Beginning family history research tips

[Airworld]

I was into researching my family history back in the 1990s (prior to a lot of records being online so using microfiche) and would like to start again so I was looking for some tips please on the best websites to use etc.

I would need records that also cover New Zealand as well as the UK, and I saw that Ancestry UK charge £20/month for international records, so I wondered if there are any other lesser known websites that don’t charge so much (and I don’t need to do that much research that this would not be worthwhile long-term.

Ancestry UK - is the 14-day trial easy to cancel or do they manage to lock you in somehow and make it difficult to cancel?

It'll be cheaper if you can buy a year's membership up front (£180, so £15 per month equivalent).

I use Ancestry and Find My Past. These are the main sites in the UK and ive been able to track ancestors who emigrated to US, Canada, Australia and NZ. Ancestry is easier to use and great for making suggestions/seeing others' family trees, but I prefer the search function on FMP. If you do the Ancestry DNA test, you can upload the results to other sites but not vice versa (apparently, I've not tried this). Try and build up a bit of a tree before doing a DNA test.

Be very wary of suggestions and don't assume anyone else's tree is accurate. Investigate them yourself, don't just accept them. I see so many errors!

Nothing much to add to what the PP said. As well as the annual membership then you can also do it three monthly for £50 (£16.66 per month)

Agree with previous. I would start off with either Find My Past or Ancestry, as there is a lot of crossover between the two. Also Familysearch which is free.

Before you leap in and start clicking, think about what you want to get out of it. Are you interested in getting as far back as you possibly can, just noting the basics of birth, marriage and death? Are you going to follow your direct line back only, or are you going to look at siblings too? Would you prefer to delve deeper into the lives of individual ancestors/relatives by looking into social history about where they lived, what they did for work, major events which affected them?

There is no one way of doing family history and it's very easy to get bogged down and sidetracked if you haven't got a clear research question. This question will change - you might start off with "who were the parents of X"? and once you've answered that, move on to something else.

And take anyone else's research with a bucketload of salt because many of the trees online are total rubbish.

If you do a DNA test with Ancestry they often do offers whereby you get a 3 month subscription bundled with it. I did this last month and got 3 months worldwide subscription for £1, which definitely includes Australia and NZ.

For New Zealand, you'll find these sites useful (free unless otherwise stated):

Historical births, marriages and deaths index
The free index gives brief details of each event, but if you need the full details you'll have to buy the certificate:
https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/Home/

Old NZ newspapers:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

NZ archives and research advice:
https://collections.archives.govt.nz/web/arena

War veterans archive:
https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/about-online-cenotaph

Electoral rolls (pay site):
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1836/

Ancestry's 14-day free trial is easy to cancel online BUT you need to cancel before the 14 days are up, otherwise the money is taken from your card.
I did actually forget to cancel a trial with another genealogy site (not Ancestry) once, and they did refund me, although they grumbled a bit.

You may well be able to access Ancestry and FindmyPast free at your local library; I think most of them offer that service.

@LordBuckley is right - I'd forgotten about that. Although I'm not too sure if it's "most"?

Where I live, it's only the main library in the city that has that and, even then, it's only available in the Archives Section (the library holds local archives and original documents etc) where you have to make an appointment - you can't just turn up - and you have to get a separate card to use the archives.