Family History: Getting Started

Introduction

No doubt you will know someone who has traced their family tree, or seen one of the episodes of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' and been inspired to begin delving into your own roots. Yet for the uninitiated beginner, starting to research ones ancestors can be daunting, difficult and confusing task. The aim of this guide is to take you on the first stages of your journey of discovering, starting with the basic preparatory steps. By sticking to this initial route map, you will quickly gain both relevant information and confidence to embark on the next stage of the process - working in archives.

First steps

So what's the first step you need to take? Actually, it's very easy - write down everything you know about yourself and your family! Focus on full names, dates of birth, marriage and death, and where these events occurred - geography will play an important part in your research as you attempt to locate relatives who may not be familiar to you.

Once you have exhausted your own personal store of knowledge, it's time to talk to the family. Start with parents, uncles and aunts and then work back a generation if you can, remembering to exercise diplomacy and tact when you 'interview' them. The aim is always to find out names, dates and places, and you should be able to compile a fair amount of information about your grandparents' grandparents, people you are unlikely to have met. It might also be worthwhile taping, recording of even filming your interviews, though of course you should always seek permission first. If they agree, the recording will make an important family heirloom that can be passed on from generation to generation. You may find some of your relatives are reluctant to talk about aspects of their lives, and this is when you have to remember that there are some things that will be off limits. Whilst we are naturally curious about things that have happened to our nearest and dearest, we can easily forget that these events may bring back painful memories. One way round this problem is to tactfully request that your relative writes down their memories so that they can be read after they have left us.

Of course, you can't simply take what you have been told at face value - an important part of the research process will be to verify what you have heard. Dates and events can often get muddled with the passing of time, and the use of pet names can cause great confusion. For example, Uncle Jack Smith may well have been born Michael John Smith; and non-relatives are often accorded 'uncle' or 'aunt' status, so be prepared to do a bit of pruning of your family tree. The same applies to stories you might hear during your conversations, and where possible try to compare as many different versions of an event as you can - where tales start to overlap, there is likely to be a grain of truth, and it will be your task to investigate later on.

Look for physical clues

Once you have obtained as much oral history about your family as you can, it's time to widen the search to include physical objects. You will be amazed at the amount of documentation you can uncover simply by asking to look through drawers, boxes and files - one person's 'rubbish' is another's treasure trove! In particular, keep an eye out for personal documents - certificates of birth, marriage and death, wills, employment records, pension payments, military service papers and other miscellanea.

These items will allow you to piece together the outline of your ancestors' lives, as well as provide clues as to what they did and where they did it! Certificates are particularly important, as they are essentially the 'building blocks' of your family tree. Since 1837, every birth, marriage and death had to be registered - though many people didn't bother until the law was tightened up in 1875 - and a copy of each certificate was handed to the informant. This means that all your ancestors who were born, married and died would have generated this paperwork, and the documents are often retained in families, alongside other official papers such as wills. These are particularly poignant, as they reveal what your ancestor's last wishes were, how their possessions were to be distributed and who their closest friends and family were.

But this will be only part of the picture, so to speak, as you should also keep an eye out for photographs. If they exist, it is worth talking to your relatives to see if they can name any of the people, and make sure you then note down who the people are - either on the back of a copy in pencil, or by scanning the photo into your computer and labelling it. Letters are another incredibly personal source of information, so once again use your diplomatic skills when asking about family correspondence. Keep an eye out for other objects of interest - family heirlooms such as bibles often have entire family trees inscribed inside the cover. All of these items are part of your personal heritage, and will have their own story to tell about their former owners.

Organise the data

Once you have gathered together as much information as you can, it's time to arrange it into a family tree. Essentially, this is a map of your roots, a diagram that shows at a glance how your family are related to one another. Start with a large, blank sheet of paper and write your name, including all relevant biographical details, such as date of birth. If you are married, your husband / wife sits alongside you on the tree, linked with either 'm' or '=', standard symbols that denote marriage. Any children go underneath you, connected to you with a line; include their dates of birth as well, marked 'b' for born. They are the generation below you. Above you go the names and relevant dates of your parents, and above them go your grandparents. As you work up the tree, you are going back in time, generation by generation, and doubling the number of direct ancestors you find. Therefore you have four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great grandparents, and so on. You may be surprised how little information you know about some of these people, and may simply know a name and possibly a date of death (marked 'd'). This is the whole point of drawing up a family tree, as it makes you realise where the gaps in your knowledge lie, and this will help you to develop a research plan.

It is important to keep an accurate master copy of your family tree, on which you update all research results at the end of each trip to the archives, library or online search. Date the tree each time you amend it, and keep previous copies, just in case you make a mistake in your research - that way you can go back to an accurate version and start again. It's also useful to make copies of sections of your family tree to take with you when you venture on a research trip - it's easy to get confused when you start working in archives for the first time, or even to look at the wrong family, so your family tree can help focus your mind on the task in hand.

Developing a research strategy

It's up to you to decide what you do next, but most people concentrate on filling some of the gaps in their family tree. First, though, it is always sensible to double check the information you've already been given, so you should ensure that all the names, dates and places are correct by checking the information against official records - particularly the indexes to birth, marriage and death certificates. Many of these can be found online at websites such as www.findmypast.com or www.ancestry.co.uk, though you can usually find copies at your nearest county archive, local studies centre of at the Family Records Centre, London. The next step is to work back in time and use the information contained in certificates and census returns (1841-1901) to discover new and previously unknown relatives. However, this is not the only way to proceed; you may have heard an interesting story about a particular ancestor, or want to concentrate on only a couple of people in more detail. This may mean a trip to a more specialist archive or institution. Either way, both routes will keep you busy and you will soon see why family history is so addictive!

Getting Help

Family Records Centre  © There will be time when you grind to a halt and hit the dreaded brick wall in your research. Don't despair! There are plenty of ways to get assistance. For a start, there are numerous books, magazines and trade journals in circulation that offer advice and practical tips about all aspects of family history. Most can be bought in major bookstores and newsagents. You can also access the research library of the Society of Genealogists in London, where you may even discover that someone has already done some research on a branch of your family! It is also a sensible idea to join a family history society, which often run courses and talks in aspects of family history and provide a local support group. You should also join a society that is close to where your ancestors came from, as members might know of relevant records, or even have research notes that can help. Finally, many archives provide lists of independent researchers, who can save you time and money by undertaking specialist research for a fee. This is particularly useful if the collections are hard to understand, or are a long way from where you live.

Find out more

Useful Links

The UK and Ireland Genealogical Information Service (GENUKI) can help you get started. (For more about GENUKI, see below.)

The Society of Genealogists has one of the largest reference libraries for family-history research

The Federation of Family History Societies represents many regional and one-name societies (although none from Scotland).

The Scottish Association of Family History Societies will suit many Scottish researchers.

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites.

RootsWeb

The National Archives catalogue

ARCHON

GENUKI

UKGenWeb is the UK's regional branch of the world-wide WorldGenWeb project. It is a repository of family histories, enquiries and resources for research. It works closely with GENUKI, which is a virtual genealogical library on the web for the British Isles. It brings together everything from national resources to local, county record offices and individual research.

The site is organised hierarchically. It begins with national information, then you can select a region, followed by city, town or village. Each page gives details of record offices, publications, societies and, frequently, the contacts for individuals with an interests in particular surnames of the area. There are thousands of links to be explored. The pages are regularly updated by volunteers.

GENUKI and its volunteers do not answer individual enquiries, but the A-Z of British Genealogical Research is a very useful GENUKI page of tips on all aspects of British genealogy.

Additional Links

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• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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• Society of Genealogists
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• General Register Office for Scotland
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• Public Record Office, Northern Ireland
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• National Library of Ireland
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• National Archives of Ireland
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• Representative Church Body Library
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• National registers for England and Wales
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• National registers for Scotland
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• National registers for Northern Ireland
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• Family Records Centre
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• Guild of One Name Studies
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• Catholic History website
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• The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain
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About the author

Dr Nick Barratt worked at the Public Record Office (now The National Archives, or TNA) from 1996 to 2000, with the family history team. He has given many talks on family history, and has written frequently for the TNA's genealogy journal, Ancestors. He has worked for the BBC as a specialist researcher on programmes such as 'One Foot in the Past','The People Detective' and 'Who Do You Think you Are?'.