Searching for your ancestors
Posted by Miss W. on October 3, 2010
Miss W. loves doing research into her family tree. She has one side back into England with a birth in 1603 which is over 400 years ago. Miss W is a 9th great grandchild of Thomae Colgrave born in Bedfordshire, England.
The important thing, though, about researching your family history is to start with yourself and work backwards one generation at a time.
- Ask your parents and grandparents information about where they were born and when.
- Ask them about their parents, where and when they were married, when born, when died, where buried.
- Did anyone in the family take part in World War II or World War I?
- What was life like for them when growing up?
- What was school like?
- Did they have chores to do after school?
- What type of jobs did they have as an adult?
Fill in a family group sheet which you can print online from Ancestry.com Once you have information from a few generations back, fill in a pedigree sheet. Keep these handy with dates of births, deaths and marriages. Miss W already has some of these printed if you want to collect from her in ICT time.
If you have burials in the local community, check with Miss W as she has the cemetery CDROMs for the local area.
If you have a birth, death or marriage before 1900 in Tasmania, check with Miss W as she also has this on CDROM.
Some other useful websites for researching your family history :
- Cora Num website – 48 different lists of resources
- Archives of Tasmania - includes Tasmanian convicts, wills, divorces and family groups
- Tasmanian Genealogy – lots of different resources to use
- RootsWeb – check out the mailing lists and surname lists – Aus-Tasmania mailing list is fantastic – Miss W is a member if you want her to send out a message for you
- National Archives of Australia – immigration into Australia and war records
- Historic Australia Newspapers – from 1803 – 1954
If you have any other questions about resources that you could use, please leave a comment.
October 6th, 2010 at 7:56 am
Hello Miss Wyatt,
I have never really studied my family history. By sister in grade 7 had to do a project though and now she knows more about it then anyone that lives in my house. I do not have any ancestors that were in WWI or WWII. Though my second cousin was part of the party that opposed Mussolini before WWII. He was a doctor and became a hero in Italy and he actually has a plaque in the town hall of where he came from which was amazing to see. Have you ever been to Bedfordshire in England? Do you still have relatives living over there?
Greyson
October 6th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
G’day Greyson,
It is a great topic to do and in my family so far, I have found 8 convicts sent out from England in the early/mid 1800′s. On one of my trips to England, I went to Bedfordshire and to the town where he was born. It was interesting thinking about your relative while standing in a place where he had been 400 years ago.
October 6th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Hi Miss W and Kids in the Mid! What an excellent blog you have going here. I am particularly interested in this genealogy information, because of my (and Roar’s) involvement in the Founders and Survivors project. Do you know about it? http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/ cheerio, Melinda
October 6th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Hi Melinda,
That was a great seminar last night and I think I am close to convincing the school to buy the program to use next year. With regard to family history, I have inputted to the founders and survivors org database with 8 of my own convicts and their details. I am also one of their volunteer researchers, but I haven’t done much while I am still working nearly full time. That’s why I like doing genealogy with students in my classes if they are interested.
October 9th, 2010 at 5:10 am
Hello Mrs.W my name is Matthew I am a studet in grade 8 in Canada.
visit my blog at http://matthew110gs.edublogs.org/
October 11th, 2010 at 8:12 am
hi my name is Annalize. I think your blog is fantastic keep up the good work. Annalize, Melville Intermediate School, Hamilton, New Zealand
October 15th, 2010 at 4:59 am
Hello Miss W.
I am a student a the University of South Alabama in Dr. Strange’s EDM class. While reading your blogs I found the one about finding your ancestry quite enjoyable. I think it is great to research your past families to see who you were related to and if they were famous, where they may have came from. I found it all to be very interesting. Your blog looks great! Keep up the assume work your doing.
October 17th, 2010 at 6:27 am
Hi Miss W!
Genealogy/ancestry is so interesting! I few years ago I started filling out a family tree; I think I got as far back as my mom’s mom’s grandma! My grandpa’s parents immigrated from Ireland in the early 1900s and two summer’s ago we visited some of my Irish relatives! I don’t think that any of my ancestors were in WWII, but my grandpa’s dad was in the Irish revolution back in the 1920s and was actually put in prison by the British.
I did notice and I wondered what had happened! Thank you so much Miss W, and thank you Sue Waters!
Thank you, I’m glad that I can be a blogging inspiration of sorts! (I never thought that day would come! )
-Dominique
October 20th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Great Blog and lots of ideas for me to pinch, so thank you Miss W. I liked this post on geneology. Even though I’m a NZer my family were in the first fleet (as well as the 2nd fleet), so I have links to Australia, particularly Tasmainia where some settled. When I visited (a few years ago now) I was even able to hunt down the burial sites for my ancestors. It’s such an interesting thing to study. I found it funny that one of my ancestors was sent to Australia for stealing a hat!
Looking forward to reading more of your blog.
Ms Price
October 23rd, 2010 at 2:11 am
Hello! My name is Jamie, and I’m from Mr. Ferreirae’s class. I don’t really study genealogy, but I heard from my grandmother that a relative of mine studies our family tree. I think that some of my ancestors even came from Quebec!
November 12th, 2010 at 6:39 am
Its pretty co0l that you put links to the websites to search your family’s history. Thanks!!