Genealogy Chat

Thanks for the advice everyone. Judith - I have tried your method and come up with a result already - great advice, thanks ever so much! I think I will have to ration myself to buying two certificates a month - otherwise this hobby will be far too expensive! Thanks again everyone for the advice Lindsey

My idea is, of course, not an alternative to buying certificates but at least for me it narrowed down the choice of which certificates to order Judith

You will need to find the marriages. The alternative to buying certificates is to look in the parish registers or Bishops transcripts, if these are available at a record office you can access.

The best way to trace ANY family tree is by buying ALL the relevant certs going BACKWARDS from yourself, otherwise how can you prove that the tree you are following is yours and not somebody else's tree? Janet

Hi Lyndsey, This has worked for me a few times: Look on Free BMD for marriage. If you're lucky and find it you can click page number for others on page. If you're even more lucky and all the names have been indexed for that quarter there should be either (I think) 3male/3 female or more recently 2male/2female names. So one of those chaps should be your relative's spouse. Now go to next available census, look for each of these chaps and see if their spouse has the right christian name, age, birthplace. NOT foolproof but worth a try! Judith

I am finding it fairly easy to trace the male line of my family but not so easy to find the female line, ie who they married! Is there a way to do this without buying a marriage certificate for every person. (Particularly those before 1900) Any tips greatly appreciated.