How to trace your ancestry

With digitised old newspapers, family history records and online tools to help you, tracing your ancestry from the comfort of your home is easier than ever.  

To build a clearer picture of your whole family, start your family tree online using a free family tree building tool. Start by adding your own name and date of birth, then build the branches backwards through the generations with your parents’ and grandparents’ details. 

To discover more about a particular family member, start by simply searching their name within online genealogy records. Birth, marriage and death records will reveal the milestones of their life, while censuses will tell you what their household looked like at a particular point in time, including who they lived with, where they worked and other important details about their day-to-day life.  

To start tracing your ancestry, you’ll need some basic information about yourself and your family. When you begin your family tree, you’ll be asked for your name, birthplace and date of birth – then these same details for each of your parents and grandparents.  

Don’t worry if you’re missing any of this information. You may wish to ask family members to fill in the blanks for you. Alternatively, take an educated guess and use the information you find in the family history records to help you. 

While you don’t need a family tree to start searching, a tree is the easiest way to store and visualise your discoveries. If your research takes you back more than two generations, it can be hard to keep track of who's who. With a family tree, vital information like births, deaths and military service is displayed seamlessly for you, so you never miss out on a discovery. 

How far back your research goes depends on the records available to you. In England and Wales, church records go back to 1538, while government birth, marriage and death records began in 1837. Some Scottish church records go back to the 16th century. You’ll typically find Irish family history records which span back to the 1800s.  

As with any genealogical research, a thorough approach that uses all sources available to you will maximise the most success with those older branches of your family tree. 

With family history records and old newspapers, you can discover fascinating information about the lives of your ancestors. This can include: 

• Their occupation 
• When and where they were married - newspapers may even reveal details like a description of the ceremony, its attendees and what they wore 
• Their military service, including the battles they fought in and any medals earned 

More than just names and dates, these vivid insights help you to build up a detailed understanding of your family in years gone by.