'Cheap & Free Ways to Trace Your Ancestry'

AdrianR_2

Your best bet is to become involved in one or a couple of mailing lists where sometimes people will look up on Ancestry or other related databases. You need to have an idea of names, dates and places at the turn of the 1900s to be a good starter.
You can post in the following
http://genforum.genealogy.com/ with related surnames
I have found http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ancestorhunters/ to be very helpful but you may also find more help http://www.cyndislist.com/mailing.htm and there are Scotland specific lists. Being a Unix girl I am sure you know how to navigate such lists

loading what you have onto genes reunited may be lucky, but with all these links, do protect the privacy of your living relatives.

A

mirabelle

I was only able to view indexes to Births Marriages and Deaths at the Library yesterday morning and not the actual records on Ancestry.com. Has anyone been able to view the actual records on Ancestry.com at their Library free of charge or am I just unlucky in that my local Library has limited subscription to this site. I was able, however, to look at Census records so this was very helpful.

ppolly

As an archivist myself - if anyone is planning to visit their archives service, please ring in advance -you will usually need to book a place and take a pencil (they don't allow pens in case of damage to original documents) and go knowing what it is that you want to look for.
Archivists are a friendly bunch, but it is difficult to deal with streams of people who just turn up expecting to 'do' their family history.
Also don't believe everything you find on the internet -there are an awful lot of transcription errors out there, particularly in the census. If you need information from a particular record office and can't get there yourself, email them with the information you have and details of what you need -the folk there won't do the research for you but they will tell you exactly what the office holds that might be useful for your needs.

here is a link for births, marriage and deaths for North Wales
http://www.northwalesbmd.org.uk/bmd_welcome.html
And another for catalogues of records from the Record Offices in Wales
http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/

ruthiejane

mirabelle wrote: »

I was only able to view indexes to Births Marriages and Deaths at the Library yesterday morning and not the actual records on Ancestry.com. Has anyone been able to view the actual records on Ancestry.com at their Library free of charge or am I just unlucky in that my local Library has limited subscription to this site. I was able, however, to look at Census records so this was very helpful.

I don't think Ancestry has any more than the indexes, to get any more information you use the index reference to order the birth/marriage/death certificate that you need. These cost £7.

chanticleer

ruthiejane wrote: »

I don't think Ancestry has any more than the indexes, to get any more information you use the index reference to order the birth/marriage/death certificate that you need. These cost £7.

This is correct. The actual certificates of birth, marriage and death are closed to the public so cannot be checked either in person or from afar. The only things available are the GRO indexes which are listed on Ancestry.

You can obtain a copy of a certificate either from the registry office in which that event occurred or directly from the General Register Office. Do so sooner rather than later - fees are likely to go up to £10 over the next year.

Incidentally, there are moves afoot to change this policy slightly so that any entries beyond a certain time period are made publicly accessible. The problem is, changing this policy involves so many acts of government that it's taking a while. Hopefully something should happen within the next five years or so.

Peanuts02

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons) www. FamilySearch.org. have a lot of things that are researchable and can get free ie PAF (Personal Ancestral File) to download. Also they have Census available 1881 UK (sorry not Scotland - buy the actual Discs and you have it).

One Tip - Note your Sources - will help later when you have to go back and need to work out where you sourced it in case you find further links back to it.

There are many free sites enjoy.

RAS

unixgirluk wrote: »

Is there any free ways of finding Scottish ancestors? Every time I've tried various websites they keep trying to charge me!

Check the Scottish records on www.familysearch.org. You may be lucky.

The Scottish records since 1855 are better than the English one but not generally free. I would suggest checking what is available in the local archives, but it is more limited than in England.

Personally I think a pre-booked ticket at the Register House on Prince's Street in Edinburgh is worth it.

You need to be there for about 9.30, although if they know you are coming late they hold the seat. Take lunch because the surrounding offerings are not great and take quick break in the morning and afternoon. It is intense but you can get a huge amount done in the time, because you have access to the databases of BMD, parish and census records. You can record all the information, so take a pencil.

Because birth records tell you who the parents are and date of marriage, you can move very quickly. Once you have an address near a census year, you can get the census record pretty quickly. warning though that if your family lived in the tenements somewhere like Cowgate or Pleasance, a single address may include hundreds of people.

You can follow that up with checks in archives in the area where your ancestors lived. I have had limited luck with that.

Also since there was no compulsion in Scotland to baptise or to record marriages or deaths prior to 1855, you may find that there is no parish register at all. One I researched eventually led to a comment in thepParish records noting that no marriages had been recorded but the previous clerk and please would this one start keeping a record.

Roade_runner

Aaargh! I'm confused!

I want to research my Dad's family tree - his 70th birthday is coming up and he's always said that he's interested in 'where he's from' and what his recent ancesters did. Unfortunatley, I've got very little to go on! Has anyone got any suggestions where I start - and how best to put the information I find to him?

Yes I know - I'm not asking for much am I!

cristol

Basic advice is that you start with something you are sure of - i.e. Your father's parent's names and where they came from. Hopefully your dad may have his birth certificate which will have these details. From this you can work out roughly when his parent's married and finding their marriage details from one of the sites already mentioned i.e. Freebmd will enable you to order their marriage certificate from the GRO and this in turn will give you their location at the time and their parents names - and so on. But it will of course take some time unless you strike lucky finding a contact through something like genes reunited who may already have some of the information you need.
Hope his birthday isn't too soon - Good luck !

newlywed

Does anyone know where to find a list of some of the job definitions for the census? Eg what was a Tob Master??