As I love researching my family tree soo much I thought I would post a tutorial on how you can get started researching your family tree and what is available online to aid you in your search. I live in Australia but 99% of my family tree is made up of people from the UK so finding them from way over here, just using my PC, has not been easy. It has taken me a long time, I’ve done some very boring work trolling through web pages for hours, spent quite a bit of money, had a great deal of luck and some brilliant help from people I have never met. So follow me and I will lead you into your past, the quick way!
GETTING STARTED
First and foremost get yourself a good family tree program for your computer to store all the information you find. I use Family Tree Maker, which is brilliant and very easy to use. Hint #1 - It is vital that you make a hard-copy back-up file of your tree every couple of months. Earlier this year we had a Trojan virus, which wiped out everything on our PC, luckily I had a copy of my files and so nothing was lost.
So where do you start? That’s easy with YOU! Start off recording the names and dates for the people you know, yourself, parents, siblings, husband, children and so forth. By starting with facts that you know to be true you won’t fall into the trap of adding information that is incorrect, fixing up mistakes on a family tree is very time consuming, trust me I know this from experience. Hint #2 - To avoid costly time wasted deleting a branch of people, only record details you know to be reliable on your tree.
Using the Internet to source your information is easy, I use a number of different sites, but the number one site I always go back to is Ancestry. I have paid for an annual membership with this site and it has paid me back ten fold. Many genealogy sites offer you a pay per view option, this gets very expensive very quickly and they often only give you access to one type of file. With an annual membership you have unlimited access to all their files all the time. Hint #3 - Avoid those expensive pay-per-view sites and find one that offers unlimited access to a lot of information for a one off annual membership.
BIRTH, DEATH AND MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES
One of the best sources of reliable information is a proper birth, death or marriage certificate and these can be ordered online from the General Register Office at a cost of ten pounds per certificate. You will need to know the persons name, year of record, volume and page numbers in order to get a copy of the certificate. The Ancestry site can help with finding out this vital information as they provide full page scans of all birth, death and marriage record books. You select a year and a surname and then you will be directed to four pages, one for each quarter of the year, from there it’s just a matter of scanning the pages for the person you seek. A word of warning this takes time, I have been lucky and hit on the person on the first scan but I have also looked at ten years of files and found them on the last page, I kid you not! Hint #4- Be prepared to spend some time browsing pages to find the correct person.
Now you don’t always have to pay for your information, over at FreeBMD they offer access to birth, death and marriage details for free, as the name suggests. You type in as much information as you know and go from there. They are able to offer this service for free as all the information is transcribed from the hard copy to the Internet by volunteer transcribers. I am a volunteer and it is very rewarding work, so if you have a little spare time I highly recomend it.
THE CENSUS
OK so you have your immediate family on your tree, but how to find your Granny’s details? That’s easy you just need to look at a census! The taking of a census began in 1841 and continues to this day, these records are protected for 100 years and then opened for public access. Once again Ancestry can provide you with access to the Census taken from 1841 to 1901, I told you it was a great site! Looking at a census gives you a complete picture of the family living in that house on the night the census was taken. You will get the persons full name and their relationship to the head of the house, for example wife, daughter, mother-in-law. It also tells you their marital status, occupation and place of birth. Hint #5 - When you see “do” next to a name this does not mean their surname is Do, it stands for ditto, my husband and I fell for this one and laughed for hours when we realised our mistake.
MILITARY HISTORY
My Granddad was born in 1880 and joined the army on the 11th of February 1898 as a cavalryman with the 10th Hussars. This information was obtained from several different sources, the first was my Mum’s own recollections from her childhood, the second was my Granddad’s WWI Medal Card that I found on The National Archive web site and the third was his Army Pension Records located at Ancestry.
Family stories are an important part of my research; they are the foundation around which I base my research. My Mum knew for certain that her father was in the 10th Hussars because he proudly told the family stories of his long and illustrious military career at the dinner table every evening. One of the most important things I have learned is to never discount family stories, as they are an important addition to your research tool kit. My Mum recalled that her father had a campaign clasp on his Boer War medal, awarded for The Defence of Ladysmith. While doing my research I found that the 10th Hussars were never at The Defence of Ladysmith, but my Mum was certain of her information. When finally we found Granddads Army Pension Record it showed that for 18 months during 1908-1909 my Granddad was posted to the 18th Hussars, who were at The Defence of Ladysmith, so Mum’s memory was correct. Hint #6 - Don’t dismiss family stories, as they can often be more reliable than a history book.
If your relative served in WWI then you may be able to find their Army Pension records at Ancestry or by writing to the Army Personnel Centre.
Army Personnel Centre
HQ Secretariat
Historical Disclosures
Mail Point 400
Kentigern House
65 Brown Street
Glasgow
G2 8EX
Tel: 0845 600 9663
The Army Personnel Centre holds the records of Officers or Soldiers whose regular or reserve service ended between 1921 and 1997. Sadly many of these records were destroyed when the building they were stored in was bombed during the blitz. Around two million records were salvaged from the blaze, with approximately 40% of the records surviving. Commonly referred to as the “burnt records”, they can be viewed at The National Archive in Kew, England in series WO 363.
For many years my Mum searched in vein for her fathers military records but she was constantly told that without her fathers regimental number they couldn’t help her. One Sunday afternoon, while browsing the Internet, I was very lucky to chance upon The National Archive web site where they had just released scans of all WWI Medal Cards, low’n'behold I found my Granddads card along with that elusive regimental number, that’s it there in the top right hand corner of the card.
As you can see this card is very hard to read unless you are an expert on all things WWI. One of my favourite web sites is The Long, Long Trail, dedicated solely to WWI. Here you will find all the information you could possibly need to know about WWI. Those strange hieroglyphics on the Medal Card were all cleared up when I wrote to the author of The Long, Long Trail and he kingly translated it for me. Hint #7 - Don’t be afraid to email web sites that offer information on genealogy it has been my experience that if they can’t help you they will point you in the direction of someone who can.
If you are lucky enough to have your ancestors medals you may be interested in this site, The Guide To British War Medals. They have a very comprehensive list of all medals issued and some very interesting facts about the medals. Another useful link is The British Army site. You can find links to many different battalions here, so if you know which battalion your ancestor was in you may find this site helpful.
TTFN
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