Do you want to start looking into your family history but don’t know where to start?
Have you had a go and find you have a mass of papers that you don’t know what to do with?
Do you have some information about your family but don’t know how to go any further?
Researching your roots can be highly addictive and it’s easy to get carried away. But it doesn’t pay to be hasty when starting out in family history; you can make progress more quickly if you begin your research on a good foundation and put aside some time for planning what you want to achieve. Take a chance to reflect on your own life, record your early memories, talk to older relatives now before it's too late and collect together family documents and photographs. See what information you already have before you go to record offices or start buying certificates.
I will take you through step-by-step so that you can get the maximum information from these personal sources. I will show you different methods to set up your own system for recording and filing information. This way, when you start looking in official records you will have a much clearer idea of what you are looking for and why and how to preserve the information logically and clearly.
This foundation will enable you to make faster progress later on and to avoid the frustrations that beset many ‘newbies’ to this challenging and fascinating hobby.
Outline
In this 7 week course you will cover 6 topics:
Topic 1: Family history choices
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Discover some of the reasons people start looking into their family and what they get out of tracing their ancestry.
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Appreciate that family history can be done in several different ways; this is a very personal journey and one approach is not 'better' or more correct than another.
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Start thinking about possible 'game plans' and to decide which one you would like to follow
Topic 2: Starting with you
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Record some basic information, or do a more detailed description of your own life.
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Write down memories of important events, memories of parents, grandparents to add personal information to the family history you will be researching.
Topic 3: Ask the family
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Tap into the memories and knowledge of other members of the family, particularly the older members, by doing some oral history.
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Draw your first family tree.
Topic 4: Documents, papers and photographs
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Explore the documents held by family members for their genealogical information.
Topic 5: Help! What can I do with all this stuff?
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Set up a system for filing and recording information on your family history.
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Think about the computer software options available for family history.
Topic 6: The first hundred years and a little bit more
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Identify family members who were alive in 1901 and use the 1901 census online to try to locate the record for them
Who should take this course?
This course is for anyone with an interest in finding out about their family history. There are no entry requirements apart from curiosity.
Follow on
This course will get you started with drawing up your own family tree, and draw you into the fascinating world of genealogy.
Kathryn is developing further courses for the New Curiosity Shop which will add to your skills.
You will need
Browser:
PC: Netscape version 4.5 and above, Internet Explorer 5 and above
Mac OS: Netscape version 4.5 and above, Internet
Explorer 5 and above, or Safari. Browser must be set to enable
cookies.
Other browsers should work as well: enrol on the free Fire Balloon course if you are unsure.
Plug-ins: Flash Player and Quicktime.
Network connection: 56K modem minimum.
Entry Requirements
Entry Requirements
How long is this course?
About duration hours, and we suggest you set aside about 4 hours week - but it's up to you!. You will have tutor support for ***months*** months. You wil have access to your course for a year.
Your tutor
Your tutor for this course is
Kathryn
Senior
.
You can find out more about her on
the Tutors page.
Further information
Read a leaflet for this course
Do you have any further questions? Visit our Contact Us page and ask away.
