Research tips

Start with yourself and your immediate family and work back to each earlier generation. Older relatives can provide a great deal of helpful information, including stories about earlier generations that you could not find in written sources. Many relatives will have kept family certificates which will save you time and money. They may also have newspaper cuttings of family events such as weddings, funerals etc. Not everyone remembers everything accurately, so it is important to try to locate as many family documents and pictures and either scan or photograph them for your records. In the case of pictures, name your image so it is clear who is included and, where possible date them, e.g. “1900ish John Baxter & Ann Truman”.

Every family’s history is at least slightly unique, but many people encounter similar challenges as their research progresses. It can be an advantage to join a family history society or U3A family history group and avail yourselves of their local knowledge by meeting fellow members who could help you with research questions. It is well worth locating the societies which cover the area in which you live and also the area that you ancestors originate from. (Each society has a listing on this website).

The extent of undertaking further research is really dependant on the information you have already gathered. In the early stages much can be achieved on-line because birth marriage and death indexes (you will need to purchase a certificate or two) and census returns between 1841 and 1911 are readily accessible. You need to be fairly sure of where your ancestors lived.

The indexes to most births, marriages and deaths registered in England and Wales between 1837 and 1983 are now included in FreeBMD and can be searched in a variety of ways. If you search in these indexes and cross-check the results with census records or parish registers, you may be able to avoid the need to buy loads of certificates.

If you are looking for marriage that took place in a church, scanned images of the register for may be available online. In such cases, you will see the same information that would appear in a GRO marriage certificate, with the added bonus of seeing actual signatures of the bride, groom and witnesses.

England & Wales

You can order certificates of births, marriages and deaths from as early as July 1837 or PDF copies of certain birth and death records online from the General Register Office (GRO), which is part of the Identity & Passport service.

You can also obtain certificates from local registry offices although the cost is slightly more than that from the GRO. However, sometimes local offices can find entries that the GRO cannot.

Scotland

“Scotlands People” is the gateway to details from civil registration and a host of other records relating to Scotland. It provides good accounts of the periods covered and the information that should have been included at various dates.

Northern Ireland

Visit the General Register Office for Northern Ireland website to order their civil registration certificates.

Many other countries have a civil registration system starting at various dates from which it is also possible to obtain certified copies of vital records.

We are allowed to see information about individuals that was collected in the censuses of 1921 and earlier. Few lists of households and names survive from the censuses held before 1841, but all the censuses for England, Wales and Scotland have been indexed for the period 1841 to 1921 and are available online as digitised images. Many returns are available for free FreeCEN, FamilySearch but all can be searched on subscription websites such as FindMypast and Ancestry.

If you do not subscribe to the commercial sites many local public libraries offer free access to library members. You can also view census collections for free at LDS Family History Centres and national libraries like the Society of Genealogists and The National Archives.

Some of the other major sources that include substantial family history information:

Parish registers – many of these start in the 16th century.

Bishops transcripts – contemporary copies of parish register entries, again often starting in the 16th century and useful if parish registers have been lost or cannot be easily read.

Probate records – a will is concrete evidence of family relationships but not all people left one. Before 1858 probate was administered by the ecclesiastical court system whereas after 1858, a national system exists for the whole of England and Wales.

Newspapers – many survive from the late-18th century onwards. Scanned and indexed images of pages from a wide range of titles can be found on-line but some are still in original or microform.

To find out more visit a local family History Society or peruse the FamilySearch Wiki.