Your Life and Times: Getting started at Gloucestershire Archives
HISTORICAL research has exploded over the last few years.
Family History has led the way but increasingly there has been a desire to find the things that our forefathers and their peers did to shape their world.
Be it military, social or industrial there is something for everyone.
You may wonder how to go about this once you have collated your personal items. There are many books, magazines and websites that will help you to get started but it is always good to discuss your research with another person, especially someone with a bit of practical experience.
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Gloucestershire Family History Society's Research Centre in Alvin Street, Gloucester, is an excellent place to begin. The volunteers who run the centre are all experienced researchers and are always happy to help "newbies" to start their own work.
The centre is open to everyone and has free access to many of the main family history websites together with a wide range of indexes and a library.
Many of the volunteers have experience of researching outside Gloucestershire so even if your family isn't local they will be able to help.
The Family History Society itself has regular meetings and you can find out more about these and the Research Centre's facilities on the Society's website (www.gfhs.org.uk).
Conveniently Gloucestershire County Council's Archives service shares the same site in Alvin Street. It preserves and makes available the county's written heritage and is open to anyone who wants to find out more about their Gloucestershire family or the area in which they live. It holds some local records dating back to the 12th Century as well as many sources like parish registers and wills which are essential for research into family history.
Members of staff working in the public searchroom can help you to get started or you can arrange a session with a "buddy" if you'd prefer one-to-one support. Access to the archives is free, although a charge is made if you use the car park or take copies of the documents – you will need to register as a researcher when you arrive so you should bring some identification with you. The Archives' website will tell you much more about using the service while the online catalogue and searchable database will help you to start your research (www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/ archives).
Members of the archives staff, often working with the Family History Society, provide a variety of taught sessions throughout the year which cover many of the sources that you'll encounter when you research your own family's history. Although the records you work on during each session relate specifically to Gloucestershire, you can apply much of what you learn to the same source in a different county, so these sessions are useful even if your family isn't local. The archives website includes information about events, tours and courses – you can book places online or you can call in for more information.
Comments
by spindles12
Saturday, October 13 2012, 10:02AM
“Family history research is VERY addictive! My uncle started a family tree about ten years ago and I decided to take up the research. Unfortunately, when my uncle did his, there wasn't the availability of documents etc. as there is now, it was a case of actually searching by hand the relevant documents. I said unfortunately because when checking some of the people on his tree I found that he had gone down the wrong path and had attributed a certain person to the family who didn't belong. Same name, same year of birth, almost the same area but wrong. At the time he probably thought he had found who he was looking for and didn't look for any more people with the same name. Due to this error I had to wipe three generations of the family off the tree, all due to one lucky find, that being the death certificate of the mistaken person which showed his son, with the same name, living in Chippenham when I knew for a fact that he was living in Gloucester. The tree is now, as far as I am sure, correct.
Since starting the family history research it has really made me appreciate what we owe to our ancestors. Some people just collect names to add to their tree and I have seen some trees with over a hundred thousand members on it! I would rather have a tree that has a couple of hundred and know much more about them than just names. I have a much greater interest in the history of where they came from, luckily some from Gloucester and can actually see the streets they lived in and the buildings they saw while they went about their work.
When researching your family you have to be prepared to find convicts, black sheep, illegitimacy, things that would, at one time,have been completely frowned upon but people these days seem to revel in the fact that they have criminals or even murders in their family rather than a connection to the royal family. I have farmers, grocers and accountants in my family and yes, some of them even went to prison!”