Family History – Getting Started
Over the last couple of years more and more of us seem to have become increasingly interested in our family history, which no doubt has been helped by the successful BBC series – “Who Do You Think Are”. Why we go through this process varies, for some it’s to understand their family, for others it’s to understand who they are, whilst others do it for financial or legal reasons. Whatever your interest, one thing you should be aware of is that this can become an addictive pastime. If you are thinking of researching your family history there are a few basic approaches you should follow to do the job properly:
Genealogy v Family History: The basic difference between genealogy and family history is that genealogy is really concerned purely with tracing bloodlines whilst family history takes on wide aspects of the individuals being researched. However, for our purposes it is somewhat irrelevant; enjoy the experience – whatever you call it!
What are you trying to achieve?
There are three basic lines that people tend to follow:
Family Tree: This usually shows the male-line of ancestors and their wives, brothers and sisters and consists of the close family – father, grandfather, great-grandfather and their wives, brothers and sisters. It is possible to follow the female line but due to the records that were kept and the practice of wives taking the husbands surname the task can be a lot more difficult and time consuming.
Extended Family Tree: This extends the above to take in all the descendants of the earliest known male ancestors and extends to distant cousins.
Ancestry Chart: This extends the search through, as many as possible of both the male and female lines of the family.
Where to start?
Family history starts at home: The quickest and easiest source of information will be your current family. Talk to your immediate family and work from there. To help you focus, create a list of questions before you start. Make a note of basic details - names and date of birth. Follow this up by obtaining copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates and death certificates. If you do not have these they maybe obtained from various sources that are described in the next section: Family History – Information Sources
Check to see if any of them have researched the family history before. If so use what they have already discovered, especially if they have copies of official documents/certificates.
Talk to elderly relatives; discuss old photos with them, letters, documents, newspaper cuttings, diaries family bibles. In fact anything that will jog their memory and give you new threads to follow. Keep them informed about what you find. It’s not only polite but invariably leads to them remember other information.
Water, water every where…: Once you start to research your family history and step outside your close family, you will be amazed, and probably bewildered by the amount of archives, records and information you will come across. At this point it is easy to get information overload and all of a sudden it seems a daunting task. However, all you need to do is take one step at a time and work on one piece of your family chart before you move onto the next. Be patient and methodical and you’ll be surprised and pleased with the outcome.
Document it: Document everything you find. Make sure what you record is easy to understand so that they are understandable by others and if you revisit them after a couple of years you can still understand them.
Don’t re-invent the wheel: There are plenty of others researching their ancestry and a variety of directories that are published to assist your research – use them. There is a vast amount of information available in books and on the internet that can give you a wealth of information – use it. Once you find positive information try to confirm its accuracy, there are various records that are available in the UK and these will be described in the next section: Family History – Information Sources.
Family History - Information Sources: Births, Deaths and Marriages ►►
Family History - Information Sources: Religous Records ►►
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