What is the best way to investigate my family tree? ?

Question

There are rumours in my family that we decended from Admiral Hardy, I would like to find out if this is true. I don`t have much family left so I can`t really ask many people. We also have a very common family name.....Jones. Although my Mums side is less common (slightly)

Answer 1

you need to work your way backwards & trace your tree...you can't just go to the Admiral Hardy bit as you will need to prove ancestors are yours...as you say - it's quite a common name.

speak to as many relations as you can & write it down.  go to the local library & look at the Census Returns which are very useful tools...you can see ancestors & who was living with them...& what age they were at the time....that is a good start for you!

Answer 2

There are a lot of free on-line services that can help you determine where to start on your search. One of my favorites is www.familytreemagazine.com. They have forms to help you organize your search and provide suggestions on how to locate various organizations to help in your search.

Answer 3

My grandad apparently always used to insist that we were related to pirates from Cornwall.  Although it's true to say my favourite birds are parrots and my dad's favourite drink is rum, this isn't really conclusive proof that we are descended from someone like Blackbeard.  You can't just take a random person from history and work forwards just because they share your surname - in genealogy you have to work backwards.  It's the only real way to prove anything.

It shouldn't be terribly difficult to trace your family back into the early 1800s, even with a common surname like Smith or Jones, and some of it can be done online.   What it won't be though is quick, easy or cheap.  It's easy enough if you know what you're doing (I wouldn't give it a second thought) but if you're starting from scratch then it will take as long as it takes for you to find and order the birth, marriage and death certificates for each respective generation.  And of course, as you get back each generation the amount of direct ancestors grows exponentially - 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 2xgt grandparents, 32 3xgt grandparents, 64 4x gt grandparents and so on and so forth.  Trying to get a line into all of these new names will take time and cost a lot of money, but you really won't get very far unless you take the time out to order the evidence that will prove (or disprove, as the case might be) your roots.

As for me, I found that one of my grandads ancestors did indeed come from Cornwall in the early 1800s, which kind of backs up his story about pirates, but whether any of my West Country peers ever dabbled in p****y is still unknown - stories like this are best left to family legend - I doubt I'll ever be able to prove it.  If they were pirates I hope they had better luck teaching their parrot to talk than I have!

People can claim anything.  That doesn't make it true.  If I said that David Beckham was my second cousin, would you believe me?  You'd probably demand proof, and you'd be wise to do so.  If you're hoping to find a link back to someone like Hardy then you too will probably be asked at some point to furnish proof.  Family stories and legends aren't enough.  All you can do is what everybody else does.  Get a pen and paper and start with yourself and what you know - move back to your parents and the dates you know.  Start asking your aunts and uncles and get names of your grandparents and rough dates and places of marriage, birth or death.  Then once you are on the edges of living history you'll have to try and order a copy of grannys birth certificate to get back any further.  Once you get that, you can find her parents and marriage and so on and so forth.  It just takes time and a bit of patience plus £7 a throw for a certificate.

Don't enter into the hobby lightly.  A great many people get fooled into thinking its really easy like that BBC show suggests, but what they don't show you is the whole army of researchers doing the work for these celebrities beforehand.  Doing a real tree can take months or even years, not days or weeks.  If you haven't really got the time or the patience then its probably wisest not to bother.  You'll be in good company. 9/10 people who ask questions similiar to this on Yahoo (and there are several every week) give it up as a bad idea once they realise how much effort it involves and take up something easier like alligator wrestling instead.

Answer 4

Go on to my heritage it's a site where you could possibly find other family members. hope this is helpful ;)