Family tree

I did it for a while but it got too expensive to use genes site, however I do have contact with my 1st cousin 2 x removed in Canada thanks to doing it.

Findmypast.co.uk is quite good too as are the official census sites but as northepaul says it can get expensive. I've been looking at my late mum's family & have wasted a bit of time & money going down the wrong track but then have found that she comes from a very complicated family with children being brought up by aunties & grandparents etc. & mothers dying very young etc., it doesn't help that she hardly ever spoke about her past & she's not here to put me straight now. I got a copy of my grandparents marriage certificate & visited the church they married in though which was interesting.
My half sister has done our late father's family tree though, it took her years but it's lovely to have.

Yup- spend a lot of time researching- esp in the winter when there is less to do in the garden.
IGI is an interesting site to bounce off- and I like to trawl through Ancestry.
Unless you have seen original documents don't take things for gospel from other peeps- don't learn the hard way by haviing to scrap months of work just because someone gave you some info and it sent you along the wrong route.
Also British Genealogy forum is helpful

I do a lot on Google- type in names and places, and churches to see if anyone has transcribed baptisms and marriages- I've found a few whole families from that. Also wills on National Archives.

Dead ends drive ya mad though

Try and make contact with a few distant cousins- they may well have done other aspects of the same tree- and also have photos of gg grandparents etc!!!

Enjoy!

I've gone back to the 1400s.
My tip: don't believe everything you read on genes dot and ancestry dot et al.

There are a lot of enthusiastic amateurs online who don't check their sources ... it's well worth spending money getting your own b m d certificates.

Thanks for the advice.

I am meeting up with a second cousin soon who has been doing one side to compare notes.

I have also had contact with relatives in USA and OZ, and found a connection to the Chipperfields.

Trouble is my parents both come from families who had 9 plus kids, further back they had even more !

1400`s blimey TS well done, must feel like quite an achievement.

Never bothered..............frightened at what I may find!!!!!!!

Lol, I thought that !

Only found a few Births dated after 6 months of marriage....so far...

1400's is quite an achievement 2sheds!...I've a couple to the 1500's and about 6 to the 1600's, but most of my lines have stopped because they were so poor and no wills/priests etc documented.
I've loved seeing which part of the country various lines have come from...I'm clearly an Oxford/cambridge lass genetically on my fathers side.Unfortunately my Irish side is proving impossible to follow

I always imagined myself trundling round the country looking up church records when I retired....looks like it's going to be a bit more difficult from this side of the Channel!

There's always one line that get s to you isn't there??.mine is my maiden name. I've taken it back as far as 1800 in Huntingdon, and I'd love to go to the records office and churches to have a good rummage!

Addictive???

Most of my family are in Oxfordshire, so my Auntie and I went round some of the church yards and found loads.

We looked in the visitors books and found comments from other members of the family doing research too.

Some gravestones are too old to read details so we have ordered the church plans, the donation goes to renovation fund.

It took about a year, but mostly to save money for the certificates, and it's only my father's side. Luckily his ancestors were professionals (teachers, vicars) so there's a lot of written info. Most people aren't so lucky.

The rest of my tree is sitting in Northampton record office. My great grandfather had already done it (I found out quite late in my search ). I just need an excuse to spend a few days in N'ton to look at it (there are 100s of pages of documents, too many to photocopy)

...ooooo...we could be related!!!!

Lol


One side are from Jericho, donnington bridge/weirs lane, marston and Headington.

Others are from Thame, Great Milton, Shabbington areas.

If any of yours in those areas and I am off grave hunting, let me know and will have a look for your names whist I am there.

What ya mean by ...I'm quite good fun when ya get to know me!

Nope- none of those place names fit in with mine- but thanks for the kind offer!

I've been doing it professionally for over 20 years and have recently - finally, once and for all - have given it up, except for local history projects here in France and doing some more work on my family. Have specialised in Brits abroad, especially India, Armenians in India and Huguenots, all areas where I've gained some sort of reputation for being an expert. And occassionally also done research in the Uk tho that has tended to be for the more obscure stuff.

IGI is dangerous, there's no quality control on there and I know from experience, stuff on there can be rubbish - and the reason for Family Search is actually religious, long story, not for here.

Look at the Rootsweb forums, they're still free tho owned now (unfortunately) by Ancestry.com. You can do name searches, place searches, specialist searches there and actually communicate with other researchers without paying anything.

Genes Reunited is fine but when you find a relative, don't assume that anybody you send a message to will reply, in my experience doesn't happen too often unless I've been researching the wrong people.

Just told all my researchers that the company is closed (not been active in it for several years), been turning away potential clients and have a great sense of relief. But am now researching local history/Huguenot stuff so I can keep on writing research papers, tho now with French researchers, for publication in UK genealogy magazines and academic publications, just to keep my mind active - apart from the garden of course!

As Nicos said, need something to do in the winter tho I've just had a phone call to tell me my new greenhouse is ready for delivery so that may keep me a bit busy too.