The world of Tudor England described in S.J. Parris’s Prophecy may feel like ancient history, but there are only about fifteen generations separating us from the age of Elizabeth I. If you have family links to the UK there’s a good chance you have thousands of Tudor ancestors waiting to be rediscovered, and today, thanks to the wealth of family history resources available online finding them has never been easier.
In this, the first of a three-part series of posts on how to trace your Tudor family history, you will learn how to begin your research and the types of records you can use to track down your nineteenth and twentieth century ancestors.
First steps
If you’re a newcomer to family history, there are a few things you’ll need to do before you can trace your family back to Tudor times. First, think about what you already know and see if you can draw your family tree, including the names, dates and details of as many relatives as you can. This will help identify the gaps in your knowledge and suggest areas for future research.
Next, start filling in these gaps by talking to relatives and examining old family records like photo albums, news cuttings and birth certificates. More in-depth help on beginning your research can be found in any good family history guide, such as:
- Easy family history (2014) by David Annal
- Family history for beginners (2011) by Karen Foy
- Who do you think you are? : the genealogy handbook : the essential pocket guide to tracing your family history (2014) by Dan Waddell
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| Family tree showing the ancestors of James I. |
Researching further back in time
With a bit of luck this will be enough to help you trace your family back to the early twentieth century, at which point you’ll be ready to start searching online. There are a number of good family history websites which provide access to a wide range of sources. One of the most popular is
Ancestry, which is free to use in
Deptford Lounge,
Downham, and
Lewisham libraries.
Among the most important family history records are the indexes to birth, marriage and death certificates. They are available on Ancestry but can also be accessed for free at
FreeBMD.org. These will help you find out approximately where and when your ancestors were born, married and died as far back as 1837. They will also provide you with the information you need to order full certificates from the
General Register Office.
Another crucial resource is the census, which provides a detailed snapshot of each household in the country every ten years starting in 1841. It included the names and ages of everyone living there, their occupations and relationships to one another. Census records can be viewed online via Ancestry, and free transcriptions are available through
FreeCen.org. Some excellent tips on using the census for family history research are included in
Census: the expert guide (2008) by Peter Christian and David Annal.
Unfortunately the General Register Office and the census were both established in the early nineteenth century, so are of little use for researching Tudor ancestors. If we wish to go further back we will need to look at parish registers, which have been around far longer. In part 2 we will look at the origins of these registers and explore how you can use them in your family history research.
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