Discover your ancestors – family history from total beginner to DNA analysis

Your family history

Who are your ancestors? Where did they live? What did they do? How did they help to form who you are?

Expect ancestry research to take you to unexpected places as you explore your roots back into the past.

About the course

Maybe you’re a complete novice or perhaps you’ve already started building a family tree. This course will take you from a total beginner to researching with confidence using some of the best tools and information available. As a technologist I’m excited to show how the internet can open a world of data that would once have needed weeks in dusty libraries.

By the end of the course you will know how to:

Create and build a family tree on paper or using free software
Research your ancestors with access to millions of online records
Follow good practices for tree building and record keeping
Use family knowledge, census information, vital records and hints from other researchers
Explore the new field of DNA analysis and what you can learn from it.

Course focus

In this course I’ll show how I built my own family tree, with parts back to the 16th century. I’ll give practical examples from my own research and a chance to “meet” a few of my ancestors. Their stories inspire me to continue my own research.

The main focus is on UK records, although the course will also be useful in the US and for anyone with ancestors who trace back to the UK. I primarily recommend ancestry.com (ancestry.co.uk) as a tool although I do explore other tools.

I’d love to hear suggestions about areas where I could extend the course to give further advice.

Project

The course is all about how you can explore your ancestors. In every section of the course I suggest practical steps you can take to move your own tree forwards. Each source of data that we explore is a step forward in building your own family tree.