Home - Family Tree Research

Family Tree Research
With more than 1.4 billion websites on the world wide web it can be hard knowing where to start.

Start with reputable sites that have built up a good reputation in the genealogical community - the FamilyRecords.gov.uk links page lists some of the best family history sites.

Subscribe to a mailing list - these will allow you to find genealogical information from all over the world and correspond with researchers anywhere. For example look at Rootsweb.

Use search engines to find family history information that may not be found on a genealogical website.

Primary Resources
Perhaps we should call this "near primary sources" as the original documents are paper - or possibly even velum. In this guide, when we refer to "primary sources" available on the world wide web we are referring to photographic images of original documents.

There are very few original documents online, so most of the information comes from secondary sources. This means that the original, which may be faded, damaged or illegible, has been read by someone and copied out, perhaps several times, before reaching you in a list or index. It may not be accurate. It can therefore only be used as a clue or a signpost. You must evaluate the information and check original sources whenever you can. Many archives and record offices are able to send you photocopies of the original documents for only a small charge, and you can often use the Internet to order by e-mail.

Where primary material is available, it usually has to be paid for because of the cost of digitising the original documents, and transcribing their contents to provide an index. Documents available online include: census, birth, death
and marriage information for Scotland at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, census information for England and Wales at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/census; wills proved by the prerogative court of Canterbury at www.documentsonline.nationalarchives.gov.uk and Scottish wills are available at www.scottishdocuments.com. Researchers with ancestors who migrated from the United Kingdom to the United States, might find their ancestors name on a passenger list at the Ellis Island website www.ellisisland.org this website offers free access to the original images of records. If your ancestors came to the UK from Eastern Europe, Asia or the West Indies, you will find a wealth of material on www.movinghere.org.uk - access to the digitised images is free. You can also access a digital archive of The London Gazette - this lists recipients of medals, aliens granted naturalization, changes of name by deed poll and much more. You can use a simple key word search - it is worth trying spelling variations etc. It is free to search and view the PDF files www.gazettes-online.co.uk

Catalogues
Even when images of original material are not available online, you can still do some research using the online catalogue of the archive or library. The catalogue will tell you what documents are available and you will be able to find out how to order copies of records, or pre-order documents if you are going to visit an archive in person.

The Catalogue, the online catalogue of The National Archives, is available at www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk. If it is your first time using The Catalogue, it is recommended that you use a guided search.

A2A (Access to Archives) is a database containing catalogues of archives held across England. If you know which region your ancestors come from you could search using the name of their village, or even just enter the surname of the person you are looking for. You will find references to all kinds of records held by local archives, from the official such as court sessions to personal diaries etc. www.a2a.nationalarchives.gov.uk

A similar website is being set up to access Scottish archives. The online catalogue is not up yet but you can view examples of the type of material that will be available at www.scan.org.uk

The National Library of Wales offers online access to several catalogues on its website www.llgc.org.uk

You can search the Moving Here catalogue of digitised resources at www.movinghere.org.uk to find items of interest to those whose ancestors migrated to the UK from Eastern Europe, Asia and the West Indies.

Genealogy websites
Genealogy websites range from online databases which you normally have to pay to access e.g.www.ancestry.com, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, or the 1881, 1891 & 1901 census websites to the websites of individual family historians who have posted information about their family history online.

Some websites offer free access to databases, for example freeBMD allows you to search for UK birth, marriage and death records. The website www.familysearch.org run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allows you to search for ancestors world-wide. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website www.cwgc.org has a database which you can search to find details of an ancestor who served and fell in the first or second world wars, information given might include the name of the spouse and parents.

One of the most useful websites for genealogists is "Cyndi's List of Genealogy sites on the internet" at www.cyndislist.com. Cyndi's website has more than 130,000 links organised by topic and alphabetically.

Other sites that have lots of useful information and links for people researching UK ancestry are Genuki at www.genuki.org.uk and Familia at www.familia.org.uk.

To find an individual's website on a particular family, try looking at the "freepages" on Rootsweb or use a search engine.

Search Engines
There are several search engines on the world wide web - you probably have a favourite one already. They work in slightly different ways so you might want to try the same query in several search engines. Many people get started in family history by typing their surname into a search engine - this probably won't get you very far, but you might find other people researching the same name, or come across some of the websites mentioned on the previous page.

These search engines will only search text in a web page, they cannot look inside a database such as the ones holding census or birth, marriage and death records. To search a database you have to go to the site where the database is (e.g. FreeBMD, Scotland's People, FamilySearch, 1901 Census).

Google www.google.com

Altavista uk.altavista.com

MSN search.msn.co.uk

Lycos www.lycos.co.uk

"Ask Jeeves" www.ask.co.uk

Yahoo uk.yahoo.com

Freesearch www.freesearch.co.uk

Your Website
Once you have created your family tree going back a few generations and found out some interesting facts about your ancestors, you might want to create a website about your family's history.

Some of the software reviewed in the software peer review can help you do this or look at the list of software on Cyndi's List. Of course you could learn how to create web pages yourself - all you need is a program like Notepad - and a good book or online tutorial. For straight forward advice and tutorials, try the "HTML basics" section on Webmonkey www.webmonkey.com

Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will offer you some free web space with you email/internet access account. Good luck!