I’ve done most of my research using the internet and have managed to trace both sides of my family back at least 5 generations to the early 1800s using a combination of births, marriage and death certificates and census information. Civil registration of births, marriage and deaths started in 1837, so, in theory, it is relatively easy to trace your ancestors back to then.

I’ve mainly used the Family Records Office website www.familyrecords.co.uk to obtain copies of certificates as it can supply copies of certificates for the whole of England & Wales and I could order them online. To use this online ordering facility I have to supply specific information to identify the certificate I want – the General Register Office (GRO) index reference. The Family Records Office won’t issue a certificate without this information. I have used a number of different ways to find out the GRO index references for the certificates I wanted to order. The cheapest is to use the website freebmd.rootsweb.com This brilliant website is run by volunteers who have copied many of the GRO indexes to a massive database which can be searched easily online. The only draw back is that not all the GRO indexes have been put on yet so sometimes the person I was looking for wasn’t there. The next options cost. Wolverhampton Archives (Wolverhampton Archives & Local Studies Centre, 42-50 Snow Hill, Wolverhampton) have a complete set of the GRO indexes on microfiche which are free to look at but you have to pay to use the microfiche reader – it cost me £2 for 2 hours and I managed to check about 10 years worth of indexes in that 2 hours. The other way I’ve done it is to use www.findmypast.com This site costs approx 10p to view one page from one volume of an index. When I’m sure of the date of a birth or marriage I use this site as it works out cheaper than paying for parking in Wolverhampton and to use the microfiche reader at Wolverhampton Archives.

I started by getting birth certificates for my 4 grandparents as I knew when and where they were born. As well as giving the name, date and place of birth of the child, birth certificates also record the parents’ names, including the mother’s maiden name, the father’s occupation and the address of the informant (which is usually one of the parents). So by getting birth certificates for my 4 grandparents I found out who my 8 great grandparents were. Armed with this information I was then able to find marriage certificates for my great grandparents. Marriage certificates include on them the age of the bride and groom so using that information I could then look for birth certificates for these people. Using the information on these certificates I could then research the proceeding generation and so on.

Sound easy huh? Well sometimes it is as straight forward as this but sometimes my ancestors moved around and weren’t born where I thought they had been and some had common surnames so there were dozens of possible matches in the GRO indexes. My great grandfather Charles William Dewfall had an unusual name so should have been easy to find. The only match I could find was born in Bristol but I knew he had been married in London. Did he move to London to get married or was I on the wrong track? And then there was my other great grandfather, William Wheeler. There are dozens of William Wheelers in the GRO index but which was mine. The only way to find out was to look at census information.