Family History: Where to start

Last updated at 16:01, Tuesday, 27 October 2009

One thing I love about delving into family history is finding out where my ancestors lived and what they done for a living. My grandma always tells me that she would tell her father that he had to have welsh origins with a name like Jenkins, which he flat out refused to believe. Had he been alive today I don't think he would be too happy with me as I proved the welsh link going back two generations prior to my grandpa.

So you’re looking to start researching your family history but where do you start? The number one place that people will tell you to start is with your own family members especially older members of your family as they may know a little about a great grandparent that you never had the opportunity to meet. Try and find out birth dates and previous names for females in your family, don't push too hard though as some people are happy to let the past be the past. If you have not seen my previous blog take a look to see why I started this read Family History: How I got started.

Now before you go rushing off to all family members I would recommend deciding on what branch of your family tree you want to explore first, get as far as you can or to a reasonable point with one before exploring the other areas for example you have four grandparents that is four different families to research, take another step back to your great grandparents you are now looking at eight different family names and before you know it you can easily get lost with where your at.

When gathering information from family members make sure to note it all down on paper. They may hold a family bible or know of a relative who owns one and these are a great source of information especially if they contain birth dates prior to 1911 as you can easily research these people on available census returns which can be found on Family History websites.

In my previous post I mentioned that I personally wanted to learn about my Great Great Grandfather whom my grandma never knew so I focused the majority of my attention of his family which were named Robson. Once you know what direction you want to go in the next port of call is the internet where you have access to millions of records. I found my own way around and through trial and error found out what worked best for me, now my methods may not suit some people but you will find your own way.

So we are heading online in the next blog and some good places to take a look at before I post again are Ancestry, Genes Reunited, Free Births Marriages and Deaths, FindMyPast, some of these sites are membership based and free to sign up to. However to research the majority of good information will cost money and I will tell you a bit about these sites next. Use these sites to save your own family chart, start with what you know already and then your research will help fill in the blanks.