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Post by carolloewen on Jan 28, 2009 18:03:37 GMT -5
Hi, I'm planning on traveling to Europe next summer (2010) for roughly 4 months. I am going there to explore my family's history. So I will be going to England, Scotland, France, Germany, and Russia. I was reading up on these organic farms where one can work in exchange for free board? Has anyone had experiences with these farms?
I'll be going with a limited budget, around $3000, excluding airfare. So I am wondering what kind of temp work could I do in the various countries. And how important is the use of a car for transportation?
Where would I go to find family records and documents in these countries?
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Post by herrbert on Jan 28, 2009 19:06:50 GMT -5
I think you are refering to WWOOF. I know somebody who did this in Canada during her stay there, but she quit after 2 jobs. She didn't like the working aspect, while travelling, and also got annoyed that you have to arrange everything yourself, and hope that there is a job, where you are planning to go. which in her case was not the case most of the time.
Use of a car is very expensive if you want to go on your own. If you can share with a couple of people that would bring the costs down. I don't know where your quest of your family's history will take you, but if it is bigger cities, and town, you will get by by public transport. (although I don't want to make that claim for Russia.)
Remember that for Russia a visa is required, and if you are wanting to stay for longer than 3 months in the Schengen-zone, you will also need a visa for this part of the trip.
If you want to find you families history you can best start with the places where they came from. All births and deaths are recording at the local government, so you should make a request to look into the archives of the city or town. It would help if you have some practise in how to search and what to ask for. (if you know that a relative has died in 1899, you have to ask for the register of all deaths for 1899 (if you know a date, it should not take too long to find the matching person, and most of the time husbands/wives and children are mentioned just like the date of birth, which you then could ask for, as in the registration of birth it will be mentioned who the parents are.
Another good way to look is for weddings, and also people who came to a town/city had to registered, so if you know that one person came to a town in a certain period, you can look up, when he came, where he lived, and with who.
It takes some preparation to do this right. I have worked at an archive, and some weeks saw the same people returning to work on their family tree for ages. Prepare as much as you can, as it is not unlikely to come across some dead ends, which mean going back to an archive you have been before.
By the way, in little towns, or villages the archive of a local government, might only be opened during one or two days in the week, or on request.
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Post by crystal on Jan 28, 2009 19:48:32 GMT -5
Hi there
Geneology is a big hobby in the UK so finding documents should be realtivly straight forward especially if you know some specific things like places of birth. In the UK a census is taken every 10yrs in the year ending 1 so 1991, 1981, 1971 ... This census holds data on who is in the family home, the main breadwinner's job and ages. The census' are only published after 100yrs so the 1901 census is readliy available on the web to browse. Local records on births, marriages, deaths and baptisms are held in the bigger libraries or in specialist records offices. I would suggest contacting the local library in the area where your relatives are from. If they don't have the records they can point you in the right direction. Other things to look for might be military records especially for times of conflict when people were conscripted in the forces so WW1 or WW2.
I have done a bit of work on my family tree and found my best starting point was my relatives. They started the jigsaw and I went off to fill in the gaps and expand.
On a transport side always remember a car is an added expense. At the moment petrol in England is around the 88p per litre mark but has been up to £1.20. This is on top of an hire costs. I suppose you just need to assess this in relation to whether your mission takes you to smaller out of the way places or larger cities. Generally public transport is OK. Buses are cheaper than trains but slower and advance tickets usually save you money.
As for work I'm not sure about the work for free board scheme. I would advise against illegal work such as cash in hand jobs.
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Post by WillTravel on Jan 28, 2009 22:34:34 GMT -5
For genealogy, be sure to take a look at some of the online forums and email lists available, as those will give you a lot of tips. Also, try googling some of your known relatives and ancestors. I've found part of my family tree already done! A lot of stuff is online, particularly when it comes to arrivals in the US or Canada.
Herberrt is right about WWOOF being what you are looking for re farming. Your experience is mainly going to depend on how good your hosts are, I think.
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