Family History Resources

Births had to be registered from 1837 onwards. However, in most cases you'll be able and desire to go back beyond that date, but you'll need to start...

We're born, we live and then we die. That might sound particularly gloomy, but along the way we leave traces of ourselves, and those are the pieces...

In genealogy terms, most of us are the descendants of immigrants, even if we don't think of ourselves that way. Some just arrived more recently than...

It might seem a strange topic to consider, but it's one that's important to genealogy: the first public graveyards didn't open until 1827. Before...

Family histories can be full of hidden clues. The trick is understanding what they mean and unravelling the mystery behind them. That’s not always...

When you begin researching your family tree one of the first things you need to know is where to look for genealogy information. These days there are...

There have been censuses in Britain for two centuries, since the first one was held - after much acrimonious debate about privacy - in 1801....

It wasn't until 1880 that local authorities had to ensure that children in their area were suitably educated, although a number had been doing that...

Heraldry, or armoury, to give it its proper name, is one of the oldest European ways of differentiating families. Its origins lie in the Middle...

Almost everyone has read a newspaper of some kind at some point. Many of us read a paper every day, and we’d be lost without them. But apart from...

The Protestation was an oath meant to avert Civil War in England in the 1640s. Its legacy is the closest we come to a listing of all adult males in...

For most people, trying to assemble a family tree is a long, often complicated process that involves going through endless records from any number...

Britain has a history of immigration – if you can go back in your own family tree far enough, the odds are that in your distant ancestry your...

The two world wars saw huge numbers of people serving in the different branches of the military. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the King's...

The meat and drink of genealogy might be names, dates and relationships, but there’s more to it than that. Photographs can, quite literally, fill...

Every family has its family history, and family stories are part of that history. Some might be quite straightforward, about an unusual, eccentric...

Along with birth and death certificates, marriage certificates are the real meat and potatoes of genealogy research. One of the great joys of them is...

When you begin your genealogy search into your family history, especially if you begin online, you'll be looking through sources that have almost...