Family Tree - anyone doing theirs ? How're you getting on ?

[mojomummy]

I've started to do ours ( mine & DH) & am a bit frustrated with the general lack of info from our families.

Is anyone else tracing theirs ? how are you getting on & where are you finding the quickest, easiest & cheapest ways to get info ?

Thanks

mojomummy - none of the actual marriage birth or death certificates are online - just the indexes - unfortunately.

If you mail me the details of who you are looking for - all the names and dates you have I will see if I can find anything or point you to any good direction.

julie at highfields1 dot plus dot com

Mojomummy - good luck. It gets really maddening when you get the bug but can't find someone doesn't it?

My Mum is in Family History Society & has done her side of the family in entirety back 200 years so I never really bothered before because it was all done. But I'm currently trying to find my partner's tree because he knows very little. (His Dad died 10 years ago and there's noone else on that side we can ask that might remember anything).

I agree with Mercy that freebmd is good:
\link{http://freebmd.rootsweb.com\free bmd} - at least you can see records & then just pay if you want to order the certificate. No data post 1901 census on any of them though.

Don't forget local records offices should let you go in and look for free - but obviously that's not much use if your ancestors are all over the place!

pssst (whispers), I've gotten back earlier than 1599, but that's because I'm American and descended from the Mayflower pilgrims... you can't begin to imagine what a well-researched bunch they are. But also, my family (maiden) name is well -researched back to at least 1641; some other branches back nearly that far, too.

According to some of the info on OneTree (the database at Ancestry.com) I can claim descent from William The Conquerer... but it's a load of tosh. I really have to filter carefully to separate myth from genealogy.

OK, can I ask for some advice, please?

1. I've gone back to 1806 on my mother's side (via the male line) and can't get any further without a birth record. How can I confirm who this person's parents are? What will parish records tell me? (bearing in mind I'm almost 200 miles away from the appropriate record office).

1. How can I trace data for India/Pakistan and Canada?

I've only been doing this for 1.5 years adn it's been all online so far! I admire the tenacity of some of you.

Many thanks

Mercy, I could be wrong, but I think 1837online has records for India/Pakistan in the colonial period.

ancestry seems to have records for evry country (or at least thats the impression i get) all my family are fom england so its not very relevant to me!

throckenholt, tried to e-mail you last night, but obviously got it wrong as I got an error message back. Just tried to cat you & notice I have to pay £5 !!

Will try again...spent a very frustrating couple of hours trying to trace previously found relatives..

mojomummy - if you go to \link{http://www.highfields1.plus.com/selling \here} there should be a link that you can email me on.

zebra - but how much of that did you actually do yourself by trawling through the registers ? How's that for genealogogy snobbery .

On Dh's side I have just tracked a family back to a book written in the 1920's that claims to trace the family back to 1066 - but it is very sketchy once you get back past the 1600's.

I think generally unless you are realted to landed gentry it is almost impossible to get reliably back before the mid 1500s when the parish registers started - and many of the early one just give you a name and no relation (no parents on a baptism) so unless you have a very rare surname you can't be sure they are yours anyway.

I am very sceptical about anyone who claims to have traced their tree back before the 1600's in the Uk at least (in Amstredam teh records seem more detailed and more reliable further back than that - although I didn't manage to get mine back that far).

oops -
\link{http://www.highfields1.plus.com/selling\here}

Mercy - the parish registers at that time will tell you mother and father and may tell you mothers maiden name.

Have you tried asking on www.rootschat.com to see if someone could do the lookup for you ?

Thanks Hallgerda and Throckenholt.

Looks like for my father's side of the family I can go to the British Library to check the India Office records. I can see it's going to be a long hard slog though! (that side is very 'mixed')

Interesting comment re how far you can go back - I've met numerous people who claim they can trace their family back to 1066!

I think 1066 and the Mayflower are two of the most claimed things about family history - if everyone who claimed to have descended from people associated with either of them was actually descended from them they would have had to have hundreds of ships just to accomomdate them.

As far as 1066 goes - I guess it usually means that the name is of Norman origin - likely to have been introduced into the uk after 1066. But then at that time no-one had surnames unless they were aristocracy.