can add specific information for one individual at a time.   As you focus on that one person you can include details of their parentage, whom they married, the names of their siblings and details of their children.    You can add dates of birth and death, details of their home village or town and facets of social history to make it so much more personal and interesting.  Then they can show you a map of the area where they lived.

Another great feature of this programme is that it enables you to publish your tree on line for other members of the family to view.  Should they be living on the other side of the world, which can make physical contact difficult or expensive, they can communicate with you and add formation to your tree from their particular branch.  Indeed being able to share what you have been able to put together is one of the most rewarding aspects of creating a family tree.  So often the branches spread out world-wide and new friendships are made.  Whatever software you use it’s hard to put a price on the rich contacts you can make.

They come in all sorts of sizes and are found in a great variety of places.  There are diaries, wills, newspaper cuttings, photographs, film clips, certificates and lots more.  Some of these are considered Primary sources, while other are considered Secondary sources.

A primary source is a document or even a person who is contemporary with the period you are researching and recording.  Let’s take an example: the assassination of John F Kennedy in Dallas.   Primary sources for this event would be all news accounts generated at the time [22 November 1963], including newspaper stories.

Additionally, any person who was present at the event can be counted as a primary source as well.  Even those individuals who were not actually in Dallas at the time of the shooting, but were alive and can attest to their feelings, what they saw on television, as well as the mood of the nation and the world, are considered primary sources. This would even include diaries of individuals who witnessed the event, and government documents and other papers generated as a response to it.

Secondary sources include books written after the event, recreations of the event, TV documentaries and so forth.  Historians use secondary sources in several ways.  First, they may use these when they just can’t get access to the primary source.  Or they may start by reading the secondary sources with an eye to discovering precisely which primary sources that particular author used.  And then they can go straight to that source itself to see what else can be gleaned from it.  In pursuing research,  historians attempt to access  as many primary sources as possible.

So what are the key primary sources for the family historian and genealogist?  We start off with what are generally called ‘vital’ documents.  These are the official state records of who was born, married and died in a certain district, territory or country.  Birth Certificates give you the name, date and place of the child’s birth.  It also gives you the sex of the child which is helpful when the male and female forms are very similar and in old documents may be less than legible, as in the case of Francis or Frances.

Marriage Certificates not only give the date, place and names of the couple themselves, but in more recent years give details of the parents and their occupations as well.  This is very useful in checking that we have the right ‘John and Mary Ann’ for our family tree, when names recur time and time again, and sometimes five generations may have the name ‘William’ for example.

Death Certificates give you the name, place and date of the deceased, but may also give you their date of birth as well.  Sometimes it is vital to have both the primary and secondary sources to confirm a relationship that might otherwise remain in doubt.

Another invaluable primary source of information is the Census especially those which include a list of names in any one address and their ages and occupations.

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There is a great deal of help on tap.   You may be the sort of person who can get down to it all on your own with the occasional glance to left and right to see how others are doing it.    Or you may be looking to a friend to help you on your way and get you launched into your researches.   There may even be family members who have already done research that you haven’t yet heard about, but who would be delighted to give you a hand along the way and dig deeper into the family archives so that everyone benefits from your enthusiasm.

It comes as a surprise to some of us that there are so many websites offering free services of one kind or another.  Now let’s imagine that you have collected all the names and important dates of your relatives on a near branch of your family tree.  How do you set it all out?  You will want to place them neatly in a chart so that’s well-organized and easy to read.   The simplest method is to find a template and fill the details into it.

There are a number of sites offering ready-made family tree templates that you can fill them out yourself from your own research notes.   One of the easiest to fill out is found at   http://obituarieshelp.org/genealogy_forms_downloads.html.  Here you will find a downloadable Four Generation Family Tree Landscape Chart.  This basic chart provides spaces for family names and dates of Birth, Marriage and Death.

Other family trees are more decorative.  You might like to take a look at this site: www.thetreemaker.com/samples/family-tree-example.html This site offers you a Blank Family Tree Template or a 7-Generation Bow-tie Chart that you can buy and fill out on your own.  There is a space for yourself in the middle and then you put your father on one side and your mother on the other, and progressively work back to grandparents and beyond.  There is even a space for a Family Crest!

Other charts may be found at http://genealogy.about.com/od/free_charts/ig/genealogy_charts/family_tree.htm From here you can download the chart (free of charge) and fill it out on your computer and print it off.

http://www.familytreemagazine.com/freeforms This site has a lot of information on family tree research.

But if all this is really too much effort, or you would like to have a Family Tree you can present to a member of the family on a special anniversary you can have it professionally executed. Indeed there are several sites available where you can commission others to do the work for you.  You provide the photos and names of family members for inclusion on your family tree and pay them a fee for creating it.  Attractive as this idea may be, having someone else create a masterpiece for you may take some of the joy out of it.  Part of the fun is always doing it yourself.  So if you really want to walk this way look out for those sites yourself.   We really have your interests at heart!