Tracing Your Jop(b)ling forebears.
Arthur Jopling with brothers Harry & Percy
& their wives
also Arthur`s children with cousins Peter and Denis.
When you become interested in your family tree, if you have time for nothing else, contact relatives and find out what they know about the family & make notes, especially names, dates and places. Start as far back as you have the necessary information, usually grandparents. From the present back to 1837, the path is mainly through the civil registration records. The following two links will tell you all you need to know about these records: GENUKI and Barbara`s Registration Web Page
If grandparents are your starting point & the family do not know all the details, begin by ordering their marriage certificate (this should be from the GRO, not the local registration office- see Barbara`s web page. Birth & death certificates are better ordered from the local registrar). In order to do this, you need to know your grandfather's christian name &, preferably, your grandmother's maiden name and the approximate date of the marriage. If you do not have access to the G.R.O. indexes, then you can search on the web. Free BMD (also Free BMD at Ancestry.com) is an excellent facility, but their indexes are not yet complete, even so, I suggest you start there. 1837online.com charge, but the charge is reasonable and the records are complete, although the early records are not well indexed as yet. For my index to Jopling/Jobling GRO records click here
To learn how to find the spouse if you have one of the marriage partners see FreeBMD Marriage Help. If you know the maiden name of your grandmother, then you search for her in the marriage index in the same year and quarter as you think you have found your grandfather & if the references match, you have found the correct certificate. To find out the address of the `local` registration office, make a note of the registration district from the index and go to this Genuki page (or for district numbers try FreeBMD). For information on GRO certificates see this page and to order by email, see Mark How`s page.
When you receive the marriage certificate, it will give you the name of the father of both the bride and groom and hopefully the age of the bride & groom, though some certificates disappointingly state only `of full age`. Armed with the name of the father and an approximate date of birth, you can now search the indexes for the birth certificate for each partner. The birth certificate will give you the name of the mother and father and with this information you are now ready to get the marriage certificate for your great grandparents. This sequence of certificate buying takes you back to family members born post 1837. Before that date we have to rely on the parish registers.
A useful site for the future will be FreeReg, here you will find transcribed parish registers, unfortunately the site is not yet active (end May 2003). The I.G.I. acts as an index to parish registers, but you should always check the original register, apart from finding transcription & other errors, there is a lot more information in the original register. On the site, you will find plenty of help. To find your ancestor`s siblings, when the parents are known, click on the UK IGI section, fill in `British Isles` and enter the "Parents Names" e.g. "Thomas Jopling & Isabella Atkinson", & you should get a list of births/baptisms for children of these parents. To see other events in the same parish, you can use IGI batch numbers and may find relatives who lived nearby.
There have been many indexes to parish register entries compiled, mainly for marriages. You will find the JopBling entries to `The Joiner Marriage Index` and `Boyds Marriage Index`on the BDM page
Every ten years from 1841, families may be found in the Census returns. The whole of the 1901 census is online at www.census.pro.gov.uk and the 1881 census for the UK & Canada & the 1880 census for the USA are online and searchable at Family Search. Freecen will eventually provide an online source of census entries. To find out more about the census and where to get the entries, visit Genuki
Wills are a useful source of information. I have an index to all the pre 1858 Jop(b)ling wills held at Durham and many years of the post 1858 wills, which hopefully will be online soon. For information on post 1858 wills try the Court Service.
to be continued.
Useful sites.
County Durham Northumberland most Job(p)ling history/research inevitably goes back to the counties of Durham & Northumberland. You will find a lot of help and information on these sites.
Directories Online digitised trade directories. Only a few online at present.
Durham Look-up service. -for anyone with a specific query, maybe someone here can help.
Published Books.
There is a large tree of Joblin`s in New Zealand, descended from the Joblins on the Isle of Wight. A book about them can be obtained from:-
Evagean Publishing, 14 Kaweka Place, Havelock North, Hawke`s Bay, New Zealand.
A wonderful, well researched book on the Joplins in the USA and their early forebears in the UK is now out of print. If you have a chance of a second-hand copy, grab it. The book is called "The Jopling-Joplin Family, with some of the connections in England and America". It was compiled by Dorothy (Jopling) Eason, Sarah Moseley Fricks and Lucille (Jopling) Adams. The Library of Congress number is #80-116026.
