Family History Research

Getting started

If you are new to researching family history the best advice to help you get started is to talk to all the oldest generations in your family and gather as much information as you can about names, places, jobs and any other interesting features.  Start off, noting your own details and those of your parents.  This is called establishing a pedigree.

Hold off buying expensive subscriptions to family history websites until you have spoken to and gathered as much information as possible from your own family.  If relatives have copies of birth, marriage or death certificates then do ask them to make copies for you.  You can also obtain copies of birth, marriage or death certificates from the General Register Office.  In most cases you now don’t need to obtain a certified copy (certificate) if you are researching family history, and can now obtain a much cheaper pdf or digital copy.  You can also use the index at the GRO site to see the mother’s maiden name for births and the age at deaths, which may help you ensure you are researching the right family or person.  When speaking to family members do ask if they have any old family photos and offer to pay for copies.  Ask them at the same time to make a photocopy and mark on it everyone whose name they remember. 

At the same time that you are doing this you might also find it helpful to find a local family history society for the area you live who can support you with advice or good research habits.  Once you know which areas you may be most likely to be researching in you may also want to join those family history societies as they can help you interpret records specific to that locality, and will help you join together with others researching the same families.  You can find a list of the various family history societies on the Family History Federation website. The Federation also have a website dedicated to starting family history research called Explore Your Genealogy.

As you start your research you may also find that you are focusing mainly on one or two families.  There are societies that rather than being location focused are name focused and are known as One Name Studies.  You can find a list of these on the Guild of One Name Studies (affectionately known as the Goons!).

Don’t forget to check your local library for basic books on family history, genealogy, drawing up a family tree/pedigree, interpreting old photos, or preserving your family archive.  The National Archives (the official archive and publisher for the UK Government, and for England and Wales) has a range of online guides to the records it holds, which beginners will find useful.

Finally, many people do like to start off with a subscription to one of the various family history websites such as Ancestry, Find My Past, The Genealogist or My Heritage.  However, you will probably find that your local library will have a library version of some (or all) of these that you can use on the PC in the library, so do check first, and try different sites to see which hold the records you need, and which you find the most easy to use.

Researching in Hertfordshire

If you are researching in Hertfordshire the principal repository for official records is Hertfordshire Archives in Hertford.  Here you will find both local studies items available on open shelves, and original documents which will need to be ordered in advance from storage. 

PLEASE NOTE THAT HERTFORDSHIRE FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY DOES NOT HAVE A LIBRARY ITSELF OR ANY ORIGINAL DOCUMENT HOLDINGS.

If you need to consult Hertfordshire parish registers then digital images, plus a transcription, may be searched on Find My Past.  Consulting the Hertfordshire Archives page on the Hertfordshire County Council website will allow you to search the archive catalogue.  PLEASE NOTE THAT WITH ALL ARCHIVES ONLY A SMALL FRACTION OF HOLDINGS ARE ONLINE.  Furthermore, ONLY A SMALL FRACTION OF HOLDINGS ARE INDEXED OR HAVE A FINDING AID and therefore you may need to use the services of a record agent or professional researcher to help you find material to verify or further hard to research family lines. 

Hertfordshire Archives has an essential index called Hertfordshire Names Online, which is a index of the names in a variety of sources covering Apprentices (1599 - 1903), the Archive Catalogue (1100 - 2016), Crime & Punishment (1746 - 2015). Fatalities (1827 - 1933). Marriages & Marriage Licences (1538 - 1925). Miscellaneous Names (1555 - 1975), Newspapers & Magazines (1758 - 2025), Newspaper Pictures (1890 - 2099), Non Conformist Registers (1658 - 1966), The Poor (1623 - 1915), Tithe and Inland Revenue (1837 - 1918), Wills (1413 - 1857).  Because this index is continuously being updated by volunteers it is essential to repeat your search often to pick up newly indexed content.  The results of the search are linked to a description of the content which it is possible to order and pay for online.

Hertfordshire Family History Society can help guide you with research and may be able to carry out some small scale research for you.  Alternatively Hertfordshire Archives have a research service for which you will need to pay, or you can consult the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) or the Register of Qualified Genealogists.

The Hertfordshire Family History Society has completed a number of specialised publications including monumental inscriptions which can be found listed in the projects section and for purchase on GenFair.

Other useful information can often be found through the extensive network of local history societies and local museums to be found in Hertfordshire.  Links to these are listed on the resources page of this website.

If your research is connected to many of the market towns within Hertfordshire, or in villages towards the border with neighbouring counties it is always worth checking the archives catalogues of those counties as you may find records relating to trade or wills outside Hertfordshire. 

Other useful free sources for research in Hertfordshire include the National Library of Scotland’s collection of high resolution zoomable images of over 420000 maps of Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales and beyond.  Also highly useful is the University of Leicester’s digital collection of 689 trade and local directories for England and Wales from the 1760s to the 1910s, with at least one directory for every English and Welsh county. The collection includes Kelly's and Pigot's directories, as well as those by regional publishers.