Simon Fowler - Tracing Your Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians

F or nearly four decades family history genealogy has been one of the fastest growing hobbies in Britain. Looking for ones ancestors is now an incredibly popular pastime perhaps a million people in Britain are engaged in the search, and another five million say that they would like to take up the hobby. Genealogy is the third most popular subject on the internet and data providers such as Ancestry and Findmypast are one of the few online businesses that make large profits.

You can be any age, creed, shape or size to start tracing your ancestors, although it is true to say that most researchers are retired or semi-retired. All you need to begin is an enquiring mind, a notebook and a sharp pencil. And having a computer and basic skills using the internet are now almost essential as well.

Family history is something that you can pick up or put down when it suits you. After all your ancestors are not going to disappear. How you tackle your research is up to you. There is no pressure to trace everybody you are descended from. Indeed, as you will discover it is nearly impossible to tick them all off. Most people end up only researching one side of their family or a few ancestors who particularly interest them. Others stop their research at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which is about when the records become more difficult to use (but rather more interesting).

There are just enough challenges and puzzles to solve to make tracing your ancestors stimulating and there is nothing quite like the buzz you will get when you finally managed to track down that elusive great-grandmother. And if one forebear seems to appear from nowhere and irritatingly disappears into the ether a few years later, well, there are plenty of other ancestors out there for you to find.

One of the great things about the pastime is how friendly and helpful most family historians are. If you become confused on your first visit to the National Archives or your local history library, the chance is that your neighbour at the microfilm reader will be only too pleased to point you in the right direction (actually stopping them without hurting their feelings can bea problem!). Genealogists are very sociable as you will find if you join a local family history society or beginners course at the adult education centre.

For some people family history leads them into totally new directions. A friend of mine has become the world expert in William Cuffey the nineteenth-century black radical leader. While another has spent years tracing the ancestry of the Bront sisters they proved to be rather more interesting than her own family! Does it matter? No it doesnt!

This book was intended as an update of Joys of Family History which I wrote for The National Archives, then the Public Record Office over ten years ago. However, the genealogical world and, in particular, the resources that we use in our research has changed almost beyond recognition over the past decade that almost nothing of the original text remains.

In particular the internet was then becoming increasingly important but nobody saw the impact it would have on family history. In this book I have assumed that you are online at home (or have an understanding employer) and that you are familiar with the basics of using the internet. If not, your local library may be able to help. So much is now available online it would be churlish to ignore these resources.