jajpe

HI this is all a bit weird as it is something I have started looking at just recently too! Father in law got a really good wee programme of the net and I then got one too for £8.95. Makes it easier to organise and view all the info and the website also seems to hold lots of records and stuff which you can order if interested.

The website is www.twrcomputing.co.uk and the cd is Family Tree Maker v9. Seems to be sufficient for most needs and great value for money as postage is free and mine arrived the next day!!

Hope this is of some help!

MrsDagboy

Hi Sue,

It can seem pretty daunting when you first want to start something like this as you often dont have any clue where to start. My suggestions below .

Start at the beginning ie yourself! Get a pad & write down the facts about yourself ie where you were born, baptised, went to school etc etc. And your mum & dads names.

Then go to mum & dad. Ask them the same questions, date & place of marriage? date of birth of all their kids? where & when they were born? names & dates of birth of their brothers & sisters? names of their mum & dad (your grandparents)? Do they know where their mum & dad were born? Anything they remember about their life growing up? etc
From that you should be able to order (if they dont have them) the relevant certificates. ie their marriage certificate & their birth certificates. Most people in this day & age usually have a copy of these anyway (govts are notorious for wanting that sort of thing for every reason under the sun!), so if they already have them thats a bonus. But dont forget the other stuff ie brothers & sisters etc & also dont be surprised if you find out something that you arent expecting. My mum got a copy of her birth certificate & found out that she had celebrated her birthday on the wrong day for 65 years! Whooooops .

Once you have all that info & the certificates, double check the info (as I said, its sometimes wrong LOL) & start all over again, but this time with your grandparents. Hopefully if they are still alive you will get a whole heap of info from them. DONT NEGLECT THIS BIT!! A harsh reality of life is that people tend to die without notice & any info that you can get is worth every second. Tapes work very well, take a video or tape recorder with you & just start asking them questions about themselves & their lives when they were younger. You'll be surprised how much info they will remember. If they have certificates, well & good, if not then start the 20 questions routine again . Where were you born? Date? What were your parents names(your great grandparents)? Do they know where they were married? Born? etc. You get the idea

You can sit looking at sites & indexes for hours online, looking up names etc, but until you actually start from the beginning & get a few certificates & facts to work with you may well be chasing your tail. As scot mentioned earlier, its amazing how many people only believe what they want to believe when it comes to tracing family trees & head off on completely the wrong tangent because they dont/wont verify information.

To start with all you need to do is write all this info down into a large pad or something (make sure its sturdy!) & organise it so that you know whats what. Also get a couple of printed pedigree charts (they are the ones that most people think of as *family trees*, they have your details, then your parents details, your grandparents etc going back in a *tree* format) & some printed family group record charts. These are alot more detailed, they start off at the top with a pair of parents & after the details of their life you fill in all their children, their dates of birth, marriages etc. These are the bread & butter of a genealogists life. Dont be tempted to get huge fancy family tree charts etc, it soon gets too complicated for things like that! Keep it simple. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) have excellent charts & genealogy accessories (like the International Genealogy Index which I have already mentioned in this thread & is available online), they are excellent! You can usually get them from local genealogy societies, they are possibly available online, Ive never looked, I just photocopy blank ones of mine when I need more. If you cant get any let me know & I will scan one & send it to you. If I get a chance later I will look on google.

Software programs are also excellent, but you have to do the legwork first! I have always found it easier to have both a hard (written) copy as well as a computer version. Of course when I first started (back in about 1987), computers werent even thought of as a household item, so maybe Im biased . But always remember that harddrives crash & floppies & cds can be destroyed, so I always think its better to keep an updated copy in another format. FWIW, I use Legacy, which was free for the standard edition & about $20 if you wanted to upgrade to the delux edition. I never bothered! The standard edition has been fine for me. Its available here Legacy Family Tree . As jajpe mentioned theres also others like Family Tree Maker & a whole heap out there. Its up to you. Just remember, its hard to cart a computer around with you when you start traipsing around to see grandparents & to the PRO & St Catherines etc looking for those elusive clues .

Anyway, thats how I started, about 15 years later (with a few breaks here & there not doing much because of other things being more pressing), Im still going. Hope this helps

tiredwithtwins

Hi Mrs D & Shirley,
Thank you for all the info!!
I kinda started as you said - starting with me and my brother, dates and places of birth, then went on to mum and dad - which is where the problem starts!! both born here, but wont talk about anyone else in the family!! cant talk to dad as we dont keep in touch, but mum muttered something about irish tinkers and the change in the spelling of her surname and thats about as much info as I can get out of her!! From what I can gather we are descendents of tinkers - if this is the case have I hit a dead end? Can I just use her birth certificate and trace it back from there? Am I right in thinking I can order these certificates online from the PRO?
Sorry so many questions, it just seems like such a huge task which I have a feeling I cant take much further than my grandparents!! My dads family were gypsies, altho he was born here, but after that its all a bit murky! (There was a family bible at one point, but he took that with him when he moved away!)

Hope you dont mind me asking so many questions - it must be absolutely fascinating to discover hidden secrets and family members!!!!

Sue

MrsDagboy

Not had much experience with tinkers & gypsies LOL.

Main thing are the certificates, presumably they must have copies, if not, as I said order them. Over here you must have permission from anyone still living to get certificates or they do it themselves, once dead a simple note enclosed with the application simply stating you want the cert for family research purposed suffices. I presume it will be similar over there. Try again to talk to your mum & see what you can find out. She may be more forthcoming if you keep on persisting (but gently!!!!!!!). Dont forget to write anything down that you find out matter how small! Good luck

tiredwithtwins

hi mrs d!!!
Wellll!!!
talk about opening floodgates!!
casually threw into conversation about 2 hours ago about how I was just chatting to a friend who had just traced their family tree, and bingo!! The old bean started rattling on about great uncle harold, aunty florence and just about everyone going back to about 1890!! she has now gone off to look for all the old documents she has kept in a box ''a shoebox?'' asks I - ''oh no dear, theres a suitcase full in the loft...just going for it now''
it will be a shoebox, but how exciting!!!

will let you know how we get on!!

sue

MrsDagboy

Sue it is the most exciting feeling in the world when older relatives start pulling out *shoeboxes* full of old certificates & newspaper cuttings & documents! Just dont forget to make NOTES either when shes talking about Uncle Tom, Dick & Harry or when shes telling you what all the docos are. Makes it much easier later on.

Well done & congratulations!!!!!! Great job!

The Koalas

Sue
Before I left UK to go to OZ in 1997 I sat talikng with my partners Gran and she was nearly 90. I casually asked her about her husband and his family etc and she really opened up told me things not even the family knew, things like thier Grandad was not really their Grandad and that she had an affair with a rich Russain who came over to Wales and she had a daughter from an affair with him and it just went on from there. Found out all kinds of weird and wonderful truths. Made me realise that today people do something and usualy others will know the secret, back in them days a secret was kept with one person. Mrs B died in 2000 and a lot of her secrets died with her but just goes to show that what is on a brth cert is not usualy the truth.

The Koalas

I was just wandering about tracking someone down. I have started my Family tree and was thinking about finding members of my family/ relatives in the UK. How on earth can someone go about tracking someone down with just an old address? Is it possible to do this? I have been told there is software that can find people. As well as finding a couple of my Fathers brothers I myself would love to trace an old friend of mine who I have not seen in 15 years before I go back to OZ any ideas?????
This family tree thing is very adictive, my Brother in law in New Zealand is now tracing his family tree.

Larissa

I was just thinking of writing a letter to my great aunt - in her 80s now. I felt a bit put off the tracing as it seemed to get more and more expensive... anyone else had any luck?

Pollster

We did that when I was a kid and discovered that my great great great (continue ad infinitum) was a captain on one of the first boats to take the convicts out to OZ.

Another relative ( according to my mum who is very into this type of thing) is responsible for the naming of The Catlin's (my family name before I got married and had to include Maybury in there, too) in NZ - when we visited there the chappie in the shop/booth thingie got all excited and asked Dad to sign all these bits of paper and certificates and things.

Dad always said he would put a claim in for the land but never got round to it!!

lesleys

There's been a lot of publicity here about www.1837online.com recently.
Was the Mormon one mentioned the same as the this - www.familysearch.org

Sandy.l

Have you tried the Salvation Army, they offer a service. If they are close relatives they will help you.

I'm not sure about the 'People finding searches', I'd be a bit wary, as they obviously will charge, probably a ridiculous amount for information that may be out-dated, for example voters rolls etc. I'd ask a lot of questions first.

I am also into genealogy, I've got back to 1600's on most of my mum's lines, but I've never got anywhere with my dad's. He was abandoned by his father after his mother was supposed to have died, brought up in a childrens home in Staveley, near Kendal. I have his birth certificate which has their names. I can't find a record of a marriage or any record of her death. I have considered using the Sally army myself, but haven't got round to it yet.

http://www1.salvationarmy.org/

good luck

sandy

ps: also try http://genforum.genealogy.com/

it's basically a surname message board, useful if you know the region you are searching, you might find someone searching similar info.

Pollster

Sounds like you have to be VERY determined and persistent to do all this - I feel daunted just reading about it and I have no need to do it as my mum is doing it at the mo

Keep us updated on any interesting findings - some of us might end up being related to each other!! :scared: