Your 4-week family history research plan

Family history is such a fascinating hobby and once you’re hooked there are so many interesting side lines to pursue that it’s all too easy to be led astray from the task in hand! It helps to get some sorting out done before you start – and to set you on your way, here is my four-week plan.

Week 1

Start creating a family tree

Begin by writing down what you already know, starting with yourself.

A simple tree with just names, dates and places is all you need at this stage. Have a good look at this. What do you know? What gaps are there? Do you know your grandmother’s maiden name for example?

Week 2

Use certificates to grow your tree

Once you have all that basic information organised, the next step will be to expand what you know.

The first resource to help you fill gaps in your existing knowledge will be birth, marriage and death certificates. 

Week 3

Expand your research horizons 

In order to get further back you will next need access to birth, marriage and death indexes from 1837 onwards, census indexes, transcriptions and digitised images of records and parish register entries.

Week 4

Building your family archive

With thorough basic planning in place after the first three weeks the task for the fourth week is to decide just how you are going to record and store all the information that you will accumulate once your research really takes off.

For the full article, with further tasks to complete over the four weeks, top tips and search-smart advice, be sure to read the Family Tree November 2016 issue!