How to start tracing your Victorian ancestors

You don’t have to have been researching your family history for more than an evening or two, before you come to realise that ‘the census’ looms large, very large indeed, when it comes to tracing your family tree – and similarly the bureaucratic-sounding ‘civil registers of births, marriages and deaths’ are the other simply must-search sources. Gradually getting the lie of the land, you quickly come to understand that the earliest census of broad use to family historians is that for 1841, and those civil registers have been kept from 1837 – ie they are both creations of the Victorian age. And these are just two of the invaluable sources that came into being during Queen Victoria’s reign, which we family historians have come to be extremely grateful for.

 

To read the full article about tracing your Victorian ancestors, grab your copy of Family Tree Christmas 2016!