Family History - Trace Your Ancestors

Family History - Getting Started

The first step in compiling a family history is to decide what you want to get out of it.

A common starting point is to start building up a family tree, to satisfy your curiosity about your ancestors and share with your family.

Then, like me, you might discover that you have an interesting ancestor and want to find out more.

He might be called Thomas Blizard, who was married to Betsey Shakespear for more than forty years, had seven children and worked in 19th century Birmingham as a Bone Brush Maker.

Or maybe Harriet Firkins from Worcestershire, who married William, moved into a small terraced house in Victorian Birmingham then died when her first child was only two years old.

These are both real people by the way.

This shows that family history might be more than just compiling a family tree. You can find out a lot more, if you want, about who your ancestors were and their stories.

Census Record - 1841

Birmingham - 1905

First Steps

Talk to your Family
Get some basic information about your parents, grandparents and maybe great-grandparents if possible. This should include full names, maiden names, dates of birth and places of birth. Also get details of marriages, schools, military service and anything else of interest.

Documents
Get copies of any birth, marriage and death certificates. Also any other family documents. If you can, scan them into your computer and put backups onto CD-ROM.

Record Keeping
Get organised from the start, with both your paper documents and computer records. Set up a paper filing system, maybe with one folder for each branch of your family based on your four grandparents. Set up a single folder on your computer for Family History then add sub-folders.

Family Tree
Draw up a basic tree showing (as known) your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. It is a standard convention to show female ancestors with their maiden name as, naturally, this is the name you will normally find on their birth certificate. You now have a basis to do some more detailed research.

Family History - Getting Started - Books

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Genealogy Online For Dummies

I found this book an excellent and easy to use starting point for researching my family history. Part of the well known "For Dummies" series, the book starts with the absolute basics and builds up from there..

It is edited by Nick Barratt, the genealogy expert on the BBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are?' programme. He gives expert guidance on how to start building your family tree, where to look for clues, how to discover the most useful websites and how to use and organise the information that you find.

A well written and well illustrated book to get you started.

Other Family History Books.