Family
Step one: Prepare. Think about what you already know about those who went before you. Remember all those family legends and search the attic for old family photographs, birth, death or marriage certificates, which may help you get started. Tap into the memories, records and photo albums of your immediate and extended family.
Think about what you already know about those who went before you. Remember all those family legends and search the attic for old family photographs, birth, death or marriage certificates, which may help you get started. Tap into the memories, records and photo albums of your immediate and extended family.
Step two: Get organised. Record each piece of information and its source carefully. Software packages are available for this, but you might like to devise a card file system. Often, some facts will contradict each other and knowing the source may help you decide which is the most accurate. Photocopy or scan old documents in order to preserve the originals.
Step three: Get started. Birth, marriage and death certificates are the most important sources in this type of research. Certificates are bound in quarterly volumes by date of registration, not the date of the event itself. So, it is not a big problem with marriages and deaths, which by law must be quickly registered, but its often confusing when looking at a birth that can be registered up to six weeks after the event.
To obtain copies of actual BMD certificates contact certificate.services@gro.gsi.gov.uk, in Scotland go to scotlandspeople.gov.uk and in Northern Ireland www.nidirect.gov.uk/gro. Another good starting point for anyone researching BMDs between 1837 and 1915 is www.freebmd.org.uk which has helped make many a time consuming trawl through heavy index books redundant.
Step four: Widen the net. National censuses are another vital tool. Censuses from 1841 to 1901 are available online and there is limited access to the 1911 census. Censuses are indexed by name and there is a small charge at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/census-records.htm.
Step five: Follow the trail. Start from what you know, such as the registration of your father's birth for example and obtain a copy of his birth certificate, which will contain valuable detail. Then, with the information from that first certificate, search for the next one. For example, work backwards from your father's date of birth, to his parent's marriage and from there work on to your grandparents' birth certificates.
Step six: Don't give up. If you find blatant discrepancies you may well have veered from your own family tree. Go back a step and examine all the links again. Very often some of the 'known facts' are wrong, such as a birth date a couple of years out, or a different and unexpected spelling of a surname. Take your time, be methodical and consistent and it will bear fruit. Good luck.
* Teena Lyons' opinions are her own and for general information only. Always seek independent advice.