Your family through time can help you research your family and house history beyond the 19th century.
Would you like to know who your ancestors were? Want to take a glimpse into the lives of your family through time? Would you like to know the history of your house or a house in which you ancestors lived?
TV programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are? make researching your family history look easy and certainly in terms of 19th and 20th century research for some families is can be relatively easy using online resources such as birth, marriage and death records and census returns, but for others it may not be that easy.
I often here “it can all be done online” but with navigating your way through those online records can often be tricky due to the incorrect spelling of names, transcription errors, missing records amongst other complications. And with only 15 to 20% of records, which are helpful in researching your family history, being available online (although this is growing all the time) a lot of information about our ancestors can be missed.
Having said that online research is always the start and can be great for compiling your family tree back to the pate 1700’s and early 1800’s.
Taking your research beyond the 19th century becomes more complex. For most people, research beyond the 19th century starts with parish registers. Whilst many are available online, the early registers lack information . This makes connecting generations much harder. This is where the vast records available at local and national archives can help. My favorite records to examine include, amongst many others:
- Manorial records
- Quarter Session and Assize court records
- Prison records; Chancery court records
- Ecclesiastical Court records
- Parish Chest and Poor Law records
- Wills/Probate records
- Apprenticeship records
- Military
- heraldry
Such records can provide details of several generations.
Whether you have started your own research and hit a ‘brick wall’; want to take your research further and beyond ‘online’ records; or if you don’t know where to start, I can help.
I have easy access to the archives in Surrey, London and surrounding counties including the National Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives.
I offer research at an hourly, daily and weekly rate, family tree packages and gift certificates.
Why not then get in touch for a quote.