Tracing your Family Tree
Welcome to the exciting area of tracing your family tree.
The most important thing to start with is to talk to living relatives. So much information is lost when people die. Some grandparents and great-grandparents have lived almost 100 years. Imagine the wealth of knowledge they will have acquired over this time. They may consider the knowledge unimportant but certain little gems will emerge if you talk to them. You may find branches of the family you never knew about because they had moved away and never kept in touch.
Always write down or record any information you collect, you will never remember it all and sometimes the information may seen irrelevant at the current time but there usually comes a time when that information becomes useful. Always revisit your collection of information, things that you have forgotten about suddenly make the missing piece of the jigsaw.
It is not necessary to have a computer programme to collate all the material on but it does help. After going back a few generations you run out of paper to record all the new members on, although it is not impossible to do. There are many family history programmes that will record all your information and produce charts in various formats.
Start with your own name, date or birth, marriage dates and your family. If you are lucky the rest of the members of your family may have old birth death and marriage certificates. These are vital clues to the next link.
Birth certificates hold information such as the name of the child, date of birth, place of birth and the name of the mother with her maiden name if she was married. If the parents were married the father's name was automatically put on the certificate, if they were not married the father had to be present to have his name added to the certificate (although very old entries sometimes had the fathers name on even if the parents were not married, but these are few and far between). You will also find the place where the parents were living although this may only be the name of the village. Current certificates also hold such information as parents' place of birth and both their occupations.
Marriage certificates hold such information as the name of both parties the day they were married, the date of marriage and place of marriage. It will also include their residence, which again may only be the village and not the address. The father's names will be on this certificate as well as occupations.
Death certificates hold such information as name, date and place of death. The cause of death, the informants' name and address and whether the death was referred to the Coroner.
From this information you can usually trace the next generation back. From birth certificates you will find parents' names, which will lead to a possible marriage certificate. From a marriage certificate you will find fathers' names to tie to the next generation. Death certificates will have informants' details on them which may be another family member.
Finding Birth, Marriage and Death Entries
If you know where the event took place you can apply to the local register office for that district, at a cost of £7.00 per certificate.
For birth certificates you will need to quote as much information as you can including:
- Name at birth
- Date of birth
- Place of birth
- Parents' names and mother's maiden name
For marriage certificates:
- Name of both parties at marriage
- Date of marriage
- Place of marriage
For death certificates:
- Name at death
- Date of death
- Place of death
If you cannot quote all these details the Registrar may not be able to locate the entry. In that case you may need to refer to the GRO indexes. These are sometimes called St. Catherine's indexes and can be found in most County Record Offices, some local libraries and the Family Records Centre in London.
These indexes are all the birth, marriage and death registrations from July 1837. They are indexed alphabetically and in quarters. So if you were looking for a birth of Alice Smith in 1856 you would find the index for the year of 1856 which has four quarters March, June, September and December. You would need to look in all four quarters for an Alice Smith. When you find the record you are looking for the information you will need from the book or microfiche is the name, the year and quarter, the volume number and the page number. You can then apply to the General Register Office for the certificate at a cost of £8.00. You can telephone the General Register Office on 0870 243 7788 and order the certificate and pay by credit or debit card.
Finding Information pre 1837
Once you have found your family back to 1837 you will then need to refer to Parish records for further birth, death and marriage information. This information is held at most County Record Offices. Each Record Office will hold this information for their own county in the form of old registers and microfiche.
Other useful sources for information are the census records that have been taken every ten years since 1841. This information is all held at the Family Records Centre in Myddleton Street, London. There are also copies at County Record Offices and the 1881 census is available on line at http://www.familysearch.org/. The 1901 census is also available on line at http://www.pro.gov.uk/.
Some useful addresses and web sites:
There is a great amount of information on Cyndi's list on: http://www.cyndislist.com/ and Genuki on http://www.genuki.org.uk/.
Some more useful addresses:
Norfolk Heritage Centre at the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library
The Forum
Millennium Plain
Norwich
NR2 1AW
Phone: 01603 774740
Norfolk Record Office
The Archive Centre
Martineau Lane
Norwich
NR1 2DQ
http://archives.norfolk.gov.uk
British Library Oriental and India Office
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
Phone: 020 7412 7873
www.bl.uk
British Library Newspaper Library
Colindale Avenue
London NW9 5HE
Phone: 020 7412 7353
www.bl.uk
Catholic Central Library
Lancing Street
London NW1 1ND
Phone: 020 7383 4333
www.catholic-library.org.uk
Civil registration certificates
(Applications by post)
Postal Application Section
Office for National Statistics
P.O. Box 2
Southport
Merseyside PR8 2JD
Telephone Applications: 0870 243 7788
College of Arms
Queen Victoria Street
London EC4V 4BT
www.college-of-arms.gov.uk
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
2 Marlow Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire SL6 7DX
Phone: 01628 634221
www.cwgc.org
Corporation of London Record Office
PO Box 270, Guildhall
London EC2P 2EJ
Phone: 020 7332 1251
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/archives/clro
For census returns 1841-1901 and BMD indexes
The Family Records Centre
Myddleton Street
London EC1R 1UW
Phone: 0208 392 5300
www.statistics.gov.uk/registration
General Register Office Eire
Joyce House
8-11 Lombard Street East
Dublin 2
Phone: 00353 1671 1000
www.groireland.ie
General Register Office Northern Ireland
Oxford House
49-55 Chichester Street
Belfast BT1 4HL
Phone: 028 90252000
www.groni.gov.uk
General Register Office for Scotland
New Register House
Edinburgh EH1 3YT
Phone: 0131 334 0380
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain
PO Box 13288
London N3 3WD
E-mail: enquiries@jgsgb.org.uk
Huguenot Library
University College
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
www.ucl.ac.uk/library/huguenot.htm
London Metropolitan Archives
40 Northampton Road
London EC1R 0HB
Phone: 020 7332 3820
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/archives/lma
National Archives of Ireland
Bishop Street
Dublin 8
Phone: 00353 1407 2300
www.nationalarchives.ie
National Library of Ireland
Kildare Street
Dublin 2
Phone: 00353 1603 0200
www.nli.ie
National Library of Wales
Aberystwyth SY23 3BU
Phone: 01970 632800
www.llgc.org.uk
National Maritime Museum
Romney Road
Greenwich
London SE10 9NF
Phone: 020 8858 4422
www.nmm.ac.uk
Parliamentary Archives
Record Office, House of Lords
London SW1A 0PW
Phone: 020 7219 3074
www.parliament.uk
Principal Registry of the Family Division
First Avenue House
42-49 High Holborn
London WC1V 6NP
Public Record Office
Ruskin Avenue
Kew
Surrey TW9 4DU
www.pro.gov.uk
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
66 Balmoral Avenue
Belfast BT9 6NY
Phone: 028 9025 9025 5905
www.proni.gov.uk/
Society of Genealogists
14 Charterhouse Buildings
Goswell Road
London EC1M 7BA
Phone: 020 7251 8799
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
Phone: 020 7412 7513
www.bl.uk
The Church of the Latter Day Saints
399 Garretts Green Lane
Sheldon
Birmingham B33 0UH
Phone: 0121 785 2200
The Federation of Family History Societies
PO Box 2425
Coventry CV5 6YX
Phone: 0161 797 3843
www.ffhs.org.uk
The Guild of One Name Studies
C/o Box G, The Society of Genealogists
14 Charterhouse Buildings
Goswell Road
London EC1M 7BA
www.one-name.org
The Office for National Statistics
The Family Records Centre
Myddelton Street
London EC1R 1UW
Phone: 0870 243 7788
www.statistics.gov.uk
York Probate Sub Registry
Duncombe Place
York YO1 2EA
Phone: 01904 666777