What is it possible to find?

For ancestors living in Britain, you should reasonably expect to be able to trace back to those born around the early 1800s at the very least.

It became a legal requirement to register births, marriages and deaths from 1855 in Scotland (1837 in England and Wales), so finding a death registration from around this time could reveal an ancestor born in the late 1700s.

For earlier records, sources such as the Old Parish Registers are used, although the availability of these is much more variable. However, with perseverance and experience, it is possible to trace ancestors through a variety of older sources.

The other principal source of statutory records is the Census, which has taken place in Britain every ten years since 1841. This gives details of every person in every household, including their age, place of birth and occupation, as well as their whereabouts on census night. In addition to valuable information about your family, this data also gives us a glimpse into how they lived, and in what sort of neighbourhood.

Cross-checking these details with local archive information can help us to paint more detail into the picture. What sort of street did they live in? What were living and working conditions like? What were the "issues of the day"?

And so, piece by piece, we add to the story, and begin to get a sense of connection to our own history - the story of our own family.