Unused Sub Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 I’d echo what the chaps have said above. The easiest starting point is knowing someone that was alive in 1921 or 1911, so talk to someone old and hopefully get back to that point in time with a name and a location. In general, censuses and marriage certificates are to the main documents to aim to find. I think most libraries have access to Ancestry for free if you want to keep the costs down. Sending off for certificates can be a costly business (it was about £10-12 a pop when I did mine about 10 years ago). Knowing local genealogy societies/groups will help massively. For me, I’m 75% Black Country so I had a few really good sites to help: https://bcconnections.tribalpages.com www.westmidlandsbmd.org.uk I think most Churches records have been copied to microfilm and are located within most local libraires. I must have saved around £100 from getting the marriage reference numbers from westmidlandsbmd and popping into the Smethwick & Dudley Archives and finding them there instead of sending off for them. Also, newspapers archives are available in findmypast so you can search there. I found one of my lot being done for speeding in Cradley Heath High Street, got fined for doing about 20mph on a horse and cart. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 10, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 10, 2023 1 minute ago, Unused Sub said: found one of my lot being done for speeding in Cradley Heath High Street, got fined for doing about 20mph on a horse and cart. Bastards. It's just a money spinner. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuwabatake Sanjuro Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 For anyone here with Irish heritage the 1901 and 1911 census are both freely available online and a good resource. http://census.nationalarchives.ie/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 1 hour ago, Unused Sub said: I found one of my lot being done for speeding in Cradley Heath High Street, got fined for doing about 20mph on a horse and cart. No way was the speed camera calibrated properly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desensitized43 Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 My grandmothers maiden name was Jem and she’s always believed that she was related to one of the founders of the lawn tennis association (Harry jem) but was never able to prove it so I managed to trace it back and found they had a common ancestor in the 18th century which made her pretty happy. For one of my grandparents I managed to trace back through the parish records to around 1620 which is utterly mental to me. That’s what, James I time around the time of the gunpowder plot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Rds1983 Posted March 10, 2023 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted March 10, 2023 What I find interesting is that it might be the opposite problem for people wanting to look us up in 100 years or more. It should be pretty clear who we are and what the genealogy is, but if they then try to look into us they'll likely be swamped by ridiculous amounts of data. Be it thousands and thousands of photo's and video's stored on the cloud or endless posts on social media. Imagine looking up one of your ancestors and stumbling across their 50,000 posts on Villatalk and having to read through their opinions on whether to sit down or stand up when wiping or if they think socks are important. 2 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 10, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 10, 2023 1 minute ago, Rds1983 said: Be it thousands and thousands of photo's and video's stored on the cloud or endless posts on social media. Very true. We have precisely 1 (one) photo of my Mom when she was a kid. Maybe nine or ten of me. Possibly 50-100 of my kids. Many hundreds (plus videos) of the grandchildren. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rds1983 Posted March 10, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 10, 2023 2 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Very true. We have precisely 1 (one) photo of my Mom when she was a kid. Maybe nine or ten of me. Possibly 50-100 of my kids. Many hundreds (plus videos) of the grandchildren. The photo's of people from 100 years ago would have generally been lost after a while. With people now posting their's openly online this probably won't be an issue. I think there's some weird stat about how 99% of all information the human race has captured has been created in the last 50 years and I can't see us slowing down. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PussEKatt Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 I have never bothered to look up a family tree but I am quite proud of the fact that I have a Non-league soccer team and a borough with the same sir name.Also lots of street names around London. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon66 Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 18 hours ago, Xela said: No way was the speed camera calibrated properly! It should have been....it was in 1998 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwi1890 Posted March 13, 2023 Share Posted March 13, 2023 Does anybody know how the ancestry dna site works? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post lapal_fan Posted March 13, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted March 13, 2023 (edited) On 10/03/2023 at 10:00, Wainy316 said: What's the best way to go about tracing all this sort of stuff? A pencil and some very thin paper. Edited March 13, 2023 by lapal_fan 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 13, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 13, 2023 1 hour ago, gwi1890 said: Does anybody know how the ancestry dna site works? No, but I'm awaiting a DNA kit from MyHeritage. I'll let you know if it turns out I'm 80% Aztec and 20% Pygmy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Villadevon Posted March 13, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted March 13, 2023 A good place to start (England/Wales) is registering with the GRO, cost nothing to search: General Register Office - Online Ordering Service - Login (gro.gov.uk) Of course if you have need of copies of birth, marriage, death certificates there is a charge. This site is also free to search: FreeBMD - Search Using these two sites should get you names and dates back to 1838 when registering started. To get back further, along with census and Parish/Church records try: FamilySearch • Free Family Trees and Genealogy Archives free to sign up. Newspaper archives are also great for finding out what ancestors got up to: Home | Search the archive | British Newspaper Archive some searches free, others with monthly/yearly subscription. £13/ £76 Both sides of my family are from brum over the last 150-200 years then pick them up in the Shires before then. I've been at it for about nine months (I'm retired) just coming to the end of it now. Ancestors found of note: An Olympic champion. A Villa player. A drummer in a pop band. A war hero. Of course there is always the rough with the smooth, loads of infant/child deaths and two suicides. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 14, 2023 Author Share Posted March 14, 2023 (edited) On 10/03/2023 at 04:08, mjmooney said: Bump. As mentioned in the pubs thread, I've just revived my family tree research, and it's absolutely fascinating. Finding stuff out about my Dad's (Irish) side of the family is somewhat more tricky, although there is a bit more info online than I had been led to believe. My Mom's side though, are Brummies going back at least 200 years (mate). Anybody else into this stuff? Yes, I find it fascinating. My Irish grandfather's family history is the one branch that has been the most difficult to get info on. All we know is that he grew up in Quincy, Mass. Not sure if his parents were Irish born or not. We have Yates blood related to some fancy fella in England. Also Dutch blood. Fairly prominent families in New York way back when. Yates County, NY is my Yates clan. Bleecker St in Manhattan is named after my great-great-great? Grandfather. Also related to a Governor of NY and Mayor of Albany. Im related to the youngest passenger on the Mayflower. Also related to a Mohawk woman of some notoriety way back. My Italian ancestors were part of the first wave of Italians in Boston. They came from Genoa. Edited March 15, 2023 by maqroll 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post dAVe80 Posted March 15, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted March 15, 2023 My Mom has been doing family tree stuff, and it brought up some skeletons. My great great great grandfather got a 10 shillings fine for striking his father, my great great great great grandfather, when living in Spon Street in Coventry. Obviously this is very embarrassing and distressing, finding out I have relatives from Coventry. 2 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 16, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 16, 2023 13 hours ago, dAVe80 said: Obviously this is very embarrassing and distressing, finding out I have relatives from Coventry My mother grew up in Small Heath. Although she was at least born in Aston (as was I). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unused Sub Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 On 13/03/2023 at 18:02, Villadevon said: A Villa player. Wow. Must be great to say that. Can I ask who? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 16, 2023 Author Share Posted March 16, 2023 My Italian great grandfather was the doctor for the Italian community in the northwest suburbs of Boston. He went to prison for performing an abortion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villadevon Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 7 hours ago, Unused Sub said: Wow. Must be great to say that. Can I ask who? My great grandmother, Lizzie Littlewood had a cousin Wilfred Albert Littlewood (their fathers were brothers) who played 51 games for Villa. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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