My search for my ancestors - page 2

I got started by talking to my father about his father and grandfather. From this I got the name, date and place of birth of my grandfather. Then using the 1901 Census I managed to get his father and mothers details. Using this I found their approximate date of birth and was able to order their birth certificates and find their father and mother's names. I repeated this back through the census returns for all the years going back to 1841. You can see how do do this by looking at the Census page of this site.

Using mostly this method and a few visits to places they lived, I have traced one branch of my family back to the 1600's and the remainder back to the late 1700's (using the resources and links on this website). Going back to the 1700's was often possible using entirely online links but sometimes the visit to was the only way to find an illusive ancestor.

I have found that people researching their family history seem to be a very friendly and helpful bunch and am very grateful for the help given to me by people I "met" through GenesReunited who also had some of my distant family in their trees.

Along the way, I discovered a lot of social history that really brought my ancestors to life. It's amazing how emotional it is to read about their hardships even though they lived hundreds of year before I was born!

You can see a list of some the names in my family tree with the and place of their birth here