Of course, in recent years, the internet has made it much easier in the sense of being able to access sources.  In the past, all family history research involved travelling to county record offices.  In my job as a professional genealogist, my work has completely changed.  I spend a lot more time at home on the laptop than I do in a record office in front of a microfiche reader.

So, in many ways, it is a lot easier to search your ancestors now that the census records and GRO indexes are all online – and many other records, such as wills and a growing selection of parish registers, are also increasingly available online.  If you could not afford to travel across the country – or even to another country – to visit the appropriate local archives in the past, you either had to give up, or hire a local genealogist (which could be difficult if your ancestors came from lots of different places) – but now most people with internet access can – in theory – trace their ancestors back to the early 19th century.

I say “in theory” because it’s not always as easy as it sounds!  Here are a number of reasons why people get stuck:

• Search engines at the main genealogy sites are a great way to find ancestors quickly – but if your ancestor’s name has been badly mis-spelled (which happens far more often than you might imagine) by the original enumerator, or by the modern transcriber, you might find they seem to be “missing” on the census or in BMD indexes, even when you use phonetic searching.

• If your ancestor has a very common name like John Smith, particularly if they lived in a large town or city, it can become almost impossible to work out which John Smith is yours.  The search then becomes more complicated as you really need a lot of information to start with in order to work out which one is the right one, and a large amount of detective work is necessary.

• Where an individual was born in another country, the records in the resident country may not say anything other than “born in England”.  Unless the name is extremely unusual, this can be almost impossible to find, unless you have some other cross-referencing information such as a marriage that took place before emigration.

• Once you get past 1837 (the date when birth, marriage and death registrations became law in England), the records get less reliable.  Parish registers are the main source of information, but as you go back in time, they are often badly damaged, difficult to read – or sometimes lost or destroyed.  There are other records that can be helpful, but the further down the social class your ancestors were, the less likely they were to be on any documentation – apart from paw loor, criminal records or settlement records.  Very few of these are online.

There are all kinds of other reasons why people get stuck.  Sometimes the results just get very confusing, and sometimes documents contradict each other, or ages and places of birth don’t match what you know. We need to remember that most historical documents were not created for the pleasure of future ancestry seekers!  They were there for different purposes, and often we have to read between the lines, look at the context and know a bit about the historical background in order to make sense of them.

I am truly not trying to put anyone off searching their family tree!  Tracing your ancestors is an exciting, fun and fascinating hobby, and the chances are that you will be able to trace many generations of several lines of your family.

The difficulties and frustrations that result from the problems I have outlined above are all part of the fun – and you need to be prepared to come across some or all of these problems as you trace your family.  Just don’t get led to believe that you can trace your tree in a few days.  And don’t forget that every time you go back a generation, the number of people on the tree doubles – that’s a lot of people to find!

Professional genealogists often work very hard to work out puzzles, and get past brick walls that amateur family historians get stuck at.

In fact, for the professional genealogist, this is becoming the main thrust of the work – getting people past brick walls, rather than doing the whole thing from scratch – because more and more people are doing it for themselves.

So, to sum up.  Yes, it’s much easier than it used to be for anyone to trace their own family history – but it is not in itself easy.  If you are interested in history, determined, tenacious, have a mind like a detective, imaginative and have attention to detail, you will find the ups and downs of ancestry research extremely rewarding.  But if you are looking for an easy hobby that doesn’t take up too much brain work, I would try something else – and get a professional to do your tree!

Seriously, though, most people, once they start tracing ancestry, find it completely addictive.  That’s why I became a professional.  Tracing my own tree just wasn’t enough.

And I like a challenge.  Luckily – it still is – and always will be.

Ros

Do you need someone to help you trace your ancestors?  See my RESEARCH SERVICES PAGE.

I still have a few problems to sort out, but thanks to my friend Jeffery at the Niche Power Group, I am sure it will be working properly within a few days!

In the meantime, please have a look round the site and explore the links.  I intend to give anyone around the world easy access to services and links that will help them with tracing ancestors in the UK.

View my own one-stop-shop services here, or my Warwickshire research services here, then bookmark  this site and come back often as I will be regularly posting lots of new information in the near future.

Thanks.

Ros Bott

That means writing down all you know about your immediate family – names, dates and places of birth, marriage and deaths.  Once you’ve exhausted your own knowledge, start asking members of your family, particularly elderly relatives such as your parents and aunts.  If your grandparents are still alive, they may have lots of information about their own grandparents, which will take you back several generations already!

Elderly relatives love to talk about the past – but do be careful about the information they give you.  Memory can play tricks and all information needs to be backed up by evidence, which you can research later.  For now, you are gathering leads – clues and stories about your family that you can start to piece together like a jigsaw.

Another first step will be to find out if there are any photographs of your ancestors that might be held by members of your family.  Photography became popular from the 1840s.  If you are lucky enough to find these, they are a fascinating resource.  There is nothing like the thrill of looking into the eyes of a great-grandparent for the first time and seeing your own eyes looking back!

This happened to me the first time I saw this photograph of my maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Reid, taken when she was a very young woman in about 1910!

Wedding photographs are particularly interesting because they usually show lots of family members and can give clues to members of your family that you did not know about.

Often the main drawback of photographs is that there is no information given.  If you are very lucky someone may have written something on the back, but this is quite rare, so they can be quiet frustrating, while fascinating at the same time.  Dating a photograph can also be tricky unless you know a lot about fashions of the time.  There are plenty of books on the history of fashion, which can help, and there may be other clues in the photograph that you could research, such as buildings.  I have also given a list of books below that can be ordered from Amazon.co.uk.

Once you have some initial information, and have found some photographs, you will be even more hungry to find more information about these people.  Your next step is to use Civil Registration indexes to find birth, marriage and death certificates.  You will find more information about these on this website.

Ros Bott

Dating Old Photographs (Genealogy)

Dating Old Photographs 1840-1929

A guide to dating old family photographs

Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th Century (Taschen 25th Anniversary)

My maternal grandmother

The purpose of this site is to provide you with all the information, resources and services that you need for tracing ancestors in the UK, particularly if you live outside the UK and do not have access to the necessary records.

My name is Ros Bott, and I have been a professional genealogist for many years. I have been working on my own family tree for 25 years, and with the help of my late uncle, have traced many lines of our family back to the 17th century.

As well as free advice, which I will provide with regular blog posts, you will find information about my own services, links to useful resources and links to other service providers.

I provide two kinds of service for people who wish to trace ancestors in the UK:

1. My main service is to research all of your UK ancestors, using the internet and other genealogist’s services for a flat fee of £350. This service is a “one-stop-shop” for tracing ancestors in the UK, and will save you a great deal of time as I contact all the necessary local genealogists for you. For more information, CLICK HERE.

2. Warwickshire Searches. If you have known ancestors in the county of Warwickshire, I will search these for an hourly rate of £15. For more information CLICK HERE.

I will be adding lots of articles and blogs with advice on many aspects of tracing ancestors in the UK, particularly if you are a beginner. My aim is to provide a friendly and personal service here, so do come back often as I am sure there will be lots of information that you will find useful, no matter how far you are along the line of tracing your UK ancestry.