**TRACED MY FAMILY TO 1650s** (Geneology)

Member Name: roses8

Product:	Geneology
Date:	03/04/01 (271 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting Absorbing & Addictive

Disadvantages: May find a secret or two

Absorbing,Fascinating and totally time-consuming beware if you start researching your family tree it can be suprisingly addictive..

There is such a wealth of resourses available now to aid any budding geneologists on their family searches this can take time in checking out all the possible routes but not without having a little fun and finding out other snippets of interest on the way.

The first thing to do is speak to your family, gathering as much information on your lineage as possible from your surviving family members - e.g. family names, addresses (places of birth, location, death if no exact addresses available) are there any old photographs that can assist? or birth, marriage or death certificates which will detail specific facts.

Church records are another valuable source which can be checked by visiting individual churches or by checking those details on the internet sites showing church records - one very good site for this (and also has ships passenger lists, cemetry transciptions and censuses for the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.(This site has over 2000 links)

The Mormon records are excellent in providing information on individuals and familys particularly before the 1800s - My favourite site of theirs is 'family search.com' which has provided an excellent resource in tracing my father's family back to the 1650s to a village not more than 15 miles where I live now! It is possible on this site to conduct a general search or be more specific and look within their ancestral files, family history centres or international geneological index. The search is easy to conduct and it is possible to search by surname only, results will show the county and whether the entry is birth death or marriage.

Surname pages are another good resourse which can give meanings, background to the name itself name and history - I like -'clanhuston.com/name/name.htm which houses a large collection of
surnames with their meanings etc.

There exist a large number of family pages showing family trees and often co-exist with message boards where fellow searchers are looking for information on particular people of the family, and accordingly the opportunity to leave your own request is there.

By using specific geneology software (given to me kindly by my cousin)'Family Origins' all the information collected, including photographs, can be imported onto this. It is possible to build a number of family trees simultaneously with notes, detail and pictures making the trees an interesting and historic exersize.

My personal experience of this has left me feeling happy with what I have found and a sense of determination to find what I am still looking for (my dad's dad)but I think you should also be aware that not everything you discover is what you are expecting - family research can often uncover facts that you knew nothing of and perhaps would rather not! (just be careful to accept anything that surfaces)

We visited my ancestors village at the weekend and it was beautiful, a very quaint old village with a little church, babbling brook and small red-brick houses - it was not difficult to imagine them walking along by the brook, but after searching the small churches gravestones I gave up on finding any record there as they had all worn away - back to the records site!

In addition to the wealth of excellent resourses on the net and the records offices across the country, most libraries have good historical resourses and family information for the local area which can also be useful.

I am definitely enjoying my geneological travels, I have a keen sense of purpose to go back as far as I can and learn as much as possible about my roots, I hope this has given you a little help and encouragement and I hope you are successful in your own searches.

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