WFHC TREE ARCHIVE
Links to the archived trees appear at the foot of the explanatory notes.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Please bear in mind that I have 275 trees and what you see in this Tree Archive is merely a fraction of them. How to proceed:
(1) Locate an ancestor with a WFHC tree number, for example by a marriage in the M BI SR .... file or in one of the census files.
(2) If the tree is not in this archive, ask me to send it.
General remarks about the content of the trees
The trees in this archive were drawn up initially by the WFHC correspondent and have been revised by the WFHC, primarily in order to index them to the census, marriage and probate databases on this website. Often they have been extended laterally, following the lines of brothers and sisters of the Whitehouse who is in the direct line of descent to the correspondent. They 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. Corrections and updates will be very welcome (but see below about the rules adopted).
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.
Layout details
The standard layout is as follows:
Row height 10.75
Print size 97 percent Arial 8 pt. 96 Percent is sometimes used in the 6- and 7-major column trees.
Page break every 75 rows, printable to A4 (European) paper. Text must not cross a page break.
Margins: Top 1.6, Header 0.8, Left 1.9, Right 0.2, Bottom 1, Footer 0
Column widths:
5 major columns A 16; B to E 18; F 4.29
6 major columns A & B 12.29; C to F 16; G 4.29
7 major columns (rarely used) A & B 12.14; C to G 13.14; H 4.29
Drawing details
Connecting lines ("marriage lines") between generations are drawn from the last row of the marriage/partnership date and place.
A single child is connected directly to the marriage date and place, where possible using a single horizontal connecting line,
but if this is not practical, then by a "dogleg" (offset) of horizontal, vertical and horizontal lines.
Two or more children are connected by first inserting hyphens before their names and joining up the hyphens by a vertical line parallel to and just within the cell border, and then connecting this arrangement to the last row of the marriage date and place. Hyphens at the left side of a cell are preceded by a silent inverted comma, which prevents Excel from thinking that a subtraction operation is required. Drawing lines are kept vertical and horizontal by holding down the Shift key while dragging the line out.
The vertical lines may conveniently be termed "family lines", the horizontal ones leading to a child or children "issue lines".
Symbols used
A key is provided, normally in the left column. Following are the standard abbreviations for events:
|
a. adopted |
cs census |
p. partnered |
RO Register Office |
|
ae aged |
d. died |
q. quarter of the year |
t. twin |
|
aka also known as |
h1, h2 husband's 1st, 2nd marriage |
r. registered |
v. divorced |
|
b. born |
i. buried |
R Register |
Underlining denotes name by which usually known |
|
c. baptised |
m. married |
RD Registration District |
w1, w2 wife's 1st, 2nd marriage |
|
Cem. Cemetery |
NA Non-Anglican |
Res. residence |
|
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, Registry 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
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 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 is private, except, before 17th March 2018, to others on the same tree, 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. From 17th March 2018 onwards, their names, e-mail and postal addresses, will also remain private (unless they give permission to disclose them).
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.
LINKS TO TREES
Trees are named by the WFHC 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. A link to the correspondent key is provided on the index page of this website to enable all correspondents to determine the correct tree number.
The following trees have been revised to take account of the new GRO indexes and the 1939 Register: 026, 030, 031, 032, 033, 034, 035, 036, 037, 039, 040, 049, 053, 081 & 087.
