When the Lewis Study began, the project team made a decision that the basis for the genealogies for a given census RD or US State or Canadian Province would be the first census that was an every name census and provided birth place information. In general, that is for the UK the 1851 census and for the US the 1850 census. For Canada, sometimes a later census will be the necessary starting point.
The idea behind the choice of 1850/1851 census is that most lineages are going to be represented somewhere in one of those census. Of course, those Lewis families living outside of a census area in 1850/51 would not be included and would need to be identified from a later census/etc. should they appear later. We will refer to these UK Registration Districts and US Counties generically as “Districts” in this article.
What does this choice mean when it comes to creating genealogies?
The answer to this may not be entirely obvious. The project team has decided on what we are calling a “wide and shallow” initial approach on the genealogies. “Wide” meaning that we want to get as many of the Districts with some trees as soon as possible so that visitors to the genealogy site are likely to find an ancestor. “Shallow” meaning that we are not going to research the descendants to the present day but we will attempt to document their ancestors.
This does not mean that no trees to the present day will be included. If someone contributes a well documented tree that extends an 1850/51 family to the 20th century or the present day, we will include it.
A Lewis Team member working on a district will only be expected to fully document families of 1850/51 Heads of Household, include spouse and children and children’s spouses. If it is convenient, they can document the parents of spouses and grandchildren and spouses.
If we are going to profile a famous or well known Lewis on the site, we should develop a comprehensive genealogy of that person that includes the individual’s ancestors and descendants. Extended cousin lines, in this case, should be limited to lines of Lewis bearers. Initially, such a tree would be included with the most appropriate District tree for the family.
In order to facilitating searches when Gedcoms based on these trees are uploaded to our TNG website where they will be published, the earliest identified Lewis in every lineage will be labelled as the Head of Line by adding the word “Founder” to the person’s name in the name suffix field.
With the large number of Districts, the large number of Lewis families, and the growing number of contributors, we both want to assure the contributors are getting credit for their work, but also to be able to identify where particular data originated. We have decided that before a tree is added to the TNG site, all of the people in a tree will have a source added that will identify the contributor, their email address, and the date the tree was last updated.
We estimate that there will be about 50,000 Heads of Households in the 1850/51 census worldwide in over 1000 project defined census Districts. Clearly that many TNG trees is possible, but ultimately, it will be unwieldy. The plan is that we will merge the District trees in to larger Districts: States in US, Traditional UK Counties in Britain.
Will we keep each lineage in the district assigned by 1850/51 census or shall we re-organize based on where the Founder originated. Today, the answer is probably the latter. IE, if the founder was born in Liverpool and was living in their home district in 1851 then the decision is clear.
What is not clear is if they were living in Liverpool, but they were born in somewhere in Wales?
Or what if you have a Lewis – Lewis marriage and one was born in Liverpool and the spouse was born in Ireland?
Let us review what finding a family in 1850/51 is supposed to mean as far as going a genealogy of the district. The goal is to use that family as a starting point for building a full tree for that family. That means taking that family and all of its members forward a bit while trying to identify the parents, siblings, grandparents, etc for the head of household.
What’s in a genealogy?
I believe that a proper genealogy for a family includes identifying the full name and details for all spouses AND their parents. All children of the head of household need to documented, including daughters. Daughter lines should include at a minimum the names and details of any spouses they had. Personally, I think grandchildren in daughter lines should be included because various birth, marriage, and death records for the grandchildren could include mention of a Lewis bearer. That all said, each contributor will provide whatever they choose to deliver.
If you approach the genealogy this way, you should be able to identify siblings of the head of household (HoH) and include their genealogies within the HoH genealogy, even if it is located in a different district.
So let me suggest that, although we are using the 1850/51 census as a sort of checklist to assure we capture all of the bulk of the Lewis lineages, the ultimate tree for any developed lineage needs to be associated with the birthplace of the earliest researched bearer. IE, if you have a Lewis living in Norfolk in 1851 who was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, that family should be included in a Pembroke tree. That way we would be better able to keep actual families together.
Another question that has been raised repeatedly in the census work is “how do I handle singleton”; ie, when only a single unconnected Lewis is found in family listing as a servant or lodger or whatever. That singleton needs to be researched as would a family. First, be sure that the family they are with is not a Lewis daughter family. If it is, the singleton is likely part of her family. If the singleton cannot be unambiguously identified, they should be listed in the tree of their birthplace.
Also, remember that 1850/51 is primarily a “checklist”. You will likely wish to go back to earlier census and forward to later censuses and use them also as checklists as undoubtedly Lewis families will move in and out of that district. But all of that is just good genealogical practice.
Questions? Comments?
John Lisle, revised 26 June 2021.
