Dig deep to get back to your roots (Geneology)

Member Name: Flindy

Product:	Geneology
Date:	21/03/01 (270 review reads)
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Advantages: You learn about your family, and history, and make new friends

Disadvantages: Can become obssesive if you let it!

There must be a few of you at Dooyoo who are not in the least bit interested in researching your family tree! But I bet there are a lot of you out there who have often had a thought in the back of your mind which goes something like “wonder where gran’s gran originated from?”, or “wonder who little Jimmy takes after with his talent for drawing?”.

All of us at some point in our lives have been curious about our ancestors. It’s wanting to find out your roots, and having a need to belong. It makes no difference whether they were princes or paupers, they will be just as interesting to you.

You could go the whole hog and enrol on a college course, which would be very helpful. Or go it alone, which is much easier nowadays with the help of technology. For me it was a need to know more about my grandparents who all died before I was born. My father was Welsh and my mother English, and I had no idea really about their families. I have been researching the family for three years now, along with my brother and sister, and have spent a lot of time in dusty record offices and libraries, and visited cemeteries in various parts of England and Wales. We now discover that Scotland comes into the picture, so I daresay if I can persuade my sister to do the driving we will be holidaying north of the border in the near future!

It is easy to go up blind alleys when you are doing your research, you may be looking at a common name and you need to know how to pinpoint the right person. If you intend to “do” your family tree, read about the subject first. There is a wealth of information available to you nowadays, so make sure you use it!

Also talk to the older members of your family, very often they will mention a snippet of information, which will prove to be a vital clue at a later date. Make notes too, these are so useful.

Since I am here and on one of my favourite subjects I must let
you know about the I.G.I, short for International Genealogical Index, which is so useful. The Mormon Church compiles it, they have indexed masses of information, mainly on births and marriages, from parish records all over Britain and Worldwide. It is available online and it is free (don’t get too excited!), it is not so good after the mid 1800’s, when compulsory registration of births etc started to kick in. But some of the early records are there, and the 1700’s period is very good. You can do an Ancestral Search online, if you know a name, date and place. They also have a database of Family Trees donated by researchers which you can look at too. The whole site is a mine of helpful information, and we do owe the Mormons a big thank you for the work they have put in.

By the way, I am not a member of the Mormon Church, and they have not done this to increase their membership. Their ancestors are a very important part of their faith, which is why they have done all this work, the fact that they have made it available to all is a bonus for us. Through this web site you can do a search, get step-by-step guidance on searching for ancestors, and share info with others who have a similar interest through e-mail. There are free software downloads and loads of links to other useful sites! The Family Search Home page is www.familysearch.com

Another really useful site is GENUKI, which has info on Ireland and the U.K, again there are links to other sites, and links to County surname interest sites. You will also find links to info regarding occupations such as mining, canal boat people etc, and other links to military record mailing lists, but the list is endless. The URL for the Genuki Home Page is www.genuki.org.uk

One of the books I can recommend to you is The Family Tree Detective, by Colin Darlington Rogers. Let me say at this point that if your family hail from Scotland, this book only covers England and Wales, because the
records and archives in Scotland differ from those elsewhere. If this is the case then there are lots of books available, which deal with the whole of Britain, so you could go to Amazon and have a look online for what you need.

Well, back to the book, it covers all aspects of researching, parish records, the various census’s which started in 1841 and occur every ten years after that. It gives information on societies dedicated to Family History, it explains how records were kept, gives information on the poor laws, workhouses etc. It lists the various record offices, addresses to write to. It is a great book for the beginner, we wasted a lot of time because we did not bother to study the subject first, and rushed around willy-nilly with no direction.

Well, I hope this has given you some idea of the help you can get nowadays when you search for your ancestors. But even with all this help, do remember, if you think you have found a long lost ancestor you must VERIFY it. You need to check it again, obtain the relevant copies with the details on and be sure about it. That is the hard part, but nevertheless it is worthwhile, and is something for future generations to have.


It is also a fascinating way to learn about history. On a personal note, I have had a lot of help from people on County mailing lists; a couple of examples - I lost track of an ancestor who lived in Leicester, and after putting a request to the Leicester list I had a reply from someone who had found my ancestors will dated 1874 whilst doing his own research. On another occasion, after I sent a request, this time to the Lancashire list, someone sent me the details of my ancestor and his family (in 1851) from his own personal record indexes! So you see, the links from the above sites really can bear fruit :-)

Lastly, if you do a search online, be aware that you may be presented with a whole list of names that match the one you are searching for. It is m
uch more helpful to you if you have dates and places and names of spouses etc. This is why you need to ask family for lots of information; it is also why you need to verify who you think your ancestor is.

Happy hunting! I hope your name isn’t Smith or Jones ;-)

I don't mind if you wish to e-mail me with any genealogy related questions, I can't promise to have the answer but will do my best.

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