OK - DD has decided to take up a new hobby - which means lots of money to be spent by me......How do I minimise it?

[Katymac]

She has been wittering on for ages about her family tree.

She wants to start to research it.

How can she do this without it costing me a small fortune. I mean I quite like history but would rather concentrate on the free easy to find stuff for at least the first few months until either she can't be bothered or it's a confirmed interest rather than a bored summer holiday day dream

Any suggestions for sites we can use? Or programmes we can download?

TIA
KMc

(PS we have an ancestor who really was hung for sheep stealing plus we bounced from side to side - always choosing the losing side - in the war between England & Scotland so it might actually be interesting)

Nah - it's not the Jamaica side

It's my scouse/scottish side

Ok email me names places and approx dates will see if i can find them on census if you want

Do I have your email? [dim emoticon]

Can I look on the census? (is it free?)

email addy on this thread cenus you have to pay for but i have subscription so can look

you will get addicted

It's £80 now - but I might pay anyway

Hang on I think my Uncle has done some of it already - I'll phone him tomorrow & ask

Its really worth it, but really get the bbc format, you get a free trail with it and it is the easiest way to lay it all out, you also can search straight from your tree frfom it and it will put you onto the world tree, I have had loads of hits from others looking for the same people from it, dont know if you can buy it on line, i got mine in pc world.

www.amazon.co.uk/GSP-Think-Family-Deluxe-Version/dp/B000IWR328 this one

lot cheaper here astore.amazon.co.uk/scientific-21/detail/B000IWN49E

That's Good you get 3 months free.....

I have the cheaper basic one find it more than ok, it is now 30 day free trail as well.

Katy it will take over your life if dH is away I have to set alarm for 11.00 pm as i have been known to still be at it at 3am, when i am chasing a thread.

2nd one is only 30 days free so for £18 you get 2 months extra

It's not worth buying the Delux one

Katy what area am i looking for in email got a hit on 4

are you on msn?

I emailed you

I got loads of info on my family tree without spending anything. Library for census records (many are online now & are free)
brilliant site LDS site

• looking through local church records /graveyards

The biggest source of information on family history stuff is
here

Getting Started

A lot of records can be looked up at the relevent (local to where the family was living at the time) record office but a lot can be done on line.

It doesn't have to cost the earth. I've got back to 1600 on the line I really wanted to research and I've only ever paid for a Genes re-united account. Having an unusual surname helps, I found a distant relative who'd spent years doing all the hard work for me... I still have to trace the family lines which have ridiculously common surnames, but even there I've got back quite a way without paying anything.

The Church of Latterday Saints do a fantastic free to download program Called Personal Ancestry File (PAF)for recording all your info. They also have lots of records on their site.
www.familysearch.org/
The storage on Genes-reunited is good, but PAF is much more thorough and much quicker.

FreeBMD also has lot of Birth Marriage and Death indexes, so if you've got a vague idea of what you're looking for you can usually work it out without needing to buy the certificates.
www.freebmd.org.uk/

There's also FreeCen
www.freecen.org.uk/
Both FreeBMD and FreeCen are ongoing transcription projects being done by volunteers, so they're worth rechecking every few months as new names are constantly being added.

Someone has already mentioned Rootsweb, and there are also area or name specific mailing lists where you can ask for lookups, and may find relatives too.

The most useful thing she can do is talk to relatives, then when she gets bits of information talk to them again, a new name might jog their memory. Also ask them if they have any old documents. My search started when I found a suitcase full of very old certificates, documents and photos at my Grandparents house.
I was interested when I was a kid, but I was too young to really make much sense of what people told me, and there weren't all these free resources back then. I wish I could quiz my Grandparents now, although I'm not sure they'd talk to me, I've found too many skeletons

My top tip for her is to make a note of exactly where she finds out any information (PAF allows you to add source information). That way she knows if it's from a certificate, so absolutely definitely correct, or whether it's from someone on Genes-Reunited, so could be completely made up, it happens a lot. I tend to spend a week researching, then leave it for a few months. If she does get bored with it she'll be able to come back to it in a few years and know how accurate her information is.

Good luck to her, it's great fun, but very addictive

Hi

One site similar to this but just pure family history and lots of advice is rootschat, they will give lots of help and do "look ups" www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php

Depending on where you live, you may have a family history library/ centre near to you or the county record office - Norwich has the county record office on the ring road in the council building. They may have ancestry online for free, a lot of libraries have the subscription and you get to use it for free rather than the £70 charge. The staff will also be able to give your dd a lot if info and help her to trace her ancestors.

www.familysearch.org this site is fine as long as you treat it with cation, submitted entries can be guesses and may not be correct. Other wise a great site for info before 1885 after that there is a lack of info.

If her ancestors are from the place where she lives, you could search for baptism, marriage and burial information in the parish registers - this of course is free but you have to search yourself through the registers. Interesting though looking at the registers especially the early ones from 1560's they often go through to the 1900's so she may be able to find grandparents and great grandparents information in them.

hope this helps

Thanks everyone

Although we live near Norwich - we come from miles away Liverpool/sctoland/Jamaica/France

So I guess tombstones/parish records will be of limited use

No you can still use parish registers, go onto the following website www.familysearch.org and see the advanced search about half way down the page, click on it and enter uk in the next box to search for a family history center near to your part of the country.

Get the details of the centre and then using the library search you can search for the place your ancestor came from - then you can see what parish registers they hold in their main library for the parish you want. All these records they hold will be on microfilm. You can then go to the centre and order the film - which they get from their main library for a small charge. Then when the film arrives i think they keep it for a month for you to go and view.

hope that all makes sense

I'll work it out

the public records office in Kew is a very good source too (and free) you just need to register as a reader, though it would mean a trip to London. Lots of things like service records if any ancestors served in any of the forces - they include things like physical description of the person which can be very interesting.

If you're still hunting for your Grandad and he was from Scotland I've got a current subscription with scotlandspeople.gov which has credits that need using up soon. You can email me on alienears @ hotmail.co.uk if you want to send me names/date etc.