piecing together our past Finding the details of the lives of ancestors is becoming popular, but not all the necessary records are easily available to descendants trying to trace them. Jon Lewes explores the records and archives available in Gibraltar Family history enthusiasts around the world carry out research into the stories of their ancestors from the comfort of their home, in front of their computer. Databases with the information required are available via the internet, supplying answers to the questions about the details of ancestors’ lives — or at least, those ancestors who lived in a country that has preserved the social and local history records from past centuries and made them available online. The crucial records in UK used for tracing ancestors are the census forms and the parish records of births, marriages and deaths (BMD). From these records come the basic details of where the ancestor was born, where he lived at specific dates, who he married, the names of his children, and, often, the names of other family members such as parents and siblings. The parish records from earlier centuries of the BMD taking place in the parish have been removed from the parish churches and are now held physically at County Record offices but are generally available for access online. Copies, called Bishops’ Transcripts, are held by the Church of England. The original census forms completed by households in UK every ten years from 1841 are held by The National Archives and are also available for online access. Millions of records are available to download and the National Archives has now set up a ‘digitisation on demand’ service where for a small fee a document can be scanned and sent to the researcher electronically to enable people, wherever they are, to access the documents. Documents frequently accessed physically, such as the Abdication Papers, have been put on microfilm, as have records for two million First World War soldiers. In Gibraltar, the research to find out about the life and times of those who have gone before flows two ways. Those descendants living locally look to trace family descendants living abroad, away from Gibraltar while those descendants who live away from Gibraltar work back to their roots in Gibraltar, and earlier. For those living locally, their ancestors living elsewhere can be traced online while access to the records covering Gibraltar in the 19th century, for example, is easily arranged with a visit to the archives. Assistance is provided to see copies of the several different censuses held at the Gibraltar Government Archives, supervised by archivist Denis Beiso. Births, deaths and marriages in more recent years, from the 1850s, are accessible through the Civil Status and Registration Office, Registry of BMD. The registers for earlier years of births and marriages are held at the Catholic Cathedral, while records at the cemetery go back to the 1500s. For the researcher outside Gibraltar, living, say, in Canada, the work involved means travelling over to Gibraltar to see the records, rather than just dropping by — no online access to Gibraltar ’s records is available. This problem for researchers some distance away from records in UK h a s been solved by the records being transcribed and entered on databases which then are accessible online. The transcription is slow work and in many archive centres has been carried out by groups of volunteers to keep down costs, but the end-result is access to a database of records on the researcher’s home computer. Unfortunately, it looks as if it will be a while yet before the records in the Gibraltar Archives can be accessed online, and quite a longer while before the Cathedral’s archives are even fully databased. In 1834, the date of the first census, although it was more of a registration list, as was the earlier 1777 registration of the population, the civilian population of Gibraltar numbered only a few thousand. There was not a high volume of BMD work and what there was was recorded by the Catholic Church, records which are today archived by the Catholic Cathedral office. By 1753 as Dr Joseph Garcia points out, in his Political History of Gibraltar, “the civilian population had grown to 1816 persons, the main elements of which were 597 Genoese, 575 Jews and 351 British inhabitants. This British component was made up in the main by merchants, who arrived on the Rock to service the needs of the military.” The first real census of inhabitants had been taken in February 1777: it stands “as testimony to the agglomeration of nationalities that have made the modern day Gibraltarian”. The total number of civilians was 3201, of these 1832 were Roman Catholics, the rest were British Protestants. While Gibraltar has its own census records still on paper only, a quick search in the online UK census records easily finds a Gibraltarian, Solomon Serfaty, a General Clothes Dealer, born in 1786, residing in London’s East End at 25 New Road, just off Cable Street, St George in the East Tower Hamlets in 1851. Meanwhile, a visit to message boards at websites such as Ancestry.co.uk and gibraltargenealogy.com reveal poignant messages from descendants living abroad who are finding it more difficult to locate their Gibraltarian ancestors —Barbara, from Canada, writes: “My grandmother, Mary “Polly” Lane married my grandfather Robert “Wilfred “ Marsh in Gibraltar approximately 1904. Their son William “Willie” was born 11th March 1905. They moved to Canada about 1909. Grandma never stopped talking about their beloved Gibraltar. I don’t know gg’s maiden name.” In UK, Sarah writes: ”I am at my wit’s end trying to find information about the Brew family of Gibraltar. How do I find information about BMD and Census Returns without actually travelling to Gibraltar.” Another Barbara, also from Canada, writes: “I will be visiting Gibraltar soon and would like to look for the grave of my grandfather ’s brother who died as an infant in the early 1900s... the last name was McCabe but I do not know the first name. Is there a particular cemetery that I could look for that would have any records?.. I do know that the family was Catholic on my great grandmother’s side.” Tina, in UK, says “I am looking for the family of a Margaret Richardson who was born in Gibraltar around 1833. In the UK 1871 census she is married to William Blackett a Blacksmith with three children, Elizabeth, Emily and an infant.” Interest in family history research is growing, stimulated by the popularity of UK television programme such as Who Do You Think You Are, together with new magazines focused on family history research and many different websites, the biggest of which are Ancestry.com, which works with The National Archives to provide census and military records, and the Church of the Latter Day Saints on Familysearch.org which has built a list including millions of names dating back to mid-18thC . Meanwhile, interestingly, the Gibraltar Government Heritage Division has stated that “We are all proud of our distinct identity as a community. It is our shared histories and heritage that provide the foundation for that identity. The heritage of Gibraltar lies not only in the stones and masonry of its seawalls and its fortifications, but also in its family history, the history of the families and individuals who, over the centuries, have built the community that lives and prospers today”. No announcements have been made of any immediate plans to provide online access to the records that will enable Gibraltarians, both in Gibraltar and away, who want to explore the details of that shared history and heritage.

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