The best free websites to find your family

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

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

We ended last month looking at the soldier’s pocket books of the 19th century. Sadly very few of these documents survive. They are NOT included in any Army papers that have been stored over the years.

KATHERINE COBB is a member of AGRA based in Somerset REBECCA PROBERT is professor of law at the University of Exeter STEVE THOMAS is a genealogist with over 20 years’ experience PHIL TOMASELLI is a mi

The former historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland became Cumbria in 1974, at the same time taking bites out of West Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Today the county’s archive service, Cum

Cumbria Archives w cumbriaarchives.org.uk The county archive service’s site has plenty of digital resources, and sections for the four Archive Centres it runs – see below. Barrow Archive Centre a Rams