Newbie help needed

[way2serious]

I am literally just beginning to explore my family history so please excuse the silly questions but am hoping others with more experience and knowledge may be able to help.
so far I have only used the Free BMD website and so only have very basic bits of information. I have traced my grandparents on both sides so how do I find out any siblings that they may have had or even their parents? Can anyone recommend an idiot’s guide or a basic steps guide? I don’t really have much money to spend on this process so any recommendations for other free or low cost resources would be good to.

Thank you

Assuming you are in the UK, you need to look at census records, which start in 1841. The most recent to have been released are 1921 and a special census taken in 1939, when WWII broke out. By searching on the names of your grandparents (maiden name for your grandmothers), you will be able to see which censuses they appear in. Once you have accessed the census, they will be listed alongside all the other members of the household. You can access the census records through Ancestry or Find My Past by paying to subscribe to all the records they hold (registers of births, marriages and death, passenger lists and armed forces records). Local libraries and the National Archive at Kew offer free access to census and other records.

@IdaGlossop Thank you. That’s really helpful. Which one of the two websites you mentioned would you recommend subscribing to?

You can try the free Family Search site. They also have some introductory tutorials. Only the 1881 census is available but lots of births, marriage and death info.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/united-kingdom/

Also, search to see if your local area has any local history sites. I do a lot of research in Lancashire so use this. See if you can find something similar covering your area.
https://www.lan-opc.org.uk/indexp.html

Libraries have free access to the subscription services (Ancestry etc). May not be as comprehensive as the paid for but should give you access to census information.

if you are using free bmd you can search for siblings born after 1911 because they started to include mothers maiden name. For example, if I search for my mum it comes up with her mum's maiden name as well. I can then search for any births with those two surnames and should get results for my aunt and uncles. There may be others with the same two names but then you can narrow it down by location and dates.

Look out for free trials with companies such as Ancestry.