Family Tree

I've been doing mine for about 12 years. Lots of records are being digitised and made freely available.

Free census records available at https://www.freecen.org.uk/
Free birth, marriage and death records(but not certificates) available at https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

If you can get hold of a birth,marriage or death certificate from a parent or grandparent, they will be a good starting point.
Ancestry and Find My Past are great, but subscriptions can be pricey. A good free alternative for keeping your records etc is

FamilySearch.org

Discover your family history. Explore the world’s largest collection of free family trees, genealogy records and resources.
www.familysearch.org www.familysearch.org
I did a short online course last year which is great for anyone getting started

Online Beginner to Intermediate level Genealogy 8-week classes | University of Strathclyde

www.strath.ac.uk www.strath.ac.uk

A very addictive hobby!
 
My Dad did ours many years ago and he was into history and research and it took him a long time, going round cemeteries, into the local history libraries etc. It's not easy, plus you will quickly find that your ancestors will have had jobs, or lived in places that you need to know about.

My Auntie, Brother and myself did a fair amount of ours on ancestry.com and I have to say that it would've been pretty difficult, time consuming and costly not to use it. One good thing about ancestry was that we were able to join up family trees with other family members which was very good. I think it was about £10/month and to be honest, it's worth it. You can search so much on it very easily and you'll get recommendations and suggestions which makes things a bit easier. However, you'll also hit brick walls as whilst these TV programmes make you think it's easy, it's not. If you're from the north west of England, you'll likely to have ancestors from other countries. Getting that info isn't easy.

We managed to find that going back 5 generations, our family had come from the Ireland, the north east, Scotland, Sweden and India.

My grandmother was married to someone for about 9 weeks before they went to war with the Royal Navy. Sadly, the boat he was on was sunk and she re-married after the war. It was never spoken about whilst she was alive - understandably - but still an incredibly sad tale and something that would've happened to many, many people. Incredibly, we managed to find out his name, the name of the boat he was on, when it was sunk and from there we could Google the story of it, which was incredibly sad. We also found out which ship, port and names of family members when our great-Grandfather went to India. I'm sure we could've found this out for free but in fairness it was very easy using it.

It's fascinating to do it, but definitely not easy and not something I'd want to do 'by hand'!
 
My Mayo Irish roots were easy but still could only go back to the 1700 the records before then are not available.
I had better luck with Dublin the church records were free online.

Scotland was the hardest especially if you don’t know the address. We spent years searching free records with no luck, then stumbled on the record in Manchester Cathedral He was supposed to be Scottish with a Scots accent and in the Black Watch.

I’m done with it now as further research would be pointless, anything earlier loses the connection. I only started the research when the school sent the children home to bring a picture as they were doing history.

LDS have free access to the some census and church records online
thats Family search (Utah) it used to be free it’s addictive
 
Doubleblue2 said:
I've been doing mine for about 12 years. Lots of records are being digitised and made freely available.

Free census records available at https://www.freecen.org.uk/
Free birth, marriage and death records(but not certificates) available at https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

If you can get hold of a birth,marriage or death certificate from a parent or grandparent, they will be a good starting point.
Ancestry and Find My Past are great, but subscriptions can be pricey. A good free alternative for keeping your records etc is

FamilySearch.org

Discover your family history. Explore the world’s largest collection of free family trees, genealogy records and resources.
www.familysearch.org www.familysearch.org
I did a short online course last year which is great for anyone getting started

Online Beginner to Intermediate level Genealogy 8-week classes | University of Strathclyde

www.strath.ac.uk www.strath.ac.uk

A very addictive hobby!
Click to expand...
thanks for that.
I have been using the family search website up to now.
 
GoatersLeftShin said:
My Dad did ours many years ago and he was into history and research and it took him a long time, going round cemeteries, into the local history libraries etc. It's not easy, plus you will quickly find that your ancestors will have had jobs, or lived in places that you need to know about.

My Auntie, Brother and myself did a fair amount of ours on ancestry.com and I have to say that it would've been pretty difficult, time consuming and costly not to use it. One good thing about ancestry was that we were able to join up family trees with other family members which was very good. I think it was about £10/month and to be honest, it's worth it. You can search so much on it very easily and you'll get recommendations and suggestions which makes things a bit easier. However, you'll also hit brick walls as whilst these TV programmes make you think it's easy, it's not. If you're from the north west of England, you'll likely to have ancestors from other countries. Getting that info isn't easy.

We managed to find that going back 5 generations, our family had come from the Ireland, the north east, Scotland, Sweden and India.

My grandmother was married to someone for about 9 weeks before they went to war with the Royal Navy. Sadly, the boat he was on was sunk and she re-married after the war. It was never spoken about whilst she was alive - understandably - but still an incredibly sad tale and something that would've happened to many, many people. Incredibly, we managed to find out his name, the name of the boat he was on, when it was sunk and from there we could Google the story of it, which was incredibly sad. We also found out which ship, port and names of family members when our great-Grandfather went to India. I'm sure we could've found this out for free but in fairness it was very easy using it.

It's fascinating to do it, but definitely not easy and not something I'd want to do 'by hand'!
Click to expand...
Thats a great story although quite sad, thanks for sharing.
 
Kirkstall Blue said:
My Mayo Irish roots were easy but still could only go back to the 1700 the records before then are not available.
I had better luck with Dublin the church records were free online.

Scotland was the hardest especially if you don’t know the address. We spent years searching free records with no luck, then stumbled on the record in Manchester Cathedral He was supposed to be Scottish with a Scots accent and in the Black Watch.

I’m done with it now as further research would be pointless, anything earlier loses the connection. I only started the research when the school sent the children home to bring a picture as they were doing history.

LDS have free access to the some census and church records online
thats Family search (Utah) it used to be free it’s addictive
Click to expand...
Beware, you’ll have a couple of missionaries at your house any day
 
Colin Bells Holdall said:
thank you, thats interesting to know. why is something so far back just being released?
Click to expand...
Apparently the rules/law state that they can’t be released for 100 years after the census.
The 1939 mini one was, I understand, to do with getting identity cards and ration books. If you access that one though be prepared for ‘redaction records’ where some have black lines through. However it is also interesting because it gives you updates on marriages etc. For example my birth mother in 1939 was living with her parents but then above it they have written her married name when she married my Dad in 1940. I found the 1939 gave more information sometimes than the census. You have to pay for the census as well but not 1939.


Also I found a lot of information from Local Family History groups. They have forums where you can ask questions and usually folk are very helpful. My maternal grandmother was from Norfolk. I joined the Norfolk LFH and found a whole family of cousins in Australia! They had been searching to find out where my Gran had gone after 1911 when she’d moved from London between 1901 & 1911, you can end up getting ‘hooked’ on it. :-) I originally started mine in about 1999 and with the Australian family ended up visiting them in 2004.

Just before last Christmas one of my Oz second cousins informed me of another of my grandmother’s illegitimate offspring he had found in Derbyshire. :-) It turned out that one of her great-grandchildren from that branch had been at school in Rochdale when I had been training teachers there!
Sorry, waffling on there but it can get fascinating. :-)

There’s a very helpful LFH group in Salford as well. Plus Salford Art Gallery building has a lot of records in there. You have to make an appointment though. Mind you that was before lockdown.
 
Last edited:
Eccles Blue said:
Apparently the rules/law state that they can’t be released for 100 years after the census.
The 1939 mini one was, I understand, to do with getting identity cards and ration books. If you access that one though be prepared for ‘redaction records’ where some have black lines through. However it is also interesting because it gives you updates on marriages etc. For example my birth mother in 1939 was living with her parents but then above it they have written her married name when she married my Dad in 1940. I found the 1939 gave more information sometimes than the census. You have to pay for the census as well but not 1939.


Also I found a lot of information from Local Family History groups. They have forums where you can ask questions and usually folk are very helpful. My maternal grandmother was from Norfolk. I joined the Norfolk LFH and found a whole family of cousins in Australia! They had been searching to find out where my Gran had gone after 1911 when she’d moved from London between 1901 & 1911, you can end up getting ‘hooked’ on it. :-) I originally started mine in about 1999 and with the Australian family ended up visiting them in 2004.

Just before last Christmas one of my Oz second cousins informed me of another of my grandmother’s illegitimate offspring he had found in Derbyshire. :-) It turned out that one of her great-grandchildren from that branch had been at school in Rochdale when I had been training teachers there!
Sorry, waffling on there but it can get fascinating. :-)

There’s a very helpful LFH group in Salford as well. Plus Salford Art Gallery building has a lot of records in there. You have to make an appointment though. Mind you that was before lockdown.
Click to expand...
That's brilliant Eccles. Thanks for the reply re the census.
 
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