A Guide to the Family Tree

For marriages a complication arises if there is more than one marriage. In the case of a male the number, if more than one marriage, is indicated within the round brackets () following the 'x' (times) which will be found in place of the date. e.g. mard (x2) indicates the person (male) was married twice. In the case of a female the indication will be found in place of the abbreviation 'mard' and will follow the single lower-case letter 'm'. Numbers in round brackets () indicate that the female married a MARFLEET and the number is HIS marriage. e.g. m(2) indicates that the female married the male WHO HAS THE SAME REFERENCE NUMBER and that it was his second marriage. If the number is located within periods, it relates to HER marriage. e.g. m.2. indicates that it is the second marriage of the female.

The 'died' column, including date and location, is replaced by the spouse name (SURNAME Christian name) when a female marries.

Following the died location column is a three character column. In this column the character @ indicates a male MARFLEET; $ indicates a female MARFLEET; and ^ indicates a female spouse. The two figures indicate the age at death (where % appears it is 100 added to the next digit, e.g. %3 = age at death 103). If the age is not known but it is certain that the person has died then + appears in the units column. Occasionally there may be an additional column based on C****** where any or all of the *'s may be replaced by a figure between 4 and 9 in the respective postion. This is an indication that the Census Return (between 1841 and 1891) for that particular year (6 = 1861 etc.) has been located.

Moving to the left of the Reference Number column is the column of initials of Christian names, a line of dots then leads to the person's name (If the surname is not included, it implies that the person is a MARFLEET or variant spelling). We are then in what can be described as the Family Tree proper!

Along the top of each page of the Family Tree is a series of dates in 30-years spans and a generation letter. e.g. 1770-99N. This indicates generation N covers the years 1770 to 1799. In general (though for various reasons, not always) a person's position on the Family Tree will be determined by their date of birth and will appear directly under the respective year-span. In the given example, a person born between 1770 and 1799, generation N, will be directly below this year-span. It will be noted that the sections of the Family Tree cover overlapping years. i.e. The first section (green) covers the years 1500 to 1709 (generations E to K), the second section (yellow) covers the years 1680 to 1889 (generations K to Q) and the third section (blue) covers the years 1860 to 2069 (generations Q to W). This overlap means that people born within generations K and Q each have a double entry, K in the green/yellow sections and Q in the yellow/blue sections. In such cases the partial Reference Number in the first section terminates with the hyphen separator indicating that the entry is duplicated in the following section and can be found using the first part of the Reference Number. e.g. if the full Reference Number is A.012C-020, a person (Edgar Frank) born in 1884 (generation Q) appears in the yellow section where the Reference Number is A.012C- and he may be located in the blue section beginning A_012.Q\ under the full Reference Number. It will be seen that for each person, with the exception of the first on a page as detailed above, their name will be preceeded by a series of further Reference Numbers. These Reference Numbers are those for, respectivly, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc. By following across the page left, the Reference Numbers of antecedents may be determined and by then continuing up the page the first name will be that of the spouse and, dependant on the number of marriages involved, the direct-line ancestor may be determined by continuing upwards until a cross match is found with the ancestor with that Reference Number.