How to use ancestry for researching a place

Most of us have unfortunate brick walls in our family trees – those frustrating relations who seem to have appeared into the world as if from nowhere. Perhaps a person does not feature in the baptism

Crime has always been popular with family historians. We all love a rogue (up to a point, anyway), and finding out you’re related to one can lead to some interesting avenues of research. The more seri

Why look for clues about old occupations? Our ancestors’ occupational details add both character and substance to our family history research. Noting the jobs our ancestors once held can provide a ric

Picture this: you have followed that advice, spending countless hours building your family tree, squinting at faded census records and wrestling with handwriting that makes doctors’ prescriptions look

I remember, many years ago, a potential client making a very specific request. They wanted me to research their family but they were only interested in the direct male line. ‘I don’t want to know abou

I was going to start this month’s article by talking about why we love this hobby so much but I realised that this isn’t really a hobby at all. Genealogy/family tree research/ancestor hunting or whate