WATCH OUT FOR PITFALLS

Go online

Sites such as ancestry.com and findmypast.co.uk are great places to start. You can set up a family tree for free, and register. If you want to take research further, you’ll need to subscribe. There’s also a free family history website called familysearch. org run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – part of Mormon religious practice is to research family history, so they invest a lot of money in digitisation and transcription. They make all of their records free online. You can find transcriptions of census records by using the FamilySearch website.

Trace foreign ancestors

If the country of heritage was part of the British Empire, there are usually records.

For example, the website Findmypast has records from the British Raj from 1698 to 1947. If you’ve got Jamaican family, familysearch.org is a fantastic resource and has a lot of Jamaican records up there for free. Americans have always been interested in family history. Any countries that have seen a large amount of migration over to the States, often put their records online because there is such a demand.

Check newspapers

The digitisation of newspapers means you can add colour to your search. Look on findmypast. co.uk or british newspaperarchive. co.uk to find out the day someone married – there may have been a notice in the local paper. Perhaps they won an award, or were involved in some kind of misdemeanour? These stories can give a human face to family history.

Consider DNA testing Advances in DNA testing have meant that the quality of results has improved. You can take a test which narrows down a particular region or county in the UK. From the family history perspective, you can see who shares DNA with you, and get in contact with them! This can really help if you find yourself in a dead-end, for example, if there was an informal adoption with no paperwork. ancestry.co.uk/dna has more than 20 million people on their database, or try myheritage. com. Although it has a smaller database it’s particularly strong in continental Europe.

Most researchers find it relatively easy to get back to the 1830s. That’s because civil registration began in 1837 for England and Wales, and a little later for Scotland. The first census that had names on it is from 1841. Then it starts to get trickier because you’re relying on parish registers. You might come across John, son of John and Mary Smith, baptised in 1802 in a particular parish. Be very careful not to start researching someone else’s family by mistake. Be cautious!

■ For more advice, visit whodoyouthinkyouare magazine.com