GETTING STARTED on your Family History
First, however old you are, the very best way to start your research is by writing down your own essential details, which are:
Date and place of birth
Your education, occupations and where you have lived
Religious denomination
Date and place of marriage, and to whom (if applicable)
Date and place of children’s births and marriages (if applicable)
Then repeat the same process for your siblings, parents, their siblings, your grandparents and so on, adding details of when and where people died, if applicable.
Next, the oral tradition of asking around the family what they know, you may encounter relatives claiming to know your family history. Never believe what they tell you without checking it out and don’t be surprised if what they tell you is wrong. This is not to say that you should ignore other peoples’ efforts, but you should always check their advice whenever feasible.
Then there’s the power of paper, these come in so many forms: letters, school reports, memorial cards, passports, vaccination and ration cards, not forgetting the queen of all family papers, the family bible, and collect as many family photographs especially family reunions because they contain so much valuable information.
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
Make notes on what you know
Constantly update your notes
Ask immediate family
Network with remoter family
BASIC RESEARCH
Civil Registration: Births, Marriages, Deaths (from 1837)
Census (from 1841 – 1911)
Wills and administrations (from 1858)
The 1939 Registration
MORE IN-DEPTH RESEARCH
Parish Registers (from 1538)
Bishops’ Transcripts (from 1598)
Electoral Registers (kept annually since 1832, with exception of 1916-17 & 1940-44)
Manorial records, (beginning mainly in the early to mid-1200s)
Wills and letters of administration (before 1858)
Gravestones (mainly from 17th century)
Newspapers for obituaries, etc. (mainly from 18th century)
Start with the free information online websites or visit your local library which usually now has some subscription websites free - to do some basic research and start with the 1911 Census:
Ancestry (subscription but free at some libraries) www.ancestry.co.uk
Family Search, the Latter-day Saints (free) https://familysearch.org
FreeBMD with access to FreeCEN (Census Data) and FreeREG (Parish Registers)
www.freebmd.org.uk
Find my Past (subscription but free at some libraries) www.findmypast.co.uk
The Genealogist (subscription) www.the genealogist.co.uk
ScotlandsPEOPLE (subscription: BMD, Parish & Catholic Registers, and Census Records)
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
Other sources of information:
UKBMD (free research information) with access to UKGDL (Genealogical Directories & lists)
and UKMFH (Military Family History) www.UKBMD.org.uk
also available, a series of online tutorials to help with your research into BMD
Genuki (free UK & Ireland research information) www.genuki.org.uk
YOUR ARCHIVE RECORD OFFICE
Find the details of a UK Archive from over 2,500 searchable archives online, for more local
information on your ancestors:
The National Archives, Kew (free) www.discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/find-an-archive
FIGHTING FORBEARS
If you need help finding military records after researching the above, the government website is a good place to start especially for World War I & ll:
The National Archives, Kew (free) http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Commonwealth War Graves Commission www.cwgc.org
Which website is right for you?
Family history websites can be a huge help with research, providing you with information about
your ancestors in the comfort of your own home. But how do you decide which one’s right for you?
Firstly, why would you need to spend money at all, there are certainly many great free of charge
family history sites, but once you’ve explored these; there’ll come a point when you need to pay
to get further with your search.
Subscription/pay-as-you-go family history websites, including the ‘big three’ – Ancestry, Findmypast and TheGenealogist – offer huge amounts of information about our ancestors.
When deciding which website to sign up to, whether on a pay as you go or subscription basis, it’s important to bear in mind that no one site is going to hold all the information you need. Each of the ‘big three’ websites has its own unique set of records, this is why it can be useful to try before you buy, taking advantage of the trial period offered by Ancestry, Findmypast and TheGenealogist.
The ‘big three’ compared…
Ancestry
Ancestry is billed as the world’s ‘largest online family history resource’, and the UK Ancestry site offers wide coverage of UK birth, marriage and death (BMD), census and parish records, along with more specialised datasets such as criminal, military, immigration, tax records and Irish records. The site also has a helpful forum and member connect network, while the Ancestry Academy video courses offer handy user tips.
Findmypast
Findmypast is home to over a billion records, with new record releases announced every Friday. The site has forged partnerships with family history societies around the UK in order to make available their region-specific records, many of which are difficult to find elsewhere. Findmypast is also the sole home of the 1939 Register (available to annual subscribers), which bridges the census gap between 1921 and 1951, and has the most comprehensive online collection of British military records – from 1656 to 2005.
The Genealogist
The Genealogist is a UK-focused site which – in addition to the key census, BMD and parish records – offers complete tithe maps for England and Wales, and unique datasets including wills, directories and occupational records. The site’s records date from 1127 to 2005, and highlights include a surname concentration map and the official non-parochial BMDs for Nonconformists. It has a large archive image database.
For more information, check out the website comparison’s on the following:
www.britishgenealogy.net/compare_genealogy_subscriptions.php