Individuals have different objectives. Your objective may be to research the history of your house and the people who lived there before you. Or it may be to trace cousins who may still be living but are out of touch. Perhaps you want to record every relative in the 19th Century. Or perhaps your direct ancestors are all you want to trace, but back as far as you can. If the last of these is your aim, the following steps may help you:
1. Write down everything you know about your parents, grandparents and so on. Their names, ages, details of their marriages, their brothers and sisters' names, occupations and addresses are all helpful in building a basic family tree.
2. Search the attic for old papers and photographs. This will add to the information already noted down. For example, you may find birth, marriage and death certificates, all of which contain a wealth of information. Certificates of baptism and burial may also provide clues to sources of further information. Photographs just may have details of individuals and places, though few people think about future generations when compiling their albums!
3. Visit (elderly) relatives to obtain information first hand. But be sensitive and respect their wish to remain silent - you may upset them with questions about incidents in their lives that they would prefer to forget. Consider whether "Uncle Willie Brown" may have been christened Frederick and have changed his surname to Smith by deed poll in 1924. You could waste a lot of time looking for his birth certificate under Willie Brown!
4. At this stage, join a family history society, either where you live, or where your ancestors lived. Regular journals contain a wealth of help and information, as well as contact with like-minded people.
5. Obtain copies of birth, marriage and death certificates, as they will identify and verify people noted down and help you to link people together. For example, in the UK, a marriage certificate will provide you with the groom's and bride's fathers' names, and their occupations. The date of the marriage may help you to locate the birth certificate of their eldest child. In addition, a UK birth certificate gives the mother's maiden name, a must if you are to trace her family back in time. In this way, it should be possible to go back in time to 1837, when UK civil registration began. As you will see from my Family Tales, there are many pitfalls.
6. The other main sources of information are the census returns, in the UK available every ten years from 1841 through to 1901. The census is vital in giving substance to information already obtained. There are plenty of Frederick Smith's around - do you have the right one? If not, you will waste a lot of time researching someone else's family! Addresses, occupations and siblings' names, ages and occupations help to verify your ancestor's identity.
This will keep you busy for some time. Future steps may include attending courses, starting to use the computer to gather and store information and getting to know your local county record office for research further back in time.
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