How to grow your family tree

May 3 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

EXPLORING ARCHIVES

When you’ve established a basic outline of your family’s background, it’s time to start finding solid records as evidence.

While many records and indexes are now held online, visiting archives and record offices will prove an invaluable source of information, with help and friendly advice from the staff.

Liverpool’s record office is located within Central Library, on William Brown Street, while Chester Community History and Heritage Service is located on Bridge Street Row East (tel: 01244 402110) and Lancashire’s record office is in Preston (www.lancashire.gov.uk/education/record_office).

“We have copies of birth, marriage and death indexes covering the whole country and parish records for the Church of England and non-conformist churches. We have street directories for Liverpool, which are really useful, and census returns from 1841-1901. We also have a lot of newspapers – the Daily Post dating back to 1855 and other local papers going further back – and photographs.”

BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES

If your ancestors were alive before 1901 and if you know where they lived, you’ll be able to find them and details about their occupation in the census returns.

But most people tend to start with more recent history, and by looking at records of births, deaths and marriages.

Civil registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) began in 1837 in England and Wales (1855 for Scotland and 1864 for Ireland), when registration became a legal requirement.

Before you can order certificates, you will need a certificate reference number, which you will find in alphabetically arranged indexes.

The indexes are available at the Family Records Centre (www.familyrecords.gov.uk) in London but the certificates for England and Wales are much closer to home, kept at The General Register Office (www.gro.gov.uk) in Southport.

Separate registries for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland are located in Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin (See www.gro-scotland.gov.uk; www.groni.gov.uk; www.groireland.ie).

The certificates include more information than indexes alone – such as the name and residence of the mother and occupation of the father on birth certificates and the names of the fathers of the bride and groom on a marriage certificate.

GOING FURTHER BACK

From 1538 in England and Wales, and 1555 in Scotland, each parish in the UK had to keep registers of baptisms, marriages and burials.

Although they are certainly not exhaustive (some records have been lost over the years in church fires and floods), if you’re lucky, you might find the names of your ancestors and dates of the events – and other information – on microfiche at the church or County Record Offices.

Else Churchill, a genealogist at the Society of Genealogists, says: “The church was also the administrator of the Poor Laws, so if your ancestors weren’t so well off, they would have run up against the Poor Law. After the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, you might find them in workhouses.

“Or, under the record of the Old Poor Law, you might find records of them moving around or having illegitimate children.”

* THE Family History Society for Liverpool runs a helpdesk at Liverpool Record Office every Tuesday afternoon.

It is a drop-in service, no appointments necessary. Further details on the office’s archives are available at www.liverpool. gov.uk/archives

* IN NEXT week’s Day Six: What’s in a census? Tips and tricks for searching and key events in history.

lauradavies@dailypost.co.uk