Nick Barratt - Nick Barratts Guide To Your Ancestors Lives

The Fleckney family, photographed in 1905, had five generations alive at the same time which was most unusual for the period.

A good place to start your research is collecting together any old letters and family photographs that may have been kept.

findmypast.co.uk and ancestry.co.uk will both prove invaluable in your research.

Marriage and death certificates can provide clues to your ancestors lives.

The 1911 census can provide information about where your ancestors lived and with whom.

A will, pre-1858. Often wills from this period would include instructions for the disposal of the body, sometimes giving details for the location of the burial.

The National Archives website, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk, contains the Access to Archives (A2A) database. This can be used to find archives held locally in England and Wales.

War memorials such as this can be found in most villages and towns across the UK. They list men from the area who fought and lost their lives.

Chances are that some of your ancestors will have worked in a profession that generated employment records, such as coal mining.

Unveiling of the war memorial in Dodworth, Barnsley on 13 May 1923.

A page from the service record of Horace Sydney Dickens, providing details of the surviving members of his family. The form was completed by his widow Louisa in July 1919.

You can search and download over 600,000 service records for those who joined the Royal Navy between 1853 and 1923.

Service records of RAF Officers that served prior to 1922 and Airmen that served prior to 1924 are held at The National Archives. Service records for Officers and Airmen that served after these dates are retained by the Royal Air Force.

Schoolchildren photographed in the late 1920s.

From left to right: Distinguished Service Order (DSO), the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal, the Allied Victory Medal, Second World War Medal, the Coronation Medal, Lgion dHonneur.

A workhouse for the poor, 1906.

A northern town in around 1900.