Why the female branches of your family tree can be harder to trace

It began as a hobby, but a Newfoundland man is now giving lectures to help others succeed in ancestry research the way he has.

Pat Angel, who ramped up his research when he retired a decade ago, told CBC Radio's On the Go he began tracing his family using documents and records collected from his parents' home.

He knew who his grandparents were when he began his research —  his mother's mother was Annie Kelly from Pouch Cove, and his father's mother was Annie Flynn from St. John's — but that was all the information he had.

With that in hand, he started digging.

He suspected the women in his family would be harder to trace, especially given that his research was taking him into the 1800s and earlier.

Women changed their surnames upon marriage, and were buried under their married names. On marriage certificates, often only the bride's or groom's father was listed. Property was held in the names of men. 

And in some earlier census records, women were not listed at all. Angel said two of his aunts were listed in an 1800s census only because they were widows.

"In those days, the man was in charge and everything was related to the man," he said. "Some of the census records, some of the directories that are available, generally don't list the women."

Genealogy tips and tricks

Newfoundland and Labrador is a rich place to do family tree research, thanks to extensive records and a population that often remained in one area of the province for generations.

But the further back in time you're going, the harder it is to find both the men and the women in your family tree, Angel said.

Still, it's not impossible — Angel said he has found all his female ancestors on the northern Avalon. And 10 years into his research, he has a few tricks up his sleeve.

For example, when he joined the Family History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador he downloaded and read all the previous issues of The Newfoundland Ancestor, a publication focused on ancestry research that began publishing quarterly in 1985.

"Over the years some of the original genealogists wrote about where to look, what to look for," Angel said.

Those tips have been helpful, and the archives can be seen both online and in person in St. John's.

As well, the Maritime History Archive at Memorial University has a collection of more than 5,000 student research papers covering provincial geography, history, culture and fisheries.

Angel found one particular paper, written by a Margaret Coombs in 1969, that focused on Daniel's Cove and featured information like hand-drawn maps and an inventory of the fishers and fishing equipment in the town.

"You can go in and see if the community you're researching, if there's a paper there," he said of the archive. "It's a very valuable source of information."