If you’ve had a look at our Getting Started page and can’t wait to continue your family history journey, then you’re ready to follow these next steps to finding your ancestors…
Birth, marriage and death certificates
You can work back from the present to the past using birth and marriage certificates. Start with your birth certificate. It’ll give your parents’ names, including your mother’s maiden name. Other details shown include your place of birth, your parents’ address and father’s occupation (latterly mother’s too).
Using your parents’ names (as found on your birth certificate), search in the marriage indexes sometime around/before your birth (or that of older siblings) to find their names and marriage date. Then, if necessary, you can order their marriage certificate using the reference found in the index. In this way, work backwards through the generations, using a birth certificate, then a marriage certificate back to 1837. This is the first year that civil registration of births, marriages and deaths took place in England and Wales (for Scotland it was 1855, and for Ireland 1864). Once you are back to the time of the first available census (see below), you may find using a combination of the birth, marriage and death indexes and the census useful.
Of course, this strategy only works when our ancestors obeyed the rules – getting married and then actually registering the births of their children… but life is not always that simple!
A death certificate may not help you to trace your family back in the way that birth and marriage certificates can, but it may offer additional information such as a cause of death, the informant’s name and the deceased’s last address, which can all aid your research.
You can search the indexes for birth, marriage and death records online. Sites to try include www.bmdindex.co.uk, www.thegenealogist.co.uk, www.ancestry.co.uk, www.findmypast.co.uk and www.familyrelatives.com for England and Wales, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk for Scotland, and, for Ireland, www.familysearch.org. For free index material for England and Wales try www.freebmd.org.uk.
Ordering a certificate
Always order certificates from the official bodies below to avoid paying inflated prices charged by some commercial companies.
- To order a certificate online, for a birth, marriage or death in England or Wales, go to www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates, or write to Certificate Services Section, General Register Office, PO Box 2, Southport PR8 2JD. Certificates cost £9.25 per copy.
- To order a certificate for Eire, or for all Ireland up to 1921, go to www.groireland.ie/apply_for_a_cert.htm (€10, plus €2 postage).
- To order a certificate for Northern Ireland after 1922, go to www.nidirect.gov.uk/gro or write to The General Register Office, Oxford House, 49-55 Chichester Street, Belfast BT1 4HL, cheques payable to ‘The Registrar-General’ (£14).
- To order an official extract from the Scottish registers, write to New Register House, Edinburgh EH1 3YT, Scotland, cheques payable to ‘The Registrar General’ (£15). Or visit ScotlandsPeople for the earlier dates (£10 per extract).
Census records
Censuses have occurred every 10 years in the UK and Ireland since 1801 and can help you find out what your ancestors did in the decades in between being born, getting married and dying.
The first census of broad use to family historians is the 1841 Census. It included all the adults and children in each household, providing you with their names, ages, occupations, the address, and whether born in the census county. From the 1851 Census the relationship to the head of household was included, as were more specific details about the place of birth.
The most recent census available to family historians in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland is the 1911 Census. Unfortunately, in Ireland the vast majority of earlier censuses have been destroyed, but you can search both the 1911 and 1901 Census for all Ireland.
For census indexes and images online check www.thegenealogist.co.uk, www.ancestry.co.uk, www.findmypast.co.uk, and www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. Also try www.freecen.org.uk. For the Irish 1901 and 1911 Censuse see www.census.nationalarchives.ie.
Parish records
The registers of baptisms, marriages and burials, as kept by parish churches, are vital for marking the start and end of our ancestors’ lives, and the joining of family trees by marriage. Before civil registration of births, marriages and deaths began in Victorian times, these parish registers are the source that will help you build your family tree. By finding the baptism of an ancestor, with the father’s name (although father’s name will not always appear on the baptisms of illegitimate children), and from later dates the mother’s name too, you can start to branch backwards through the generations, looking for the entry of their marriage in the registers.
Parish registers continue to record baptisms, marriages and burials and can still be useful if you are unable to find someone in the civil registration records. Although the coverage varies significantly for parish registers through the centuries, the 1500s onwards are fairly well covered.
Useful sites to search parish registers include www.thegenealogist.co.uk, www.findmypast.co.uk, www.ancestry.co.uk and www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. If your ancestors were Nonconformist then try www.bmdregisters.co.uk. For Ireland try www.rootsireland.ie and www.irishgenealogy.ie. For free online access to many baptism, marriage and burial records, search www.familysearch.org. Online parish register collections are growing rapidly, so do check back at websites, to see whether your area has been uploaded.
There are useful maps (again free to access and online) at http://maps.familysearch.org, which you may browse to view parish boundaries and much more. Local record offices hold the parish registers for their localities; alternatively try the Society of Genealogists, which has the largest collection of parish registers in a single place.
Advanced searching
As you become more experienced you’ll be looking at resources such as military service records, passenger lists, wills, electoral rolls, phone books, trade directories, tax records and more… but that’s another story, which you can continue reading in every issue of Family Tree magazine.
