The Starter Package will provide you with an accessible overview of your ancestors and allow you to see what their names were, when they were born, who they married and when they died.

The Surname Packages will provide you with as much information as we can possibly find about each ancestor in your direct line. Not only will you receive details of their names, birth, marital details and their deaths, but you will also find out who their siblings were, where they lived and information about their trade or occupation. You may find that one of your ancestors served in the armed forces, emigrated or became the subject of criminal prosecution. In essence, this family report will provide you with the history of your family bringing it alive for you.

You will also receive copies of all the documentation and source information we have used to compile your family history. The Surname Packages can be presented in a quality family history book and are also available on DVD should you wish.

There is regularly confusion regarding the difference between Family History and Genealogy. Genealogy is the study of a person’s ancestry and how individuals are related to each other. This has always been important for determining inheritance. Family History on the other hand is much broader and helps not only to pinpoint your ancestor within a historical context but also endeavours to discover what their lives were like. Family History provides far more details than names and dates which is why it is good to combine photographs of your family alongside written reports about them.

BMD (England and Wales): The Birth, Marriage and Death index is currently available from 1837-2007. Before 1837 only churches recorded baptism, marriage and burial information in England and Wales. Civil registration was introduced into England and Wales on 1 July 1837 making it a legal requirement for the registration of births, marriages and deaths (BMD) within the Registration District the event took place. The new registrars were required to register all births and deaths in their district. They were paid for each registration so had an incentive to record as many as possible. However, some inevitably remained unrecorded in more remote rural areas and it is estimated that 10% of births were not registered until the law changed in 1874 when the responsibility for informing the registrar of a birth became the responsibility of parents. Registration was later expanded in 1927 to include still births, and adoptions. Each year is split into quarters with three months covered in each quarter. Registration of individuals who were born, married or died in late November or December may appear in the first quarter of the following year.
Pinpoint Ancestry purchases copies of original certificates directly from the General Register Office in Southport. These currently cost £11 each.

BMD (Scotland): Civil registration in Scotland occurred on 1 January 1855. These certificates are purchased from National Records of Scotland and currently cost £12 plus p&p. An extract of these certificates can be obtained from Scotland’s People for £1.50.
What information do these records contain and why are they valuable to genealogy research?
Birth certificates contain the full name, date, place of birth and sex of a child. They also contain the names of the child’s parents including the mother’s maiden surname and the father’s occupation. They are essential for establishing the correct identity of an individual and ascertaining their parents names.
Marriage certificates contain the full names of both the bride and groom and their ages on marriage. They show the marital status of each of the individuals on their marriage thereby providing an indication of whether either of them had been married before. The certificates show the occupations of both bride and groom and the address they were resident at on their marriage. They also provide their father’s names and occupations. These are valuable documents for confirming age and marital details and providing father’s names which helps locate them in the birth index and in a census record.
Death certificates contain the name, age, place of death, cause of death and the name of the informant to the registrar which is often a family member. These are useful for verifying causes of death and will provide information about whether a Coroner’s inquest was held. These details help a researcher gather more documentation about the circumstances involved.

Census Records: The census is a count of all people and households and has been carried out in the United Kingdom every 10 years since 1801. For the majority of places the 1841 census is the earliest one that has survived. This provides fairly basic information and gives a list of names of people living in the same household on a given date. The 1841 census does not give an indication of how individuals in a household were related to each other, and adult ages are rounded down to the nearest 5 which provides an approximate year of birth but cannot be considered accurate. Later census returns became more sophisticated and the latest one available, 1911, provides fairly detailed information about the occupants of a household including details of the size of the property they were living in. This census also recorded how many children had been born to a married couple and how many of them had died.
Details of disability are recorded in the census from 1871, and include information on (a) Deaf-and-dumb; (b) Blind; (c) Imbecile or Idiot; or (d) Lunatic.
Illiteracy was quite high in the 19th century, and names were often spelt incorrectly by the householder. Census enumerators also made errors when recording information. It is therefore possible that some surnames are difficult to trace and may take longer to research. Census documents are important research tools as they show a snapshot of an individual on a set date every ten years and provide details of their relationship to the head of the household, how old they were, what their occupation was, and where they had been born.

Electoral Registers: Electoral registers are lists of individuals who were eligible to vote. Restrictive property requirements denied the vote to a large proportion of the population but these were finally removed for men in 1918 when most males age 21 and older were allowed to vote. The franchise was extended to some women over the age of 30 in 1918, but it was not until 1928 that the voting age was made 21 for both men and women.
Electoral registers show the address of an individual and who else was living in the property who had the right to vote. They also show who their neighbours were. Many registers can only be accessed at a county archive.

Military Documents: Military documents for the First World War are held at The National Archives in Kew however, several collections have been digitised. Genealogists and historians use them for the family and military service information they contain. If your ancestor was born in the last decades of the nineteenth century they may have served in The Great War. Searches of Medal Index Cards (M.I.C.), Military Pension Records, including medical documents and Military Attestation papers will be undertaken. Attestation papers can be a rare source as approximately 80% of them were destroyed by fire. For this reason they are known as ‘The Burnt Documents’. Ancestors who were killed in action will be researched with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Newspaper articles: Newspaper articles for the area your ancestors lived in can be researched in order to obtain additional information about their lives and their family. There is however no guarantee that their names will appear in the press.

Parish Records: These are records held at parish level usually within a Church or Chapel. They provide details of baptisms, marriages and burials within the parish. Not all parish records have been digitised and therefore a visit to the archive in which the originals are kept may be necessary. Not all records have survived and those from some non-conformist churches may not be available.

Probate Documents: Probate details are available from the National Probate Calendar for England and Wales up until 1966. These documents will only be available if your ancestor made a will.

Many genealogists rely on the limited information available in the printed Birth, Marriage and Death index provided by the General Register Office. These show the year an event took place and an approximate location, however, in order to gain a complete picture of circumstances and to verify identity it is necessary to purchase the certificate. In England and Wales the certificates cost £11 and take approximately a week to arrive. Scottish records are available online and Pinpoint Ancestry can purchase these at a cost of £1.50 for each certificate purchased.

We aim to conduct your research as quickly as possible however, we pride ourselves on accuracy and as a result some surnames take longer to research than others. As we purchase original certificates it is necessary to order and wait for their delivery. We regularly have to wait for a certificate to arrive with relevant information before being able to purchase another which lengthens the time it is likely to take to complete. During the feasibility study we should have a reasonable idea of the records that will be available and provide an indication of how long the research will take.
If you are hoping to give the family history as a gift, please let us know your deadline when you commission the work.