Genealogy Chat

how do i find where my g g grandad and g g grand mother came from when i dont know their names or were they came from.how do i find birth deaths and marrages i know that my g grandad and grandma were levi and annie .

Work back though certificates. Marriage certificates name the father and ages of the happy couple and birth certificates give names of parents. Get some certs (£7 each of you know the GRO number) for your g/grandparents and this will make it easier to track down earlier certs or census records. FreeBMD is good for pre-1901 records and 1837online will fill in any gaps (thoguh it can get pricey if you don't know rough dates).

Heather In genealogy (as in everything else) you go from what you know to what you don't know. So starting with you - your birth cert will give your parents' names. Your parents' wedding cert will give their fathers' names. Your parents' birth certs will give their parents' names. Once you have got back to 1901 you can look on the census to find the family. The census will tell you where everyone in the family was born, and where they were living on census night. Births, marriages and deaths are all indexed and available on microfiche at libraries, at the Family Record Centre, or increasingly on FreeBMD online (though this is not yet complete). Go to your homepage, scroll down to Genealogy Resources and click on "Getting Started" for more info about certificates and censuses. Please ask again if you aren't sure what to do next. nell

All i would add to what has gone before is to quiz all living relatives as they can give you clues - names, locations, times, occupations etc. The more clues you can put together the easier is to know that you are finding the correct people when you go for certificates/census entries. I should point out that certificates are the ultimate prize (albeit post Civil Reg) for a genealogist. Census entries (1901 or before) are extremely useful but can be inaccurate which emphasises the need to cross reference with other sources (other censuses/certificates etc). Also one really useful trick is to log everything you've looked at. One fatal error I made when I first started was to only log the sources of where I found things (so not logging places where I hadn't found things). This will save wasted effort covering things you've already done. Be warned, once you go back a generation you get addicted and become hell bent on going back another generation and so and so forth! Jonathan

Dont lose heart or give up. I am now 55 and have been doing my family history on and off for about 10 years. Pick it up and put it down sort of thing. I have now got all the births, marriages and deaths for my great grandparents, grandparents and parents, and some of my gg grandparents, but I am still working on those. One lot went to Canada, so that doesnt make it easy. I have also started on my finaces tree, so I am kept pretty busy, not to mention poor, after buying so many certificates. Just spent 84 pound today. Keep it up, it is very rewarding in the end.

One other thing Heather. When you get a bit further back, and most of your ancestors were from one area, it could be helpful to join the local family history society. I found them a great help.