Starting out:

This slide show shows how to make a family tree.

In this example the steps needed are shown as well as links to the suggested sites.

In all cases the low budget option has been taken.

Step 1

Collect information on all known living relatives and of those who have passed away since about 1900 (if possible).

Collecting this information is critical when trying to trace ancestors because it is not readily available from any other source owing to restrictions on data protection.

Step 2

Find out if any member of your family has written part of your family tree in the past – if at all possible get hold of this information. There is no sense in doing the work someone has done before.

If possible get hold of the .ged file for this tree. A .ged file has the information recorded in a way that can be read by all family tree software.

Step 3 Choose an internet site on which you

can record you information – in the UK there are three good sites.

Genesreunited at http://www.genesreunited.co.uk

The cost of using this site is £34.95 for 6 months as a Gold member (strongly recommended) (does not give access to the 1881 census but this is free on http://www.findmypast.com)

Or £9.95 for 6 months (this fee does not give access to census and other data.

Step 3

Ancestry http://www.ancestry.co.uk The cost of using this site is £83.40 for

12 months or £107.40 for 12 months (this fee gives access to pre 1837 data.

Find my past http://www.findmypast.com The cost of using this site is £54.95 for

6 months or £89.95 for 12 months .

Step 4

Enter the known information onto your tree on the website.

Remember to make information about living relatives secure by not allowing anyone to whom you give access to your tree a chance to see them. This is easily done in the my account section of your tree.

Step 5

Start to search for information about relatives who were alive in the periods covered by the census years 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 , 1881, 1891 and 1901. The 1911 census data is also available but is more expensive to view.

It is quite easy to track male relatives but finding out the maiden names of their wives is not a simple matter.

Step 5 continued

To find the maiden names of wives you have three options:

(1) Look at links to the family member in the trees of other members and make a request to see their trees. It’s a long shot and my pay off in few cases.

(2) Look up marriages recorded on the website - http://www.familysearch.org (more on this later).

(3) In the end you may have to buy a copy of the relevant marriage certificate. More about this on the next slide.

Step 5 continued

Past marriage certificates in the UK (1837 to present).

In England and Wales you can order these from http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

They cost about £8 but you will need to know the record number which you can get from BMD records. It’s a tedious process and you will have to guess or know when the marriage took place at the start of your search.

In Scotland the records can be obtained from http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

Step 6

You should now have the critical parts of your tree. Records from before 1840 can be freely obtained

from – http://www.familysearch.org/ENG/search/frameset_search.asp

To use this site first enter the name of the known person and their date of birth. Search for their place of birth and parents names.

Then use the parents names to find the date and place of their marriage.

Guess the dates of birth of the parents to be about 20 years (+ or – 10 years) before the wedding date and locate their dates of birth.

Repeat this process until you cannot identify the person or there is no information recorded about them.

Making a chart of the tree. It is possible to print the tree form the

genesreunited website but this is not a particularly good tree chart.

You can download a very good FREE ancestry record package at (Family Tree builder):

http://www.myheritage.com You do not have to record you tree online

– in fact you can only store 250 names on it unless you pay for using their site)

Back up

Do not forget to back up your work at regular intervals – store it as a .ged file in a number of places so that it is not lost in the event of computer failure!

Note making a tree is very additive and will take up a lot of your time – be aware of the danger of allowing your life to be overtaken in the effort!