genealogy, where do I start?

Thank you Elegran. FreeBMD is a fantastic resource and though I havent done any transcribing in a while I did enjoy it and may volunteer again when I have more time.

Yes, when you think about time constraints, weather and the distances involved to get to a register office there can be a time lapse between birth and registration.

I've also encountered a few cases where I believe a birth was not registered in the time that was allowed before a fine was incurred. Instead of paying the fine the parent gave a later date of birth. One of my late husband's aunts knew this was the case with her. She steadfastly celebrated her birthday on the real date of her birth while her birth certificate said something different. She grumbled that her father saved a few pounds in fines but 60 years later it had delayed her pension!

Hi,
I was raised in Miss Blyths childrens home in Witham and am looking to find anyone else who was there from 1942 - 1950, also school pics from Miss English school in 1945-48 and Maldon road school 1948-1950 Mr Hinchcliffe was the headmaster,my name back then was Madelaine.

I use the British Newspaper Archive to add extra information to census addresses etc; it's brilliant.

i would start with you then parents ,then grandparents. that should do for the first few months. names birth/marriage/death/ do on both sides. the census will pick up where families livedand how many siblings. keep all notes dont throw anything out. question older relatives. make notes. dont be put off with. oh you dont want to hear that. actually yes i do..was told there was madness in our mortimer family. found out a late great aunt had epilepsy died young at 20 ,was classed as an idiot.(lovely) grrrrrr. have traced mortimer history back to 1400's and my mums birth family back to 1700's.(cockbill).. very interesting and in touch with siblings of birth family.at least we know where we come from...

There is some good advice on this thread which I needn't repeat. But an inquisitive mind and attention to detail are good qualities to have.

Most importantly, do not take information from other people's online trees without confirming the details for yourself. Many of them are complete fairy tales with the wrong people in the tree! Write down the relevant details and then look up the people/events yourself. Never make assumptions, you need evidence.

When you find a document on a website then download it to your computer so you can refer to it later. Have folders on your computer for different families and individuals.

I would also advise that you buy the birth and marriage certificates of direct ancestors because they are so important and may have small but critical pieces of information (Note: some are available on Ancestry so you don't need to buy the certificate). Death certificates are not so essential unless you have a query about the death.

Death certificates in Scotland show who registered the death so can be helpfup in finding other family members,for instance on my GGM'death certificate it gave a name of a son I didn't know existed

Death certificates in Wales, England and N.Ireland give the name of the person who registered the death.

Chestnut your point about using other people's family trees with caution is spot on. Many people simply copy and paste 'facts' from another's tree without seeking to confirm the details themselves. It's very time consuming I know, but it really is necessary to go back to original sources to verify information.
So many people (I'm finding more and more recently) simply don't bother.

I agree death certificates are helpful too, and I have purchased them all for my direct ancestors, but when you start researching there are a lot of certificates to buy! Birth and marriage certificates are more essential than death at the beginning. Due to the cost certificates including death can be purchased slowly over time as your research unfolds and gets more detailed.

grannyactivist I'm finding the current crop of 'researchers' are often lazy and simply look online as you said and copy what others have done. This means that an error will get duplicated over and over again as more people copy. I don't consider these people are true researchers. They simply want to use other people's information and not bother to find out for themselves. I think Ancestry has encouraged laziness, because in the old days you could not share like that, you had to go and find the information for yourself! This was either in the area where the event took place or in London. I had many trips to London in the 1990s. Now people expect it all to be handed to them on a plate.

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Reported

a lot of sites say free and they are not, i have got back to the 15th century using family search they are free, and as all my relatives were from Scotland iv also signed up to a few free Scottish sites, but i started with one name and that was it, fascinating if addictive,

I belong to RootsChat.com.
There are very helpful people on there who don't charge.
I don't use the site for my ancestry but for history of my home town.
Luckily I have letters, news cuttings, paintings and chats with ancient relatives which tell me all I want to know about my family

The hardest part of tracing your family history is the first Hundred years because most of the documents are closed for 100 Years. That is protect those who are in their senior years didn't find that heir parents or grandparents were not what they thought they were.
Ask all the senior members of your family about what they remember about their Aunts Uncles grandparents etc.
Before paying out money for for the Ancestry or FMP ask questions on Curious Fox www.curiousfox.com there are other sites you can ask questions on.
Depending where you are searching you may find Online Parish Clerk site. Like the Lancashire site www.lan-opc.org.uk/Search/indexp.html . Other counties have OPC's
Then there is The Gazette. www.thegazette.co.uk that includes births, marriages, deaths, court proceeding, bankruptcy . My own surname which is from Lancashire I have found over 40 spelling variations. That is possibly down to the scribe in the Church who possibly came from the next town and wrote down what he thought he heard. If you think they came from or went overseas there are shipping lists. If you still live in or close to the area your ancestors lived you have got the county records offices. Another good search place is Internet Archive - archive.org/index.php there are thousands of historical books that you can access. Like parish Registers, Victorian County History books. The list is endless. Unfortunately some of these have been swallowed up by sites you have to pay for. So do as much home work before you start spending your money.
Good Hunting

Yes, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the family history centres are free to use and people who man them are more than willing to help.
You can get family search and Ancestry for free in the centres,
plus they have microfiche, maps and films.
If you go on family search.org there are videos showing you
how to research your family. Good luck!