Sources for family history

The Women’s Library, founded in 1926 as the Library of the London Society for Women’s Service, exists to document and explore women’s lives in Britain in the past, now and in the future. Printed material, ephemera, archives, oral histories and museum objects together form The Women’s Library collections. The collections cover a range of topics including women’s rights, suffrage, sexuality, health, education, employment, reproductive rights, the family and the home and are the most extensive resource for women’s history in the UK. The collections include a wide range of resources for the study of family history. It is particularly rich in social history information on women’s lives in Britain, but it is also possible to trace some individual women through the collections.

This Source Note should be read in conjunction with the Sources for biography.

Searching for women ancestors i.e. tracing your maternal line (your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother) is more challenging than tracing your paternal line as the lives of men tend to be better documented, there are fewr official records that document women's lives and traditionally women have changed their surname on marriage.

Often women have been prevented from accessing education which would allow them to active in areas that have been documented such as in the professions. Some professions, such as nursing and teaching allowed women entrants earlier than others. Where records survive, searching for women in these professions may prove easier than women in other walks of life.Women's work has often been assumed to be restricted to that of the private sphere of the home despite the fact that many women have undertaken paid work within and/or outside of the home. Traditionally women have tended to be employees rather than employers, and are less likely to have sat on company boards. Women have also been denied the right to vote, and the right to own property.

Maiden names are crucial for finding your female ancestor, but in England and Wales these are often missing from marriage or baptismal certificates. Often the only way to track the maiden name is from family archives such as letters, photographs or obituaries. In Scotland women’s maiden names were legally required so will usually appear in parish registers and wills.

Female ancestors can be difficult to track through census records, and not just because of changes of surname. Women often moved between family households; a younger daughter might stay with an aunt, or a childless woman might look after her parents, or an unmarried woman might move in with a brother whose wife died leaving children to be looked after. Sometimes this mobility was linked to learning life skills, sometimes the move was short-term, so the census may indicate that a woman had left the family home only for her to move back at a later stage.

In order to understand your female ancestors’ lives, how and why they were documented, it’s useful to have a basic understanding of woman’s rights in the period you are researching. As at 2009 the BBC had a useful Women’s History Timeline 1900-present, available on the Woman’s Hour website.

Researching family history at The Women’s Library Within The Women’s Library Printed, Archive and Museum Collections is a range of sources for background contextual research into your female ancestors’ lives. There are also sources for identifying specific ancestors, predominately those active in the suffrage or later women’s campaigning organisations.

Within the Printed Collections you may want to use publications (key reference sources, women’s histories, organisational annual reports), press cuttings, and periodicals (such as the newsletters of organisations your ancestor belonged to). For research into more famous female ancestors, or those with a public profile, we hold a large published biography section, a range of Who’s Who guides to women, and a useful collection of biographical press cuttings.

Within the Archive and Museum Collection, personal papers and records of organisations include detailed minutes of meetings, photographs, first-hand accounts such as diaries, oral history interviews and unpublished memoirs, and thousands of letters between women spanning the 19th-21st century.

Many of the organisations whose publications or archives we hold were women’s membership organisations. Often we hold details on individuals who were campaigners but who were not as well known as more prominent individuals.

Key class numbers and search terms

The printed collections of The Women's Library are arranged in the Dewey Decimal Classification and listed on the online catalogue, available in the Reading Room and via the website. Key class numbers for family history:

Biography and genealogy	920
Dictionaries/encyclopedias of women	920.72
Genealogy	929.1

Key reference sources

The Library holds the following guides and bibliographies, useful for identifying further information and material on the subject:

The female line : researching your female ancestors Margaret Ward (2003)

Who do you think you are? : the essential guide to tracing your family history Dan Waddell (2004)

The BBC guide to researching your family history produced by BBC Learning and Interactive [dvd] (2005)

Oral History : the journal of the Oral History Society Vol.3, no.2 (Autumn 1975) - Family history issue / edited by Thea Vigne

The Library holds a selection of Who’s Who guides and encyclopaedia that name women active in public life. Some examples are:

The biographical dictionary of British feminists Olive Banks (1985).

The ladies' who's who : with which is incorporated the Ladies' court book and guide (including Anglo-American section) (1919 & 1922)

Who's who in the nursing world : the nursing year-book. 1929 / compiled and edited by H.E. Smithers

The Society of Women Artists exhibitors, 1855-1996 : a dictionary of artists and their works in the Annual exhibitions of the Society of Women Artists

See The Women's Library most recently published and newly available acquisitions

The Women's Library holds various publications which list names of individuals, for example the biographical press cuttings, college registers, signed petitions and and rolls, for example the roll of honour: suffragette prisoners 1905-1914.

Periodicals and Annual Reports

The Library holds a wide range of periodicals on women, including academic titles, popular magazines and campaigning newsletters. Titles can be identified through the online catalogue. Of particular interest to family historians can be membership journals and industry newsletters. These periodicals will often carry articles by and about members, and news about events in which they may have been involved. Examples include:

Home and country : journal of the National Federation of Women's Institutes 1919-1991 (Ref: 5FWI/G/2)

The woman engineer : the organ of the Women's Engineering Society 1919-1942

Popular women’s magazines are a great source on women’s everyday lives at particular historical periods. Examples include:

The girl's own paper 1886-1946

Woman’s Own 1934-1977

If you want to know more about your ancestor’s professional activities, or if you want to identify if they were active in a particular campaigning group, then investigating annual reports or annual general meetings of women’s organisations can be fruitful as they include lists of members’ and subscribers’ names. Examples include:

Girls’ Friendly Society Annual Reports and Associates Lists c.1888-2001 (Ref: 5GFS/03)

Association of Post Office Women Clerks Annual General Meeting, including register of members,1901 - 1906 (Ref: 6APC/1/1/1)

Press cuttings and ephemera

The Biographical press cutting collection, with online alphabetical index, is drawn primarily from UK national and local newspapers, dating from the 1920s to the present day. It is a particularly useful resource for finding information about lesser-known women active in public life, as well as for documenting the posthumous reputation of more famous women.

Electronic resources

Electronic resources (online journals and databases) are currently only available to London Metropolitan University staff and students, and can be accessed via the online catalogue with their institutional identification and password.

Archives

A brief guide to the archives is available on The Women's Library website. Further details of archives available for research can be found in the archive and museum catalogue or in the hard copy catalogues available in the Reading Room on the shelves adjacent to the Information Desk.

When researching your ancestors in the archives, you can begin by searching the online catalogue for their name. However, most archives will not be catalogued to the level of detail of individual names. Instead you will need to use the catalogue to identify records to consult in the Reading Room, which might hold more information about your ancestor. Key starting points are knowing which organisations they may have belonged to, the location in which they lived, or their profession.

Women’s employment and campaigning organisations

Archives held by The Women's Library have a particular focus on campaigning women’s organisations - we hold the archive of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (the WI) and the archive of One Parent Families. We also hold the records of many women’s employment organisations - that campaigned for women’s better representation and improved rights within a particular field of work. These archives will hold details on individual members who were campaigners but who were not as well known as more prominent individuals. References to members may be found in the archives’ annual reports, minutes of meetings, newsletters and correspondence. There are membership lists held within many of the archives, for example:

Association of Women in Public Relations, 1976 (Ref: 2IAW/2/B/23)

Society for the Ministry of Women in the Church, 1979-1987 (Ref: 2SJA/M/07)

Women in Gynaecology & Obstetrics (WIGO) 1992 (Ref: 6WIG/1/10)

Was your (great) Granny a suffragette?

The collections are particularly rich on the women’s suffrage movement. A number of sources can help you identify the name of an ancestor who was a suffrage campaigner. The best starting point is reference books that list names of suffrage activists and organisations:

The suffrage annual and women's who's who 1913, (ed.) AJR. London: Stanley Paul, 1913.

The women's suffrage movement : a reference guide, 1866-1928 Elizabeth Crawford. London: Routledge, 2001.

The women's suffrage movement in Britain and Ireland: a regional survey Elizabeth Crawford. London: Routledge, 2005

If your ancestor’s name is not listed in Crawford’s general reference guide, then Crawford’s regional survey can help you identify the names of suffrage organisations active in your ancestor’s locality. From this springboard you can move on to researching the annual reports and minutes of that local organisation (some held at The Women’s Library, some held by local archive repositories around the UK).

Annual Reports and minutes (incomplete sets) are held for a range of suffrage organisations including, for example, the Central National Society For Women's Suffrage, Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage and the Bristol and West of England Society for Women's Suffrage.

Suffrage newspapers are a rich source of information: listing names of subscribers to the newspaper (a good way of identifying suffrage supporters who weren’t necessarily high profile campaigners), giving news of events and containing contributions from members. Some relevant periodicals you can search (accessible on microform) are The Common Cause, The Vote, Votes for Women and The Suffragette.

An alphabetical list of 1094 male and female suffragettes imprisoned in Holloway Prison - the Roll of Honour of Suffragette Prisoners 1905-1914 - is searchable via the online catalogue (Ref: 7LAC/2). Researchers should be aware that this is not a comprehensive list, as it was compiled c. 1950 based on the recollections of former suffragettes.

See also the Source Note on Suffrage.

Museum

The museum collection comprises postcards, photographs, posters, banners and badges. Further details of museum objects available for research can be found in the archive and museum collections catalogue or in the hard copy catalogues available in the Reading Room on the shelves adjacent to the Information Desk. Specifically the Library holds portraits of individual campaigners, group portraits of activists (usually by organisation or by conference) and images of local and national events - such as demonstrations, marches, and meetings. Catalogues are being enhanced to include details of individual names, where possible. You may not find your ancestor, but you may find events that they may have attended.

Identifying images

Images can be found throughout The Women's Library's collections. Many digital images are available on Flickr, Vads, the archives catalogue (click on the number in the left hand side) and Mary Evans Picture Library. Use Mary Evans Picture Library's fast service for a non-watermarked high resolution images suitable for publication. If you require an image which has not been digitised you are welcome to use our reprographic service. Normal copyright conditions will apply.

Further information

The staff of The Women's Library can help you find material relating to your subject area; please don't hesitate to ask. You can contact the Information Desk staff prior to your visit on email twlinfodesk@londonmet.ac.uk, by telephone 020 7320 3515 or in person at the Information Desk.

Key websites for further research

Family history guides and databases

BBC Family History Guide: http://www.bbc.co.uk/familyhistory/

FamilySearch.org: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp Family Search is a non-profit service sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, allowing access to genealogical records. They have been gathering and indexing family history records for over 100 years.

FamilyRecords.gov: http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/ Births, Marriages & Deaths; Religious Records (Parish registers); Census; Wills; Immigration; Emigration; Military Records; and Adoption Records.

Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS): http://www.ffhs.org.uk/ Will help you find a local family history society, it also runs online membership forums.

Free BMD: http://www.freebmd.rootsweb.com Searchable name database of official indexes to births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales 1837-1900

Genuki: http://genuki.org.uk Has links to thousands of websites, is arranged by locality, and provides a good starting point for research.

The National Archives Getting Started guides: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/gettingstarted/

RootsWeb: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ Provides a free genealogy community on the web.

Society of Genealogists: http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml Provides research material, guidance and support for those interested in family history

Biography

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online: http://www.oxforddnb.com/ Available through your local library

The Times online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ and The Guardian online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ Good sources of women’s obituaries.

Archive repositories

Information about holdings in other UK archive repositories:

The National Register of Archives: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra

ARCHON - record repositories' contact details: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon

A2A Access to Archives - catalogues from UK archives: http://www.a2a.org.uk

GENESIS - women's history sources in the British Isles: http://www.genesis.ac.uk

AIM25 - archives in London and the M25 area: http://www.aim25.ac.uk

Archives Hub - archives in UK universities and colleges: http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk

Image references: Autograph letter collection 9/01 to 9/31 are available on microfilm and can be printed out ; Copy of Kathleen D'Olier Courtney's birth certificate 7KDC/K/01

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