If you’re new to family research, the National Archives has a fantastic list of research guides. What I’ve compiled here (and will continue to compile) are some additional resources and tips that I’ve picked up along the way.
Addresses
For ancestors you can search these on Ancestry, but I find that FindMyPast has a much easier address search function, especially on the 1939 Register.
Sometimes the street no longer exists. This interactive map showing old/new streets of Liverpool was a regular for me. You can put in the name of a street that’s no longer there, and it will overlay with the street that’s there now. They may exist for other towns. This one is part of the Historic Liverpool website.
Even if you don’t have Facebook, set up an account just so you can use all the amazing genealogy or social history groups. Most towns have a page dedicated to their social history, with hundreds of knowledgeable members always happy to help. People are always putting up old photographs of streets, so you can either look at the gallery, or ask. If the town you’re researching doesn’t have a dedicated group - set one up! This one for Billy’s Liverpool of Yesterday is amazing (you’ll need to join to see it). If you’re anti-AI, these people are also experts at decyphering the handwriting on historic documents. Don’t feel like you’re botherinng people, they’ll love it.
For living descendants, as well as social media sleuthing I use 192.com. Once registered you can find the town and postcodes of people (which is sometimes enough). If you want the actual address, you pay £15.95 for 6 credits (ie 6 address views). I’ve found a few peope by old-fashioned letter-writing. If there’s no answer, they might have moved away. Write to the address next door, neighbours sometimes have forwarding addresses. Elderly neighbours might know a lot about the history of the steet and its residents.
Start a card index. For each project, create a new card for every street you come across and write down the ancestor who lived there and when. You’ll be amazed how many times you’ll come across a street and think “I swear I’ve seen that street before”. You’ll end up with cards that really tell a story about a street and its relationship with your ancestors.
Travel/Passengers/Mariners
The Passenger Lists in the ‘immigration and Travel’ section of Ancestry are comprehensive, but if you’re looking for merchant navy records they’re exclusively on FindMyPast (under Education and Work).
You can also find mariner/seafarer records on the Crew List Online Project. It’s a not-for-profit volunteer project, set up to assist research into the records of British merchant seafarers of the late 19th and early 20th century.
For Australia the government has digitalised all their arrivals and departures (by boat and plane), it’s an amazing resource.
RAF records
If you want an explanation of RAF records from WW2, the people at the RAF
Museum are really helpful and they’ll do it within a day or two. You can contact them at askcollections@rafmuseum.org
Names
When searching on Ancestry, use the * to search for alternative spellings. My grandma (Edna Smith) was mis-transcribed three times in records - once as Edina, once as Edva and once her surname was Simth. Try multiple variations and anticipate wrong spellings.
Also when searching censuses, try and get yourself inside the heads of the people who’d filled them out. In the 1921 census my grandma was officially still Edna Smith, but she’d been ‘informally adopted’ by a couple and she was their unpaid domestic. If they’d put her real name, it would have raised financial questions. However they assigned their surname to her and called her ‘adopted daughter’ even though that wasn’t true. It made her part of the family so they didn’t need to pay her. It also made her very difficult to find! If I’d been more open minded about the surname I’d not have dismissed the record as quickly.
Northern Irish families
I wish I’d known about this site at the start of my Irish research - Ros Davies The amount of detail is unbelievable.
Baptism records
You can find so much more information from baptism records than birth certificates. Sometimes priests/vicars would jot things in the margin. If you can’t find a record that’s been digitised (ie on Ancestry or FindMyPast or online parish archives) find the nearest church(es) to where the mother was living, and ring round/email to find out where their records are held. It could be that the church holds them and you can go and see the ledger for yourself (that’s a real treat), or they might take a look for you and photograph an entry. Or you’ll be told that records are held at the local archives, either at the local council offices or at the library on microfiche. The worst case scenario is that they’ve been destroyed (which is always possible) but if they’re out there, the hassle will be worth it if you find a gem.
Some county’s have created fantastic databases - this website was a valuable resource for me Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project. It might be that you’ll find similar sites for other counties if you search or ask around.
The Great War
This incredible website gives you every resource you need The Long Long Trail.
Also Lives of the First World War - particularly good for photos.
And the BBC’s World War One at Home
Most campaigns/fronts/operations will have their own dedicated online society/website. For example Salonika Campaign Society (I volunteer for this society), so hunt around for the one you need to find the experts.
On a personal note
Be patient! Other than some instant ‘wins’ where something’s been digitally recorded and you find it at first search, most things take time. Like military records, like waiting for BDM certificates in the post, like the whole adoption records saga. Like methodically researching records where the variables are enormous. It’s often not even possible to just pop to a local library to use their archives - sometimes you need to order an archives card (which can take a while to be authorised), book an appointment (sometimes they’re only one day a week), and pre-order any records you want to look at (which means you need to get to grips with their archive system which is sometimes complicated).
Think about your approach when contacting living descendants. I learnt this the hard way! Your question may not land how you expect it to. People are fiercely protective over their ancestors (and quite right too). Don’t show all your cards at once.
Be tenatious. When I’d exhaustively contacted all the migrant charities (and there are a LOT) asking them to search for a boy within a certain time frame, it was laborious and sometimes difficult to get through to the right person. Then I realised I had the timeframe wrong, so I had to contact/call them all AGAIN with the new details. Thankfully I’d made a note of everyone’s name and phone number/email address, but it was still out of my comfort zone and it felt like nagging to hound them again. Worth it though when I found what I was looking for. It’s the same with messages in Facebook Groups, new members are joining all the time, so don’t be afraid to put the same message/request for information out at regular intervals.