Trace Your Family Tree

Your journey into your family's past
starts here...

By creating and building your family tree with Ancestry.co.uk, you can be confident that you'll be getting your journey of family history off to the best possible start. What's more our tree building service is free to use and within minutes you can create a basic family tree, to which you can return to at any time to build and develop. 

Your family tree is stored securely and safely on our dedicated servers ensuring that you'll never lose any valuable details regarding your family history. After all, it's impossible to put a value on your family's past and preserving the knowledge of who your ancestors were, as well as what they would have been like, where they came from and the reasons why.

Why should I start my family tree?

The reasons why people start their family trees are wide and varied:

• The desire to find out more about one's own family past and where you came from?
• To fulfill a school or university or local history research project
• To leave a legacy for future generations to build their knowledge and understanding of their ancestors?
• As a hobby or past-time, it's the chance to play detective investigating your family's past
• An attempt to substantiate a family "myth" or possibly even a link to a high profile historical figure

Whether you can identify with one or more of the above, by using Ancestry, you'll be in good hands.

What if I already have my family tree stored somewhere else?

Easy. If you have your family tree stored on another family website or in a family history software package, you can easily export your family tree to Ancestry.co.uk. Read on to find out more about how to do this »

Why should I use Ancestry.co.uk?

Ancestry is the UK's leading online family tree building and records service. We have over 820 million UK records for you to search freely online to help both build and further your understanding of known ancestors within your family tree. With millions of records available to you, we've had to ensure that your search is made as easy as possible. We do this by providing you with a range of search tools for both beginners to advanced researchers to enable you to locate those records that matter to you.

You'll also have the opportunity to connect with millions of other people developing their family trees both home and abroad and will be sure to find links to those with common ancestors who will be only too willing to help you in your family history research. Once you've built your family tree you'll be able to publish it as a book through My Canvas.

But, don't just take our word for it, watch and listen to the popular historian Tony Robinson explain why »