Discovering Your Family Tree

Ainat

I've been wanting to look in to my family tree for quite a while now. It's something that's always interested me, but other than speaking to my grandparents who can give me some information I've not really done much about it...

Looking to make this one (of the many!) things to do in 2014. Can anyone recommend any ways of doing this? I was looking at possibly joining something like Ancestry.co.uk. But it's pretty expensive! Even more so if you want the 'worldwide' option which might be interesting as who knows what you could find!

Does anyone else know of any good websites/places I could find out information from? I know a lot of my family are Irish on one side, so would have to at least cover ROI and the UK.

Arlandria606

I've used Ancestry and yes, I did think it was expensive for what it was. I had the worldwide option as beyond my grandmother I needed to go overseas, but they had absolutely nothing of any help.

They did have plenty for my very-much-in-England-and-Wales husband's family, though.

That said, most of the data is available for free online anyway. What you're getting with Ancestry (and the like) is their algorithm to search the indexes of that data based on the data you give it, and the ability to see that someone else has done this bit of a tree already and just accept their work into your tree.

It's definitely more legwork to just search yourself, but it can be done. I definitely wouldn't pay for it if I had the choice again.

Specific websites:

National Archives - A good starting point

UK Archives - Details of births, deaths, and marriages

General Register Office - For follow-up queries or more complex enquiries, they can point you in the right direction

Syman

you already have the best resource - living relatives.

Join ancestry anyway, with out taking up the trial. there is some free stuff on their (1888 census i believe is free). you can also use it to store the information as you gather it. Some public libraries also offer full free access to ancestry.

Join a genealogy forum site. There will be others who are researching the same name. Quite often they will not be related, but you never know.

Pick an ancestral line to start with, usually the male side of the family is easiest. then take that back as far as you can.

keep plenty of notes about information on people you have found and how it relates to others.

You do not say where you are, but a trip to the national archives in Kew is a good day out. Plenty of people milling about that like to help you out too.

other sites to look at are:-
https://www.freebmd.org
WWW.genesreunited.com
https://www.findmypast.com

TonyMMM

Sit down and speak to as many members of the older generations as you can to start the basis of a family tree - do it NOW (most of us leave it until it is too late)- but allow for their memories to be wrong/mistaken - check all the facts you are given.

Then go back one generation at a time using birth/marriage/death certificates and census records (available from 1911 back).

Do not guess or assume - find & check the evidence before going further back , other wise it is easy to find yourself researching completely the wrong family.

If you are lucky and your family is UK based, that should you get back to the mid 1800s. Civil registration started in 1837 (in England & Wales) and usable censuses in 1841 - so before that you need to start looking at parish records and other material.

The Irish side is a little more complex - I would start with a good book on the subject - you need to really understand the political and religious situation in the various counties at different times to work out where the records you may need are going to be found ( and because some records were lost in the 1920s civil war).

Use resources like Ancestry for free through your local library until you get the hang of things and can decide whether to pay for your own membership.

You will have to spend money - certificates cost £9.25 each through the General Register Office, and you will have to buy some as you go to get the information you need.

Document every fact you find so you know where you found it , and don't ever accept other peoples research if they can't provide proper sources for their own information - Ancestry is full of "family trees" that people put together that are just garbage but get copied across by other users.

Good Luck.

Ainat

Thanks guys. Lots of useful information.

Will have to look in to the National Archives at Kew too once I get a bit underway with this. I only live about 20 miles from there, just never really thought about it before!

I am definitely new to this family tree thing!

ceewash

Can I just add a question about information pre 1841? Have have researched a lot of my tree but find it really difficult to go beyond this date.

SailorSam

You can probably use Ancestry for free at your local library and there'll be people there that can guide you through their records.

WishI'dReadSooner

Ancestry.co.uk is FAR cheaper if you buy Family Tree Maker. If you buy the Platinum version you get 6 months ancestry.co.uk premium membership for FREE with it. You don't need to buy the newest version either. We found this by far the cheapest way to get ancestry.co.uk membership. The ancestry site has FAR more information/records than any other site. If you buy an older version - Amazon, Avanquest or Ebay then you can update with newer Family Tree version later so you can extend the amount of time on ancestry to many years for little money.
At one stage if you opted for worldwide subscription during your 2 week trial (they offer this almost always) then even a cheap Family Tree maker kept the worldwide option going. I have a feeling they have now closed this loophole. You can get an older version of Family Tree on ebay for under £10 with 3 or 6 months free ancestry.

We've used the above method for over 5 years - it's cost us very little. Far less than 6 months worldwide membership. HTH

converted

Try free BMD (http://www.freebmd.org.uk/) does not cover every where, but does have good coverage, there is also a freecen for census records, again does not cover everything.


If you are in Scotland there is a lot more information on the certificates, for example a persons birth certificate will tell you when and where the parents were married, which allows you to then find out who their parents were etc etc. It is even cheaper to go direct to the General Registrars in Edinburgh where for a fee (£10 the last time I used it) you can spend the whole day there and have access to every birth, marriage and death certificate in Scotland from 1855 ( you can photocopy them). In England you only have access to an index and then have to apply for each certificate £9 + and then have to hope you have the right one. Try genes reunited to see if anyone is searching the same family.


As others have said when starting out it may be worth going to your local library in order to get free access to Ancestry.


I have found it extremely interesting to go to archives which cover the area in which they lived, you can come across some really interesting information, I found a newspaper description of my great grandparents wedding in a local newspaper which gave a list of who attended and what presents they received and a description of what the bride and bridesmaid were wearing.


Good luck with the search it can be fascinating.

PasturesNew

I tried the library Ancestry - there was nobody there to help ... and I did a search for my aunt and found her birthdate.... and location .... then was stumped as that didn't really tell me it was her (I just knew it was based on already knowing the date and town) ..... but it got me nowhere to be honest. I didn't have "proof" it was her. I also couldn't see the actual birth certificate, so couldn't know who the parents were. The only thing I benefitted from was that I also looked up her parents' marriage and it gave me the date/location for that - which hadn't been available anywhere else as it was always a mystery how long after her parents' marriage she'd been born (shot gun wedding or not), but it turned out they'd married in January and she'd been born in December. I could only do this due to working a very very unusual set of names and specific town/area already known and year known.

So, as a half hour exercise on a wet day it was somewhere warm to sit, but I'd not bother again. Tried three sessions at three libraries in three different library areas - same result. You sit down, type in a name .... but beyond that you're lost and before you know it your hour's up.

It's better/cheaper to have it at home and be able to do it for as long/often as you like and learn it over many days/weeks, than to pay the fuel/parking to get to/from a library - and be limited to having to book, only having an hour and using their slow PCs (with issues) and people lurking around you.