# Family Tree



## DavidH (Feb 24, 2003)

Ive had a letter from an American gentleman with the same surname as myself, hoping to track his family history back to Ireland. In principle I'd like to help him and when I gave it some thought, I realised how little of my own family history I know.

Is there a UK resource for this kind of info? Has anyone put together a tree?

As it stands at the moment, it is no bigger than a bonsai!


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## Mrcrowley (Apr 23, 2003)

There's a few sites David, though it's ages since I looked. My surname Dowling is of Irish decent. I found the Dowling family coat of arms as well. As I said though, was yonks ago.


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

the BBC did a series of famous people tracing their roots, book to go with it.

Try bbc.co.uk and do a search on family tree

At the time I remember they had a lot of info on there


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## albini13 (Jan 25, 2005)

pg tips said:


> the BBC did a series of famous people tracing their roots, book to go with it.
> 
> Try bbc.co.uk and do a search on family tree
> 
> ...


There are a lot of websites but most of them want you to pay for the information. The ideal way to look is to go to your local town hall. We traced our family tree back and it took us years to actually get anywhere with it.


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

DavidH said:


> Ive had a letter from an American gentleman with the same surname as myself, hoping to track his family history back to Ireland. In principle I'd like to help him and when I gave it some thought, I realised how little of my own family history I know.
> 
> Is there a UK resource for this kind of info? Has anyone put together a tree?
> 
> ...


I did mine out of respect of the wishes of my grandfather to continue what he had started. It's bloody hard work if you are doing it yourself; I can recommend "Ancestral Trails" by Mark Herber. It gives you all the sources of information (you can get the book from Amazon)

In Ireland records started a later than in England, it should be reasonably easy to get back to the mid 1800's before that you will have to rely on church registers, with luck you will get back to the late 1700's; if your ancestors were Protestants maybe early 1700's late 1600's. If you haven't done so already interview all the oldies in your family, it is an important first step.

If you have some money to spare I can recommend Geoff Swinfield of Swinfield Genealogical Services, he is based in Faversham. He unravelled a lot of problems for me and sorted out my mothers Welsh heritage, Jones, Jones and Jones and of course Jones the Coal and Jones the Potter









As a spin off from my work and all the years of work my grandfather did I met up in Canada with the direct decendents of each of the four sons of a common ancestor we had in the early 1700's, two British, one Canadian and one American .... I now have a large albeit distant "family" !

It's worth doing IMO


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## DavidH (Feb 24, 2003)

Thanks for the replies, it's one of those things that when you Google it you get thousands of rubbish links, like when you search for mortgages









I know there is a family grave with a few 'entries'. That is my starting point.


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## Paul (Mar 2, 2003)

Hi all,

@David, I've done quite a bit of work on my family tree. If I may offer one piece of advice as a new starter, it is - start with yourself and be methodical. dont guess, let connections be made, don't try and make one. that's more than one







but good anyway. Give me a pm if you want any help or guidance.

Paul D

In Leeds but via, Hull, Leeds, Walsall, and Englishcombe.


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## Sargon (Feb 24, 2003)

I did a lot of work on mine and got back to the early 1600's. In researching I found other distant family members, one right here in the city I live in. I also found a distant family member who wrote a book about the family history and buying the book killed this little hobby of mine. Don't buy the book.


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