Family Tree Research (merged)

Dot

If Craftingqueen has not found the info she needs I will try to help if she lets me have some more info on her grandfather.

bathgatebuyer

Does anyone have any experience of looking for information in Canada? A relative of mine died during the first world war at the Battle of Festubert fighting on the Canadian side. His children have since all died (the last in 1996), but I'm trying to find out a suitable Canadian website with which to try and trace further information on them

rbm1_2

Just an idea - try asking a search engine "free genealogy" free family history info and see follow the links?

Browntoa

bathgatebuyer wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience of looking for information in Canada? A relative of mine died during the first world war at the Battle of Festubert fighting on the Canadian side. His children have since all died (the last in 1996), but I'm trying to find out a suitable Canadian website with which to try and trace further information on them

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html

Browntoa

toodunns wrote: »

Just found this forum, such a lot of info, thanks everyone. Can anyone clarify what I can find out online, I live in Spain and was adopted as a baby. I am trying to find out about my birth father from scratch. I know his name dob and general area. I have found a birth record (after spending 10 pounds on 192.com - a rip off) but do not have a copy of it yet. Does anyone know if I can get anymore, i.e. marriage or death etc. online?

the free trial at thegenealogist I posted above will let you see the mother maiden name for the birth , then just go back from that date looking for the marriage of the parents (if they married)

Duane_Dibley

I have found the following site useful for getting bmd certificate information. Some of the 'local' sites on here are quite comprehensive but others have most marriages for example but not that many deaths. If you have Yorkshire ancestors then you can be quite lucky. If you compare birth lists to deaths, you can often find a young one that doesnt make it to the next census.
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/

If you are really serious then a subscription to www.ancestry.co.uk is a must. It may seem a lot but the ease in which you can build your tree is amazing. If you dont renew at the end of the year and wait a while, they will offer you a discount of 20% to renew. Dont be put off by the cost of it, it really is good value in the end.

The IGI index has been sorted into County, Town, Church and then family name bmd on the following site which can be a good way of finding brothers and sisters of your ancestor. It is useful as the elders of the families usually end up with one or other of the family.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers/CountryEngland.htm
There are others for the other parts of GB. A big thank you to Hugh Wallis whoever you are.

If you find a relative has served in the forces, try the regimental museum to see if they have the discharge papers for them.

It is quite common to find a son or daughter carries a middle name of the mothers maiden name. Some of my ancestors took the middle family name and dropped their surname.

The 1841 census often rounds up the ages to the nearest 5, so dont rely totally on that year.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time researching-my other half has threatened divorce more than once.

val57

toodunns wrote: »

Just found this forum, such a lot of info, thanks everyone. Can anyone clarify what I can find out online, I live in Spain and was adopted as a baby. I am trying to find out about my birth father from scratch. I know his name dob and general area. I have found a birth record (after spending 10 pounds on 192.com - a rip off) but do not have a copy of it yet. Does anyone know if I can get anymore, i.e. marriage or death etc. online?

For adoption advice you should look at www.adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk
online advice on how to search.

Like-a-Dream

Local libraries that offer free internet access often provide free access to the Library Edition of the family history research website Ancestry.com

This gives free access to birth, marriage and death records and census records and more from UK and USA. I copy the records I need and email them home using the free email access with yahoo and other web based email accounts that are on the library computers.

If you've got a Church of the Latter Day Saints (CLDS) near to you then many of these have access to Ancestry.com also for free and microfiche of the birth marriage and death indexes. For a small fee they'll also get from their central library microfilm of church registers. Now these are very useful for researching before 1837. See familysearch.org for addresses and don't worry about it being a church; I've never once been asked to join in the religious aspects but have received lots of family history research help quite willingly.

My tip is to research with your family first to see what everyone knows then to research your own family line with www.Ancestry.com at the library and CLDS centre. When you've found your own family tree you could put it on www.GenesReunited.co.uk and wait to see if anyone contacts you. Remember to be careful putting information online about yourself and your living relatives - it's probably best not to reveal full birthdates just put a year.

Pretty soon you'll have got into the buzz of detective work researching for family long since gone and you'll then appreciate your own subscription and be online late at night trying to find where that elusive great great grandfather was!

Other moneysavers here have given great tips about other sites so well worth reading more of this thread. Happy family hunting!

tricia2673

Our local council offices also have a Heritage Society, They have the computers there to use free of charge and these are all listed for Ancestry.com. I think this is the best site but it is so expensive to do at home. There is always members of the Society there as well and these are always willing to help you find your information.

smash

I've just started researching my family tree, so the hints and tips here have been very useful. My local library has free access to Ancestry, so I have been able to track down great-grandparents in the 1891 & 1901 census database. I've been putting as much detail as I can into the genesreunited account as I can easily add people to the tree while talking on the phone to relatives.

As I was new to this, I started with my mother's family who have a slightly unusual name and were mostly based in a rural area. So I was able to use the freebmd site to track a few births, deaths and marriages then double-check using the census data. I think this is going to be very addictive!