best way to start to find family tree

rammy007 · 22 June 2005 at 12:16AM

anyone know the best and cheapest way of finding family trees cant ask outlaws cos we dont have anything to do with them

cindyhove · 23 June 2005 at 12:27PM

You really have to start with the immediate family and get as much detail as you can.
Other ways include going to genesreunited.co.uk and doing a search on there.
You can also do searches for family trees on google - you may find something, or Ancestry.com
Good luck

rchddap1 · 23 June 2005 at 12:38PM

Step 1: Ask family

Step 2: Write what they say down

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 & 2 until all the 'older people' have told you everything that they know

Step 4: Put together a family tree from what you have been told

Step 5: Go through census records for the people that you know lived in certain areas, and get birth certificates for others.

This is what we have done and so far we are back to around 1811. However, bear in mind that sometimes family get things a bit cross threaded. My grandad told us that our family came from the north...miners aparently. Actually, we've found that so far we were farmers, but one of my distant relations did move to the north to become a miner, and ended up having 2 illegitimate children.

Also, be careful of birth certificates. One of my ancestors didn't have one, and we nearly ended up down the wrong family tree. Its only because of some work looking through the census records that we found our man, and his parents.

Other sources are of course local parish records....especially before around 1837 ish, when birth certs were introduced, and census records started. We think we can get our famil back to the 1790s, but need to go to the local church in order to prove it.

It is a long battle, but is really interesting. A lot of the census records are either online, or available from the local library. However, there are many people around that do have the census details and will search it for you.

The site below is a free searchable census record site. It only has basic information, but it does show the relevant numbers for certificates if you want to get hold of copies. This is a voluntary site and it isn't complete yet. Voluteers slowly type out the records so that more names can be added to it. However, I've found it a very useful source of info.

http://freeukgen.rootsweb.com/

Good luck in your hunt

Queenie · 23 June 2005 at 12:49PM

Oooh, it's a fun detective game. LOL

In addition to rchddap1's excellent advice, I would also add (from experience!) beware the family skeletons! What your relations tell you may be slightly tweaked and make your searches a teeny bit more difficult. My paternal G/mother I'd always been told was HM and was Scottish ... after much searching, she was actually MH and *not* Scottish.

Equally, my maternal G/G/father was traced through 3 different spellings of his first name.

I wish you well, it's a fun detective journey.

Sheel · 23 June 2005 at 1:28PM

My sister has done extensive research into our family history ( she's got back to the 1700's) and has told me about the following websites that she has found useful.

In no particular order.....

www.ancestry.co.uk

www.familysearch.org

www.freebmd.rootsweb.com

www.freecen.rootsweb.com

www.genuki.org.uk

www.familyhistoryonline.net

www.1837online.com

www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk

www.rootsweb.com

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

www.ffhs.org.uk

hth

best way to start to find family tree

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