Here are my top tips for doing family tree research.
- Ask an old person!
My grandmother has been a great source of information. I found that she had quite a few birth, marriage and death certificates already. Within an hour we had managed to go back over a hundred years! - Ask the old person again!
They’ll start remembering things now that you’ve asked them once. - Join a website
It’s going to cost a little money, but it’s the only way you’re going to make progress.- GenesReunited has been a great help
- Ancestry
offers a similar service
- 1837Online for your index needs.
- 1901 Census at National Archives. Limited use, but a good way to find relatives living the same house. It also gives the ages of the people, so you can work out approx birth dates etc.
- Focus on unusual names
And we all laughed at Bob Geldof and Paula Yates when they named their children! The fact is, unusual names make searching easier. Finding an unusual name can also help sort out the more common names. For example, if you have two sisters called Tinkerbell and Alison, the information you find about Tinkerbell (when born, where born etc) can help focus on the right Alison. - Guess!
Educated guesses can get you a long way, quite quickly.- If I find a birth, I add about 20 years, and start looking for a marriage.
- If I find a death, I take the age from the year, and look for a birth.
- If I find a marriage, I start looking for a child immediately after. You’d be surprised how many shot-gun marriages there are (or is that just my family).
- Cross-reference
Always check ages, places and names. With marriages, look up the index reference for the spouse as this will give you their full name, this will help with births. - Get Certificates
A point will come when you’ve squeezed as much info out of the indices as it’s possible.
At £7 a pop it can be expensive, but the information is really useful, and can give you new leads, which is what you want.
