Tracing Your British Family History - Read This First

If are a white American or Australian, it is very likely that you have ancestors who originated in the UK.  This is why British family history is of great interest to many people in these countries who are attempting to trace their family trees.

As a professional genealogist working in the UK, I have many American and Australian clients looking for ancestors in all parts of the United Kingdom.  If you are looking for ancestors in the UK, particularly for records before 1837 where fewer records can be accessed online, you will normally need to find a professional to do this for you.

However, I occasionally come across requests for research in Britain where there is just not enough information to make a start.

The trouble is, some US and other records may state that an individual was born in "England", for example, with no details of whereabouts in England.  When the name is a fairly common one, it is just not possible to search the records without more details.  The words "needle" and "haystack" come readily to mind!

If you live in a vast country such as the US or Australia, you can probably be forgiven for thinking that British family history is easy because it covers such a small area.  However, don't forget that Britain is a much more densely populated country, particularly back in the 19th or 18th centuries when emigration to places like American or Australia began to rise in popularity.

England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are all divided into counties, and each county has its own record office where local records are kept, including parish registers, land records, wills and other documents.  Some parish registers have been published online, but the vast majority still have to be looked at by visiting the appropriate record office, and one county's RO may be about 50-80 miles from the next one.

While it is possible to search for a name on the online census indexes or GRO indexes, you are likely to come with far too many results unless you have some idea of the area your ancestor came from.

Before requesting the services of a professional genealogist, therefore, it would be a good idea to try and do some further research to see if you can find out at least the county where your ancestors originated - and preferably the village or town.  If you have looked at all available census records and not found any other details other than the country name, you could try looking at the immigration records for your country.  Sometimes these records will give the place of origin of the immigrant.  Other records such as wills or marriage records may sometimes give details of a person's origins, so do as much work as you can to find these records in your country first.

One possible way of finding an ancestor without having the location is if you know that they married before emigrating.  As long as both names are not too common, it may be possible to cross-check marriage index references to find the right couple and then take it from there. 

If you are lucky enough to be looking for an ancestor with a very unusual Christian AND surname, then it may be possible to find them without these details, but for the most part, and researcher will need location details, and/or names of spouses where the couple were married before emigration. 

Tracing your British family history is extremely interesting and it is well worth the effort to find these details if you can, but if you cannot, you will find it very difficult to locate an ancestor, especially if his name is John Smith!