How do I start my family history?

You should always start with yourself. Write down your date of birth, baptism, school attended, marriage, divorce, remarriage, occupation, address, including previous addresses, and any other information you feel is relevant to who you are. Then do the same for your parents and grandparents, including any dates and places of death. For more information see the Getting Started in Family History page on this site.

Birth, baptism, marriage and death certificates give a lot of information that can enable you to go back one generation. Any other family documents like passports, family Bibles, house deeds, photos, school certificates, all help and add interest to your family tree. Memorial inscriptions can often tell us a lot too, as sometimes, more than one member of a family are buried in the same grave. Check out the General Register Office website at www.gro.gov.uk for information on obtaining civil registration certificates for England and Wales.

It always pays to check to see if this is the case. Check out the Readers’ Interest and Forebear Finder pages in our magazines. It is free to advertise the surnames you are researching in these pages. There is an organisation known as the Guild of One-Name Studies (GOONS) whose members collect and collate all references to a particular surname. Their website address is www.one-name.org. There is also a directory called The Genealogical Research Directory which is published annually and sold worldwide. This lists contact details for other family historians researching a particular surname. Check out the internet but never take someone else’s research at face value unless they can tell you where the information came from. There are a lot of family trees online that are definitely ‘barking up the wrong tree’.

My great-grandfather fought and died in the First World War, how can I find out about him?

Look on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website at www.cwgc.org. This is a wonderful free site with a "Debt of Honour Register" listing the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died during the two world wars and the 23,000 cemeteries, memorials and other locations world-wide where they are commemorated. The register can also be searched for details of the 67,000 Commonwealth civilians who died as a result of enemy action in the Second World War. It is also possible that your ancestor's service record may still be at The National Archives at Kew, London. Check out their website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk for further information.

We cover many occupations in our magazines and where to find available records for them. Once you know which county and preferably which school she taught at, you can contact the county record office for that area and ask them where these records are kept.

You can travel to the General Register Office (Scotland) in Edinburgh and pay a daily fee to do your own research or go online at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. Many Scottish records have been digitised and put online which you can view for a small fee.

Irish research is more difficult due to so many of the records being destroyed in a fire during the 1922 Irish Civil War. However, we cover Irish research frequently in our magazines advising on what records can be found to replace those lost during this period. One set of records particularly useful is known as Griffiths Valuation. These records were compiled by Richard Griffiths, in conjunction with the Ordnance Survey and others, who began the process of mapping Ireland county by county in the 1820s. Griffiths then conducted the valuation of the rateable property and also recorded the occupants as well as the owners for all land and buildings. This was completed just prior to the Great Famine of 1845-1849 and therefore is an invaluable resource. Check out the General Register Office of Ireland’s website at www.groireland.ie (Eire) or www.groni.gov.uk (Northern Ireland) for available records.