Advice for people who want to research their family history

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With 25 million users signed up to the leading family tree website, its clear people are really intrigued by their history. Genetic specialist Turi King and life coach Mavis, my mum, have advice for you before you start digging. Morning to you. Studying your family tree, it's fascinating, but it's now also easier, it's more popular than ever isn’t it Turi?
We're in an absolute golden age. So, you were saying earlier, so National Archives, they're just putting the 300,000 wartime farm records online. And this is one of a number of initiatives. So, we've got parish records going online, this kind of thing. So, you know, in history we tend to think like the big names and the kings and the queens and this kind of thing, but these records going online means that we get like a glimpse into the life of our ancestors, and all the little stories that are in there. I just… you can do this all from your living room. I love it, I just think it's amazing.
That's the thing. I think before it had been incredibly overwhelming to even think about where to start, it is more accessible now than ever. Where do you start with your searches?
Okay, so if you want to go online, there's free websites, so like FreeBMD. If you want to start going a little bit deeper, you are probably going to have to go for the big ones like, ancestry, find my past and that's going to cost you money, but it does give you access to various databases all at once, which is fantastic.
The other thing I would suggest is that if you do want to, like, order a birth certificate or marriage certificate, don't necessarily go through those websites, go to the general register office because it tends to be cheaper.
Get to know your local record office, so they can be fantastic. So, for example, I had to do a case recently where I want to know who lived at a particular address. And so, I rang up the record office and they were lovely, they did it for free for me, they will do research for you, which is great.
And then the other thing is, is go for, family history groups online, Facebook. There's loads of people out there with social media who will help you with your family trees.
If you're going to do DNA testing, I mean we know from DNA Family Secrets that sometimes you can find out things that you really were not expecting to find. Sometimes they can be absolutely wonderful. They can often be incredibly emotional so be prepared, understand that this will be an emotional journey, potentially, not just for you, but for your family members, but also say you find a half sibling, for their families. It's about respect and kindness, I think.
Any other tips that we need to know about if we're going to look into the past of a family?
I always tell people, talk to your family. Go and talk to any older family members. Go and have a look at photographs and oh goodness you just hope that on the back they've been writing names as to who's on the photo, things like that.
I was given my grandma's old Bible and in the front was, you know, names, dates, marriages, that sort of thing, that's what you want. So, you want your names, you want your dates, you want your locations and relationships. Those are the things you're looking for when you're building your family tree.
Representation: www.josarsby.com/turi-king

[@dleigh112]

Good advice for those starting their journey, which is usually an emotional roller coaster ride. I'm 30 years into mine after starting with two old family stories. The more you find out, the more questions arise to be answered because of the exponential structure of your ancestral tree as you go further back. Patterns may also become clear in that tree which will tell you more about who you are now and where you came from.

[@carpathiangirl8460]

Family search is the most comprehensive free website to search. It has a lot of records that have not been transcribed. Always go and look at the original birth death or marriage record. Essentially searching for family history is looking for documentary evidence. My experience of DNA matches is that most of my matches are north american people who are descended from east european immigrants to the US in the early 1900s. Unless you have a clear trail of documentation, working put how you are related can be challenging.

[@pwalsh2441]

Searching your family history is not daunting; there’s so many available tools like Turi mentioned. Of course, there may be some surprises but it’s mostly fun and interesting.

[@littleminna]

Good tips! Thanks. My mom is from a small country in Latin America my dad European. On my dad's side I've found lots of information and got a big family tree now. Unfortunately in Latin America it is very difficult to find records so I haven't come that far. My grandma on my mom's side was orphaned when she was just a child. She and her two sisters were hiding but witnessed when their mother's partner who was drunk beat her to death. Then the sisters were split up and went to live with different families. But grandma didn't know much about her mother and she did not know who her father was at all. As it seems she and her sisters were half-sisters. It would have been nice to know more but unfortunately the only thing I've succeeded in finding is my grandma's baptism record, stating her mother's name, and indeed no name of father. And her older sister's baptism record, which does have a name of a father. It's too bad I haven't been able to find more than that. And all three sisters have passed so I can't ask them anything anymore. My mom took a DNA test and have a long list of distant relatives with different Spanish names. But unfortunately we haven't got the slightest clue of how we are related. They don't really have family trees. I believe most of them also are Latin Americans that now live in the US.

[@jimiwhat79]

So lucky to be Dutch and all archives are online and free, if it would cost money I would never have started.

[@mariajoannou9936]

Most DNA sites are by subscription, and not everyone can afford to keep their profile going, once their DNA test has been done.

[@janevivian-smith4578]

This information should be free its expensive interesting but its gonna cost a lot.