I have been watching this for the past two weeks, it is on Wednesday nights at 9pm and shows celebs tracing their ancesters! i am VERY interested in doing this about my family, but i know when doing your family tree it can take years, i just want to find stuff out about my ancesters, The celeb (cant remember his name - him off My Family??) went to a place where they had all the records and someone helped him, i would love to go to one of these and find things out, does anyone know where i can go please? i am fascinated by this and would loev to find out about my family!!!

if anyone can help, thanks in advance :) xx

I watch it, it's realy interesting, though things always seem realy grim/sad when they get back to the "good old days".

I try to watch it when i can. The best one so far for me was Jeremy Clarkson.

I try and watch it whenever I can - I think it's really interesting too.

The Sheffield Archives hold parish and burial records for Sheffield, as well as marriage birth and death certificate indexes. The staff there are really friendly - you do have to register with the archives to use their resources, but it's free. You just need to take two forms of ID with you - one with your current address and another with your signature. You can also access ancestry.com from the archives free of charge - good for getting birth, marriage and death certificate information.

The National Archives website also has some useful tips on starting to research your family tree (here (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/?homelink=main_family)).

Finally, if you know the names of your great grandparents / great great grandparents, take a look at the 1901 census. That will at least tell you where they were living in 1901 and how old they were at that time (useful if you are not sure of their birth date) . The census can be accessed online, here (http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/). Most of it is free, but you do have to pay to see scanned copies of the original census and information such as whose else was at that address on the night of the census.

HTH - good luck! :)

Yeah, I've been watching as I'm currently researching my family history. The place where Robert Lyndsey (sp?) went was the National Archives place at London. They also have a website... http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ which you may find interesting. If you are serious about this then there are some other sites out there that would be a huge help like:

www.genesreunited.co.uk
www.ancestry.co.uk

Iv done my family tree's here some good links to help you get on the sites to help you.

http://www.ancestry.co.uk
this lets you look up the uk census dated from 1851-1901.
It a charge of 5 pound for so many views of it,or a years membership at about 60 pound.

http://www.1837online.com/HomeServlet
1837 online also shows you census but also gives you refrence numbers for birth,death and wedding certificates.
Also 5 pound for 50 credits.

http://www.cwgc.org/
common war graves comission it shows you who was in 1st and second world war and where there buried.
Free

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/
Its free here to add yor tree and member ship is only 7 pound for year,
Iv found a lot of relatives on here that i didnt even know of.

hope this helps charlie

the program is repeated mid-evening on BBC2, on tuesday nights.

It's a very good program.

At the end of the program they make an announcement, where they give you information about how to delve further. you can go to BBC.co.uk forward-slash history I think, and get info.

PT

if anyone can help, thanks in advance :) xx

A good guide to the basics here...

http://www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html

And a forum for beginners here...

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=bfd7bf38db828b31bce77cdcb850aa c0&board=47.0

and the BBC web site

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/

thanks you guys (and gals!) - Tracie, where is the Sheffield Archive? i would like to go there, but how would they find out my ancesters if i dont know their names? like i know up to my nan and great nan but after that, i aint got a clue?? thanks x

the sheff archives are on shoreham street

Yep - the Sheffield Archives are at 52 Shoreham St (near the train station) :)

There are a couple of ways you can go up a generation in a family tree, even if you don't know the names of the individuals. If you know the names of your great grandparents and when they were born (burial / census records will give you an idea of the year at least if you're not sure) then you can go through the birth records for that year and find the right reference number for their birth certificate. The birth certificate will tell you where (say) your great-grandparent was born and the names of their mother and father too. That takes you another generation up. Often the certificate will indicate the mother's maiden name too, which is very useful in tracking down marriage certificates and also her birth certificate (and therefore the names of her parents too). You do have to apply for a copy of a birth certificate and it costs (about £5-£7 I think) but they do give you a lot of information.

Alternatively, the census records can help you discover the names of someones parents too. For example, my great grandfather was 9 years old in 1901, so he obviously lived at home with his parents. I searched the 1901 census records for his name (I knew that he grew up in Ecclesall and fortunately for me, he had quite an unusual name) and found someone with both the right name and year of birth. The census then also recorded the names of the other people living at that address and their relationship to the head of the house (usually the father in a family home). You have to make sure you definitely have the right person though - if the surname is quite common then it's possible to get loads of matches of people of the right name and age, even within Sheffield :( I've just hit a wall with my family tree on just this point - one of my relatives was called John Smith - I kid you not! :roll: :P

I'm sure there are other records that would be useful too, but those approaches are the two I use most often :)