Family trees: How to trace your family tree

(Redirected from How to trace your family tree)

Jane James, from Derby’s Local Studies Library, gives some advice on how you can trace your family tree.

THE best place to start your research is with your family. What do you have tucked away in drawers or in that old tin box?

Do you have any old photographs, family letters or diaries? Is there a family bible? What certificates of birth, marriage and death can be found?

Are there any baptismal certificates?

It is a good idea to speak to as many family members as possible as each will have their own recollections and memorabilia.

When visiting, take old photos with you as they will promote discussion and may lead to identification of those unnamed individuals that form part of every family’s photographic collection.

Make a note of any family stories, however unlikely; they usually contain a grain of truth.

Try to discover when and where your ancestors were born, married and died. Did they have any brothers or sisters? Where did they live?

Where were they buried? If gravestones do exist, try to visit them as the memorial inscriptions usually provide dates of death and ages and may contain information about other family members.

Are there other gravestones close by with the same surname? If so, make a note of them as well.

Having carefully recorded all the information you have gained, you are now able to begin your research in the local studies libraries and record offices. You may also consider joining one of the family history courses, which run throughout the year.

So, how can Derby Local Studies Library help?

For some people, speaking to family members and looking at their collections of memorabilia will have proved a mine of information.

But, for others, this will not be the case. In either instance, the next port of call may well be the Local Studies Library on Iron Gate, Derby, where the General Register Office’s indexes of births, marriages and deaths may be viewed.

The indexes start in July 1837 and enable you to locate the births, marriages and deaths of your ancestors.

Full birth certificates contain parents’ names – including the mother’s previous names. Having obtained a birth certificate, you will be able to identify the parental marriage from the index.

Having obtained the marriage certificate from the General Register Office at Southport, or the relevant District Register Office, you should know the father’s name and be able to calculate an approximate date of birth for the bridal couple.

From this you can identify their birth registrations and obtain the birth certificates.

By such methods you can move back through the generations to the early 19th century.

For Derbyshire families, the library houses the 10-yearly census returns from 1841 to 1901, a collection of trade directories, electoral registers and poll books and a limited number of parish registers.

Derbyshire newspapers from the 18th century to date also make fascinating reading and are another important family history source.

You can also use the internet to trace your family.

The Local Studies Library has recently signed up to Ancestry Library Edition and users of the library have free access to this major genealogical source.

This site has had a huge impact on the way that many people research their family history and is described as “a research tool offering the most comprehensive genealogical information available online, with more than four billion names in more than 4,000 collections”.

Two of the most significant sources for English and Welsh genealogy are available with a few clicks of the mouse.

Digital images of the census enumerator’ books for every census currently available (1841-1901) are available for viewing and printing.

Also on the site is the General Register Office civil registration index from 1837 to 1983. Birth, marriage and death indexes, from 1984 to 2002, are also to found here.

A database of UK directories and parish and probate records is also available in transcript form and, for those with ancestors who emigrated, the site offers many options.

The U.S. Federal census from 1790-1930, the U.S. Social Security Death Index, American military records from the Civil War through to the Korean conflict and immigration and naturalisation records, including original images of passenger and immigration lists, are all there to be searched.

It is also possible to browse the records by record type, for example, census or by country, eg England.

The site also offers charts and forms – useful to record your research – and the opportunity to make contact with fellow researchers through Ancestry Message Board and Ancestry World Tree.

Pages linking here