Ancestry and geneology

One thing I'd like to do someday when I have time, is attempt to trace my heritage further back than it already has been, which is pre-Mayflower times. I'm curious if anyone else has done this while they were here in the UK, or are interested in doing so when they move?

I have actually been working on mine for some time now, and finally recently got hold of my great-grandfather's death certificate, so now I get to start with the UK stuff because he was born in Carlinghow, Yorkshire to Scottish parents.  (I mention the town in case anyone is near there or knows anything about it.)
My problem is, my Mom's Mom died when she was 2, and she had little contact with that side of the family.  My Dad's Dad died when he was eight, and they had little contact with that side of the family after.  So nobody really knows anything past my grandparents, who are dead.
It seems to me, though, that the further back you go the more likely you are to find things online, through research others have done.  Lots of very old records have been copied online because they are so fragile as well.  Also, somewhere in London (can't recall where now, but my Mum will know) they have all the records for the UK, going back forever.  So I'm quite excited about having access to that once we get there.  There isn't much of it I can do here, so right now I'm just trying to get all the family traced back to Europe so I can work on it there.  (Of course, how I'm going to find records for Yugoslavia, I have no idea.)

Did you do that research yourself, or was it already done?  Where were your ancestors originally from?

My dh's family goes back to Sir Francis Drake (he is apparently a great-great-etc. uncle) and a mayor of London, Sir John Friend, who was beheaded and has a plaque at Westminster Abbey.  We are going to look for it as soon as we get there (never had time before).

My sister and I had done some of our family tree but we hit some snags that we just never worked through.  Half of my dad's side is traceable back to Germany.  I have my great great grandfather's US citizenship paper up on my mantle now.  Unfortunately, once we get back to Germany it kind of ends there because I was told by the standesampt that most of the records pre-1900 were kept by the churches and many of those records were burned in WWII.  

Mom's side gets murky too and we've yet to get the full line back to Germany but they were all Germs as well.  Don't have any blood relations who were Brits.  Just Germans.

We've traced my dad's side back to 1567 to Wurttemberg, Germany.  Our family (the Germans) came to America in 1749.  

Mom's side goes back to around the same time to England.

Exciting stuff.

The Internet is a tremendous research tool, and since so many are doing it, there's not only a ton of information, but a lot of help and starting guidelines out there. Try the Mormon site for starters. As you dig you'll find clues on researching army records and churches, many of which are putting whole cemetaries online, even if only just the records, but not the graves, exist. One general rule to follow is never count anything as being accurate unless two reliable sources substantiate it.

The LDS site is good, there's also an enormous directory of resources and how-to's http://www.cyndislist.com/, there's some international information as well.

Also, LDS offers a freeware Ancestry program for your pc, which is quite useful, called Personal Ancestral File, it supports multimedia and builds web pages with the data as well.

Parts of my family history have been thoroughly done already, there's only one grandparent that I'm in the dark on. But my grandfather's side has been expertly done as one ancestor was one of the original pilgrims in Plymouth, Mass. His name is in the original documentation for the city, and he married a Mayflower girl (apparently the Presidential Bush family are descended from that girl's family as well, the Cooke family). I'd like to find out what happened to the family that he left behind, they were Pilgrims that left Cambridgeshire and moved to Leiden, Holland. I'd like to try to go back further to Cambridgeshire, if I can.

Yes it's all terribly interesting. And I've just gotten the part of my possessions which included all these papers/research recently, so I'm keen to start organizing it. It's all been in storage for 3.5 years.

Strangely I've never really been that interested in my family tree until recently.  I remember when I was younger that my Grandma (on my dad's side) told my mum a lot of things about what it was like when she was younger.  My Grandma used to be an avid writer and she was a member of internationally yours, which is a international penpal type organisation. My mother was also a member and I'm not sure if it was in conjunction with this group (I think it was) but my mother compiled my grandma's history and her parents also.

I've only become recently interested because Elle (my wife) seems to know far more about her family history than I do about mine. Even though she stops at a blank when she gets to a point.  So I shall have a talk with my mum and have a poke around on the web site that LisaE mentioned and see what i can find

Leah...it sounds like you know all of the pretty good sites for genealogy.  I used the the sites ancestry.com and familytreemaker.com as well as the others you mentioned to confirm my info and further it.  I have only been really working on my husbands paternal line and the internet has been great in connecting me with someone who actually took the line back to 1567.  I think though at a certain point they weren't required to keep records so you are usually only able to find records back so far.  My mothers family can only go back to my great grandparents because they were Czech's.  I love working on genealogy because it gets my brain functioning beyond "when is seasame street on" and "are my whites white enough"  I use the program Family Origins. I love walking around cemetaries.  I have since I was a child (I was a weird child!)  I am hoping to get back into the tree once I am over in the UK hoping to one day create a tree I can hang on the wall.  

Good luck everyone

I love cemetaries too!  I can't wait to see more of them in England, I've been to a few there and they're so peaceful.  The ones here don't go back far enough (although there is a CSA cemetary in Miami, which is kind of neat, lots of "Dulce et decorum est" inscriptions everywhere).

Hiya! I've been doing quite a lot of family research since I moved to England because my great grandmother was born & raised here in London! There are *TONS*  of resources, but my favourite so far has been

http://www.census.pro.gov.uk

It's the site for the (now online) 1901 London Census! It does require a £5 voucher/payment to have an "active session"- but it's really worth it if you have even a teensy bit of information pertaining to relatives in London & it's boroughs in 1901! I would recommend getting a voucher instead of paying for the activation online- you have more flexibility in when you use it. You can get them from many libraries (I'd call first and make sure though)

here are some other really useful links:

http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/  

The FreeBMD site is a searchable index containing information for the period 1837-1983.The Civil Registration system for recording births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales has been in place since 1837 & this site contains index information for the period 1837-1983. It's not complete, but they are working on it!

Ok- I tend to babble hehe


 BUT!
I have other links if anyone is interested!   I've been having such fun finding 300 years of my family history I never knew about!!!


 

I work for the Ancestry and Genealogy departments here in Northern lreland. l have found out so many interesting things through my work. Just finished entering 500 death entries into the data base. Totally facinating how folks died back in 1864. l had no clue about the workhouses here in NI and in the UK and when l began entering the data, l kept saying to myself "Wow this guy is losing a lot of his workers" 10 in one day! So l asked someone about the Workhouse and was told "l don't know" so me being the nosy person l am   l began researching the Workhouses. And what l found well, let's just say sometimes your better off NOT knowing.

In my research l did find out where ours was located and to my surprise it's still standing as our local hospital! Same layout, same buildings. So other day, took hubby to an appointment with the physiotherapist at this hospital and just being there in the same building, and knowing what l know, well lets just say l could feel the ghosts.

Do get to meet lots of Americans coming to our town to do research on their ancestors!  

I would have really liked to get into my family geneology while living in the UK but my Granddad has traced many of our family lines as back as far as the records exist. He's the founder of the Spencer Family Association and exceptionally good at what he does. Id love to trace my husband's lines but my granddad will probably beat me to it lol

Ive been on what might well be a wild goose chase for one bit of my herritage while Ive been here and England. The Weaver family is on my grandma's side and they used to have a manor house in Weaverham near Middlewich in Cheshire. My husband and I have been up there once to try and see if the foundations still exist but we couldnt get out of the car because of foot-and-mouth. Perhaps this summer we'll try again.

Ta for the links everyone :)I have been wanting to do this as well.Iam going to really get my ars* into gear about it once we get back to the UK  

You'll be hooked Rhia.  My mother started researching and now you can't get the woman off the computer.  But then again she likes the games too!  I think the reason she got the computer was to do more research.  You can only get so far with phone calls.

She got pictures of my father's dad.  We had never seen him, my dad included.  We were amazed at how much alike dad and father were.  We always assumed my dad looked like his mom - who we all knew.  Plus by finding my dad's father, we found out that my youngest brother looks like that side of the family.  No one else does.  How's that for eerie.  Lastly, we found that I looked very much like my mother's grandmother.  And that my oldest brother resembles my mother's grandad(her husband).  I love getting that sense of belonging.  When you can look at a picture from the early 1800s and see yourself.  Wow - its very hard to describe.

wow! thats so cool! can I ask where you found the photos?

PS: Breakthrough! My grand-dad has passed on his only stumbling point in our family history to ME!! *cheer* If anyone knows anything about the Barrow or Huggins families from Kent (in particular Hawkhurst, Cranbrook) from around 1850 back, IM me please. I will be your bestest friend!