Genealogy Chat

Lisa This would be very good advice for someone starting out. You may not get too many replies because (hopefully) you are preaching to the converted. But I have made a note of your title in case anyone asks the question in the future. Unfortunately these messages soon get pushed off the first page and are probably not read after a couple of days. cheers Ann

New at this - looking for ancestors .... where do you start. . this is how i started: (In my opinion) the best place to start is with relatives, I contacted my parents and grandparents and asked what they knew of their mum and dad, what schools they went to, where they lived as a child, if they had any old certificates and usually they would know when their parents were born, birth dates etc... all the info helps, builds up a picture. my grandmother was born 1918, we figured her mother would have been 20-30 years older than her - presuming this she would be found in the 1901 census, the census showed siblings and parents. 1901 census (www.pro.gov.uk) 20 years earlier would have the next generation back and they are found in the 1881 census 1881 census)www.familysearch.org this possibly gives you more siblings and also parents again and an address, an area where you can work from. Familysearch website also has lots of other details on it, if you search "all resources" then births and marriages can also be located. (sometimes they are not there) another good site for looking up births and marriages is FREEBMD, they have dates 1837-1902. not all people were baptised officially and not all transcripts have yet been copied and you have to remeber that the entry is only as good as the person writing it. My great great grandparents did not go to school and his marriage certificate was signed with a cross, the information cant have been checked, so we just trust that the person filled it in could spell well. some of my surnames have been mispelt in several documents so its worth looking for other similar names if your leads turn up with nothing. some areas have family records centers or local history librarys, they are worth looking at and can give you background info on an area, some local/family history centers have copies of other census extracts (i.e 1851/61 etc) and useful information. Its worth posting a brief message on the message board sites, there are a few the main ones are ANCESTRY.COM and GENFORUM, also we now have GENESCONNECTED. post some brief info and wait and see if anyone contacts you. good luck in your searching. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------