TREE EXPLANATIONS
General
These trees have been compiled on the basis of reasonable probability or "more probable than not", which is the standard of proof required by civil courts in England. It is less strict than "beyond reasonable doubt", needed to convict in criminal cases. Whitehouse genealogy is difficult because of the frequency of the name, particularly in the West Midlands. It will be found that some trees could be taken further back in time on a speculative basis, but that basis has not been followed. The trees are not necessarily complete or perfect: some probably have processing errors and others could benefit from more research. Many need updating.
Basic rules of tree construction
Trees are drawn or re-drawn in MS Excel, using a portrait mode and tall tree format, in which the oldest ancestor appears at the left side and descendants in subsequent columns, moving left to right. To keep this exercise within achievable limits, two rules are normally followed: (1) The tree will not usually descend along female lines. That is to say, if Mary Whitehouse marries John Smith and they have children, the tree will normally merely say Issue (whether or not such children survive beyond infancy); (2) The tree will not include any Whitehouse with a date of birth of 1902 or later, unless he or she has a brother or sister born before then, in which case all the siblings are included along with their spouses (regardless of when the spouse was born). Of course, the children of these siblings do not qualify for inclusion, because they were born after 1902, but, again, Issue of the siblings will be mentioned by the word Issue , if it is known that they had any. Exceptions will be made to these rules from time to time to include an additional generation, but no modern generations will be included.
Event symbols used
A key is provided, normally in the left column. Following are the standard abbreviations for events:
a. adopted; ae aged; aka also known as; b. born; c. baptised (christened); Cem. Cemetery; cs census; d. died; h1, h2 husband's 1st, 2nd, 3rd marriage; i. buried (interred; m. married; NA Non-Anglican; p. partnered; q. quarter of the year; r. registered; R Register (1939 R indicates the Register taken shortly after the outbreak of the second world war); RD Registration District; Res. residence; RO Register Office; t. twin; Underlining denotes name by which usually known (applies when someone is not known by their first forename); v. divorced; w1, w2, w3 wife's 1st, 2nd. 3rd marriage
Place symbols used
Place symbols are based on the two letter International Standard code for major countries. Increasingly, an effort is being made to avoid using CA for Canada, CH for Switzerland and DE for Germany, to prevent confusion with California, Chester and Derby, respectively. For counties within the United Kingdom, the Chapman County Code is used. Towns outside the West Midlands are abbreviated by their postcode, while within the West Midlands, a town code is used for major places. A separate file (WM TOWN CODE) gives details of all these codes and can be accessed from the first page of this website.
Otherwise, the place is normally given in full, but to keep the layout concise, some places are given additional codes, for example BiF = Barrow-in-Furness (Lancashire), Bkhd = Birkenhead (Cheshire), Brwd = Brewood, C Hay = Cheslyn Hay, Gt Wyr = Great Wyrley, Hnfd = Hednesford and Hthn = Hatherton (all mid-Staffordshire). In the United States and Canada, the usual two letter codes (zipcodes) denote their states and provinces. Australian states are given their usual abbreviations.
Whenever known, the place of a marriage is shown as both town and church (or, if not in a church, Register Office). AA means All Angels ; All Sts means All Saints; "St Bt" means St Bartholomew, St Cath St Catherine, Ch Ch Christ Church, St Clem St Clement, "St Cuth" St Cuthbert, St Edmd St Edmund, St Edwd St Edward, St Geo St George, Holy T Holy Trinity, St Jas St James, St John B , St John the Baptist St John E , St John the Evangelist, St Lawr , St Lawrence, St Leon St Leonard, St Mary V St Mary the Virgin, St Matt St Matthew, St Michl St Michael; St Mtn St Martin, "St P & P" St Peter and St Paul, St Ptr St Peter, St Savr St Saviour, St Ste St Stephen. The parish church in Basford, Notts is St. Leodegarius, abbreviated to "St Leods". In some trees, Methodist is abbreviated to "Meth." and Wesleyan to "Wes."
Notes within trees
These normally appear in the left column below the symbol keys. The system used is to number them by columns, working downwards within each column. Sometimes, this system becomes upset when new notes are inserted and are numbered to follow on from the last number used, to avoid extensive re-numbering. In a few trees, the notes are so extensive that they are placed at the end of the chart instead of in the left column.
WFHC references
The descent of a registered correspondent is shown by an arrow to his WFHC correspondent number. This does not necessarily indicate that he is of the generation that follows immediately: there might be several generations in between. Also, it does not indicate that the correspondent is himself the descendant: his spouse might be. Once registered, a correspondent remains referenced by his WFHC number. Alas, many are no longer contactable or are deceased. The identity of correspondents and contact details are private, though, of course, some have chosen to make their trees public by putting them on a website or to communicate with others on the tree and the WFHC has no responsibility for this
Events in the tree are referenced to WFHC numbers in marriage, census, probate and a few other database files. The previous complicated system of referencing was abandoned in March 2021 in favour of using just the tree number. Where there is more than one correspondent attached to a tree, the tree number is that of the lowest correspondent number which can be obtained from the correspondent key file.
Tree numbers
Trees are named by the WFHC tree numbers, followed by the date of the tree in yymmdd order. Where there is more than one correspondent, the tree has been assigned the lowest correspondent number, regardless of whether that correspondent is contactable or not and regardless of whether that tree is long or short. A link to the correspondent key is provided on the index page of this website to enable all registered correspondents to determine the number for their tree.