Relative newcomer...

[PaulC]

Hi folks, my name is Paul and I've been working on my family history for just over four years now, though compared to some people I guess that still makes me a relative newbie! Like many people I suppose, I grew up with vague family stories, and TV programmes like Who Do You Think You Are certainly piqued my interest, but it wasn't until my nan died in 2011 that I decided to take the plunge.

My nan had kept many old photographs and newspaper cuttings, and I'm lucky that my mum got her to write down a rough family tree a few years earlier, so putting all those pieces together was really the starting point for me. And I'm also fortunate that the various branches of my mum's family were all from the same part of Lancashire where I still live.

Researching my dad's side of the family has been more of a challenge, though in some respects more rewarding. My dad only ever knew one of his grandparents and only part of his extended family, so I've been able to discover aunts and uncles that he never knew about!

Of course, not all of those family stories have turned out to be correct, but so far it's been an interesting journey and I look forward to seeing where it takes me in the future!

 

[peter]

Paul, the one disadvantage of starting recently is that it's harder to appreciate how much more difficult life was before the censuses and GRO indexes became available online!

When I began in 2002 there were only two censuses online, 1901 at a pay-per-view site (which cost me about £150 in the first year), and 1891 at Ancestry (I think the subscription was about £70). I subsequently discovered that I could get the 1881 Census on CD ROM from FamilySearch for about £30 (it was only later that it was added to their website). I spent many a day at the Family Records Centre looking up the GRO indexes, ordering BMD certificates, and looking through censuses on microfilm - that was about £10 a time in fares, and some days I didn't find a single entry that I was looking for.

 

[PaulC]

Paul, the one disadvantage of starting recently is that it's harder to appreciate how much more difficult life was before the censuses and GRO indexes became available online!

Oh, definitely! While I've done a fair share of my research in local libraries and archives, as well as wandering around churchyards and cemeteries and spending a small fortune on BMDs, I can't begin to imagine how people did this without the internet.

 

[Gillian]

A sixth cousin who has been researching one branch of our family for many many years says that one of the worst things about research in times past was the hours he'd spend thumbing through ancient volumes in unheated archives in winter. It's hard to imagine, isn't it? All the same, welcome to the forum, Paul.

 

[Fern49]

Hi Paul, enjoy your 'journey', I've been researching now for 15 years, off & on, with so much info now online, I've become addicted, (a good addiction.)

 

[chrissy1]

Paul, the one disadvantage of starting recently is that it's harder to appreciate how much more difficult life was before the censuses and GRO indexes became available online!

When I began in 2002 there were only two censuses online, 1901 at a pay-per-view site (which cost me about £150 in the first year), and 1891 at Ancestry (I think the subscription was about £70). I subsequently discovered that I could get the 1881 Census on CD ROM from FamilySearch for about £30 (it was only later that it was added to their website). I spent many a day at the Family Records Centre looking up the GRO indexes, ordering BMD certificates, and looking through censuses on microfilm - that was about £10 a time in fares, and some days I didn't find a single entry that I was looking for.

When I began in the early 1990s, I didn't have a computer and neither did my local library and there was NOTHING online! I booked a film or fiche reader every week at the library on their late opening evening and scrolled through thousands of names in each quarter of the GRO indexes until I found the relevant birth or marriage entries. It cost ca £9 per certificate and I eagerly awaited the arrival of results by post before embarking upon the next step. Censuses and PRs were only available in the LOCAL areas (or London), which meant travelling miles to the relevant record office, or for a cost of £2.50 per reel, the local Mormon research centre would order films/fiches in for me (no church membership required). IGI was amazing if it covered the area in which you were interested, though sadly coverage is spasmodic, but Phillimore's atlas was a must to locate parish data. (I still use it)

As my grandparents hailed from Essex/East End of London, Gloucestershire, Devon/Cornwall and York respectively , research was a slow process, but I actually came across distant relations by chance on 2 separate occasions visiting Devon villages, which wouldn't have happened with internet research. A great deal of assistance came from fellow researchers who wrote to one another regularly and shared information and tasks, advertising via Family Tree magazine or local FH societies. Not living within easy reach of any of my grandparents' abodes, research could only be carried out in holidays as many repositories were closed or worked half days at weekends................ and frequently I could spend a whole week and discover very little, but being in the area inspired me to visit churches, graveyards and former family abodes.

How easy it is these days with an Ancestry or FMP membership. What would have taken years can now be done online in a matter of weeks, but not half so much fun!