KEY SOURCES

FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY JOURNALS

Family history societies will often produce a monthly or quarterly journal, featuring articles about members’ research.

Some may keep an index of past articles, allowing you to track down back issues relevant to your interests, while others – such as the Isle of Wight Family History Society ( isle- of-wight- fhs.co.uk) – also allow members to access digitised copies online.

ONLINE FORUMS

As with journals, fellow family historians may have previously discussed the same ancestors you are researching on a forum.

Ancestry’s Message Boards ( ancestry.co.uk/boards), which incorporate forum discussions from rootsweb. com, contain over 25 million threads dating all the way back to the 1990s. Other free forums, such as whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/forum, are also worth searching if you’re trying to find clues about an elusive ancestor.

ORAL HISTORY

The British Library is home to

one of the world’s largest oral history archives, featuring recordings of interviews with people from all walks of life ( bl.uk/collection- guides/ oral- history).

If you’re looking for help and advice about collecting and preserving oral histories for yourself, your main port of call should be the Oral History Society ( ohs.org.uk).