Epsom Family History Group

Epsom Family History Group

 Don't expect to complete your search in a few weeks, and remember that there will be certain expenses - you'll probably have to pay for some documents, and you might need to spend money on travel, stamps and phone calls .

Inevitably your search with begin with your nearest and dearest. Talk to as many of your relatives as possible; not only your parents and grandparents but other branches of the family such as cousins, uncles and aunts. You may find that another relative is already researching your family history, and you could pool your information. Start collecting material about your family - including birth, marriage and death certificates, photographs, diaries and letters. All of these will help you build up a picture of your relatives. With older relations, you will need to be quite patient and you may need to speak to them several times to jog their memories. Photograph albums, letters, and family Bibles may help trigger reminiscences. And don't forget to ask if you can look at any family letters or possessions which may help you in your search. Be most meticulous about recording all the information you get, and its source, otherwise you may lose track of it. And remember that memories can be faulty, and you will need to double-check dates and names. It's also useful to tape-record reminiscences so you know you've recorded accurately what you've been told.

Once you've talked to your relatives and got as much detail from them as possible, turn to official sources of information. All births. marriages and deaths in England and Wales since 1st July 1837 are recorded at the Family Records Centre in London . You can look through the index free of charge, but for the full biographical details - including parents, occupation and so on - you'll need to buy a certificate, which costs £6 and takes four days to prepare. In Scotland, records date from 1855 and you will need to apply to New Register House in Edinburgh. For Northern Ireland, records from 1922 onwards go to the General Register Office in Belfast or, for certificates dating from 1864 to 1922, to the General Register Office in Dublin . If you are methodical, you can extract a great deal of information from the civil register by working backwards Start off with a known fact, such as the date of your grandmother's birth; from her birth certificate, you'll be able to get her parents' names. Then by looking up their marriage certificate, you can find their dates of birth. Remember that in the early days of civil registration some details were rather sketchy. and that the ages on death and marriage certificates are not always accurate. Exact ages were much less important in the past than they are now.

The census has been carried out every ten years since 1841, and the details are released 100 years later. You can therefore consult the census returns for 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891, which record, street by street, who is living in each household, their relationship to each other, ages. occupations and birthplaces. The 1841 census doesn't record relationships or places of birth. Once you know where some of your relatives were living 100 years ago or more, you'll find that the census is a wonderful source of information, and you can start to build up a real picture of how your ancestors lived. The census will tell you who was living under one roof in that particular year and, if you're lucky, this will include several generations all at once! By looking at successive census returns, you can trace the family's progression. All census returns for England, Wales. the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are held by the Family Records Centre in London; in Scotland at New Register House in Edinburgh. Your local county record office or library may well have a copy of the census for your area.

If your search takes you back to the time before civil registration in the early part of the 19th century, you'll want to consult parish registers, as baptisms, marriages and burials then were recorded by individual churches rather than in a central register. Start by consulting the local priest or minister in the area where your relatives lived; if you're lucky, the church may still hold the records. if not, they may have been deposited in the local county record office. (in some cases, local family history societies are compiling indexes of all the county's parish registers which you may be able to consult. The Family Records Centre has many nonconformist registers from England and Wales. The Society of Genealogists in London has the largest collection of indexes of all parish registers, in the country. Another invaluable source of information is the International Genealogical Index compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons. This contains about 80 million baptisms and marriages from parish registers between 1538 and 1875, arranged alphabetically in county sections. Anyone can look at this register at their local Mormon branch library; check the phone book for details. Their records also cover entries world-wide, so if your ancestors were born, married or died abroad. this could be of great help to you.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormons, has begun to put its genealogical database on-line. It has the world's largest collection of genealogical data which it has collated over the last 100 years . The on-line project initially puts 400 million names on-line, with more to follow. Tracing your ancestry is encouraged by the church. The site has proved immensely popular , getting 500 hits a second and requiring extra servers to be brought in. You can find the site at http://www.familysearch.org

You can get a lot of useful and unexpected information from your ancestors' wills. which are often much more informative than death certificates. They'll give you an idea of how wealthy or broke!) your relatives were, and the names of the executors and beneficiaries in the will could give you some intriguing clues about other branches of the family. Copies of wills dating back to 1858 can be seen at local county record offices, or you can see them at the Principal Registry of the Family Division at Somerset House in London.

Each county has at least one record office: you may need a readers' ticket to use it. A record office can provide you With a treasure trove of data, including maps. trade directories, newspapers, records of local businesses and landowners, as well as details of schools, and lists of apprentices in various professions. Local libraries can also be a mine of information.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormons, has begun to put its genealogical database on-line. It has the world's largest collection of genealogical data which it has collated over the last 100 years . The on-line project initially puts 400 million names on-line, with more to follow. Tracing your ancestry is encouraged by the church. The site has proved immensely popular , getting 500 hits a second and requiring extra servers to be brought in. You cna find the site at http://www.familysearch.org

If you want to meet other people who are compiling their family trees, then join your local family history society. Contact the Federation of Family History Societies or look for a listing in your phone book. Most of the societies organise meetings and produce journals. and they are also carrying out useful work in indexing registers of census returns and births, marriages and deaths in their county. You may also want to join the Society of Genealogists, although you can use their library for a small fee without becoming a member. However, if you join the, quarterly Genealogists', Magazine, and you can borrow books, microfilms and microfiche. Many family history societies will have lists of the families on which members are working; and the Society of Genealogists also, keeps an index of them, so you may find your research overlaps with that of a long-lost relative!

Placing an advert asking for information in the local paper of the town your relatives came from can pay dividends. Or you could advertise in one of the specialist family history magazines stocked by larger newsagents.

Public record offices all have different opening times, fees and arrangements for research visits, so if you have to travel far, make enquires first.

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These pages were created by Geoffrey Walker