Help tracing unknown siblings

[jackievallerius]

I'm very much a beginner at genealogy. I'm tracing my relatives through scotlandspeople website and have managed to go back as far as my grandparents' births. However, as I know nothing about the family, I can't find a way of checking for my mum's siblings. The surname is very common (Gray) and so when I search for births I get an enormous number of results! Can anyone recommend an easy way? I've been watching heir hunters (I know it's England) and they seem to find it so easy. WOuld appreciate any pointers please!

[apanderson]

Hello Jackie,

Welcome to TalkingScot!

If you were to post some details of names, dates of births (and parents) of your grandparents, we might be able to help you find more info.

It's against TalkingScot's policy to allow information to be posted on living persons (or possible living persons).

Anne

[SarahND]

Hello and welcome!
I'm assuming you didn't post details because they are too recent (thanks for that, makes the moderator's job easier!). If you have your mum's birth certificate and your grandparents' marriage, you could start by restricting your search to the same district and time frame and hope you get lucky This works best, of course, if it was not a big city.

If your grandparents are deceased it is worthwhile to look carefully at the name of the informant on the death certificate. With some luck this will be a child.

Also, try searching for the death of anyone with surname Gray, mother's maiden name ____ (Whatever your maternal grandmother's maiden surname was). This should find any deceased siblings of your mother. One nice thing about Scottish death records is that they are indexed by both the married and maiden surnames for women (if the informant knew these facts).

It is hard to find siblings more recently than 1911, since the census records are not yet available. Otherwise, this is the easy way to go for older records.

Someone will come along soon with some better ideas, I'm sure, but this is all I could come up with before my morning coffee

All the best,
Sarah

[WilmaM]

If your mother and/or any of her siblings were born before 1911,
then looking at that census will give you all the children living with the parents on that night.

Another route would be to check your grandparents' death certificates to see who has signed them - usually the eldest son or surviving spouse.

Witnesses on marriage certificates can sometimes be siblings - have you seen your parents' MC?
bearing in mind a sister could be married so check a death for both the surname shown and the 'maiden' name or a marriage between the two names.

For certain years the Mother's maiden name has been indexed on death certificates, so using that and a location with the Gray surname may narrow things down further for you

If they are [or would be] all under 100 years it's more difficult as TS avoids discussing living[or potentially living persons] as Anne has mentioned.

[jackievallerius]

Thank you to those who have responded. I will try your suggestions and see how I get on. My mother is still alive so that makes it impossible to post details on here, although the one half-sibling I know she had is deceased but had another mother (obviously) whose details I know nothing about. I have not got death certificates but will order those and try again. Those TV programmes make it look so easy.......

[SarahND]

Those TV programmes make it look so easy.......

They don't show the hours of research that go into each discovery Not very realistic, but keeps it within the hour's time slot for the show

Best of luck!
Sarah

[paddyscar]

.... I have not got death certificates but will order those and try again. Those TV programmes make it look so easy.......

Hi Jackievallerius:

If you've already searched the deaths on ScotlandsPeople, you can just download the registration records, which give the same information, but at a fraction of the cost of the certificates.

The programmes and the advertisements make it look exceedingly easy, but you'll also notice that it's always the head of the institute/library/archives that the genealogist meets. He/she has a whole team who would do the work for the programme so even that is not a real representation.

Don't give up though - it's very rewarding when you find something new, and there's always someone available on TS to give you the benefit of their own experience.

Frances

[nelmit]

I can't really add anything to the advice given except if you are in Scotland you can visit a Family History Centre and access all BMDs at a cost of £15 for the day.

Regards,
Annette

[Currie]

If you find a death date for any of the family check the local newspaper, if possible, for a death or funeral notice, to see if it mentions other family members.

All the best,
Alan

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings and some more advice from another Alan down - under. If you find newspaper death notices, do a little research into the funeral director [if named]. Here in New Zealand the notes of even Funeral Director's who are no longer in business have [in many cases] been saved by succeeding businesses, as a business resource. As the director's arrange for public notices and file civil death registration requirements, they can have a wealth of information about family members, family solicitor's etc. Talk softly to them, as some are wanting to be very PC correct, and you just may find that missing piece of a family jig saw.

Happy hunting.

Alan SHARP.