Genealogy Chat

To everyone who is asking - HOW DO I START MY FAMILY TREE? If you are serious in wanting to research your family and want to be absolutely sure that you are tracing your family line I have only one thing to say: JOIN A FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY IN YOUR COUNTY. They have a wealth of local and countrywide knowledge from the members; they have the BMD fiche for the whole country (we have them up to 1940) and access to the census on film, fiche and the Internet. Log on to any of them (via Genuki) and see what they have to offer. If you need help there is always someone there to guide you in the right direction. Do not rely on the Internet to find your ancestors and their descendents - you need to see the Public Record Office information on film & fiche. Anything found on the Internet or in books, etc should be double checked for accuracy using the censi and the indexes. Things have got a little easier on the Internet since I started 2 years ago and it will get better in the future as the Government has plans to digitilise BMD and the Census(but perhaps not in my lifetime). There are some very, very nice people on this site who go out of their way to help but they are using up their own precious time to help others when the others should be trying to help themselves. I will glady share my family research (thousands of names on one line)with new found cousins and, yes, I too go out of my way to help and advise. Now that I have got down from my soap box I shall withdraw and watch for the fireworks. I apologise in advance if I have offended anyone but I am becoming increasingly impatient reading on all the message boards that a great deal of people want things handed to them on a plate, without taking advice, and without reading all the information on the site which is put there to aid new members. This is a great site and I urge everyone to read the front page, to remind themselves what the original idea was when this site was started. In my opinion it was intended that all of us with family history data could input it onto the site, on an ongoing basis, while continuing with our own research, and hope that in time we could link with other family members to join all our trees together. But then I could be wrong! Vera from Manchester age 62 I shall have to go and lie down now!!