Genealogy
Until recently, researching your family tree seemed like a snobbish sort of pastime, strictly for trainspotters and people who namedropped about being related to the Earl Of Stafford at dinner parties.
This was partly due to the effort involved - even the most basic research usually meant a trip to one of London's record offices, and sending off for copies of official records was prohibitively expensive. But these days, things are changing. The BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? has introduced a new generation of viewers to genealogy, and shown that you don't have to be related to a French duke for it to be worthwhile - it's often more interesting to learn about your forbears' history fighting in the Boer war, or being transported to Australia as a convict.
"Who Do You Think You Are? has shown people that it's not just about family tree building," says the programme's family history expert Dr Nick Barrett. "It's about personal heritage, finding out who your ancestors were, what they did and where they lived. For instance, if you discover a relative's been in the army, you might investigate the campaigns they took part in."
Meanwhile, internet-based resources are flourishing - volunteers are transcribing more and more official documents for everyone's use, while pay sites such as 1837online.com offer copies of the originals for a fraction of the cost of a train ticket. The results are much quicker, and it's possible to go as far back as the 1840s. All of which raised the question: how far could I research without going beyond walking distance of a kettle and a packet of biscuits? "You have to start with yourself," advises Garrick Webster, editor of Your Family Tree magazine. "Don't try to prove stories that are supposed to have happened."
Rather than trying to trace your lineage from some allegedly famous distant relation, you need to start with your immediate family. The first thing to do is decide what your goals are; you might simply want to go as far back as possible on a single branch of your family tree - which is, of course, easier on the male side as surnames don't change so much.
Alternatively, you might want a more comprehensive family tree, bringing uncles, aunts, cousins and stepchildren together in one vast tangle of relationships. If you're not sure where to start, a good way to get going is to focus on finding your 'seize quartiers' - your sixteen great-great-grandparents - and decide where you want to go from there; which is exactly what I decided to do.
Start digging
Before you can start using the wealth of resources on the internet, doing some more traditional research will pay dividends and save a lot of time later on. Older relatives will often have birth certificates, wedding invitations, obituaries or even a traditional family bible stuffed with crucial details, and a few questions over the phone should give you a huge head start.
Before you can start using the wealth of resources on the internet, doing some more traditional research will pay dividends and save a lot of time later on. Older relatives will often have birth certificates, wedding invitations, obituaries or even a traditional family bible stuffed with crucial details, and a few questions over the phone should give you a huge head start.
At this stage, it's best to get as many specific details as possible - even a rough date of birth or a middle initial can make the difference between trawling through hundreds of search engine results and a mere few. My Nan didn't have any idea when her parents were married, but I had vague childhood memories of going to their diamond wedding anniversary - which I found out was in 1989 - giving me plenty to go on.
Even this basic level of research can uncover things you didn't know about your own family, and give you ideas for further investigation. Until I started ringing around, I'd only heard the name of my great-grandfather Frank Harrison - but I didn't have any idea he was a local philanthropist who read his own poetry at amateur concerts, or that he died in an explosion at a fireworks factory. Similarly, I knew my maternal grandfather had been in the army, but I had no idea that he was a corporal in the Royal Engineers.
This is exactly the kind of information you can use to narrow down dates and locations when you finally make the leap online. With the basic facts, it's time to fill in the blanks - and this is where the internet comes into its own. One of the best web resources is the International Genealogical Index, ( familysearch.org). Started by the Church of the Latter Day Saints, this has millions of entries - mainly records of baptisms and marriages - some carefully transcribed from parish registers, others less reliably supplied by researchers.
Get your money's worth
I used it to clear up some confusion over birth years for a couple of relatives, but this still left me with a few blanks. This is where things get pricier: most sites will let you search their records for free, but charge by the 'unit' to view images of the documents themselves. At ten pence an image, the cost of browsing quickly mounts up, which is why it's a good idea to pin down the dates you're looking for elsewhere, rather than flicking through the database.
I used it to clear up some confusion over birth years for a couple of relatives, but this still left me with a few blanks. This is where things get pricier: most sites will let you search their records for free, but charge by the 'unit' to view images of the documents themselves. At ten pence an image, the cost of browsing quickly mounts up, which is why it's a good idea to pin down the dates you're looking for elsewhere, rather than flicking through the database.
The exception is ancestry.co.uk - though they charge £70 a year for a subscription, they offer a two-week trial run for free, with immigration and military records alongside the usual BMD listings. I decided to put this into practice with a distant relative Bill Kaye - remembered by the family but not present in any of our drawers of birth certificates. Not actually a blood relation, he was my grandmother's step-father - and, from all accounts, a bit of a character - constantly operating on the fringes of the law. Sure enough, I found him on ancestry.co.uk - not only his birth and death certificates, but a mention of him on the 1891 census. He's listed as 'Cotton Operative' living in Lancaster.
Time to go hunting
It's little details like this that really helped me build up a picture of people I realised I barely knew, and made me want to investigate further. So what's next? Well, unfortunately, it might involve leaving the house.
It's little details like this that really helped me build up a picture of people I realised I barely knew, and made me want to investigate further. So what's next? Well, unfortunately, it might involve leaving the house.
"Lots of material is uncatalogued on the internet at the moment," says Dr Nick, "So you might have to go to a public records office. It's intimidating, but it's also the fun part - you're actually becoming a detective, looking into your own roots. There are eureka moments of sheer delight when you finally track down the information you're looking for."
Alternatively, you could just wait for the next-best thing in internet genealogy. In 2012, the next chunk of census data is due to be released - but for something a bit more short-term, it's back to Dr Nick.
"We're working on a project with Firebird at the moment, a sort of national memory bank. We want to give the public the option to upload data not in the national archives. History is usually written by politicians, or the great and the good - soft materials like photographs don't often feature."
To this end, they're developing their own memory-maker software, which will provide templates for uploading photos, sound files and even moving images, creating a huge resource for local historians, or those of a curious bent.
After all, seeing and hearing about the past has to be more interesting than boring everyone with your stories about the Earl Of Stafford...
Some Genealogy Links