Hit a brick wall with family history research? Perhaps these tips from British professional genealogist, family history teacher and author Anthony Adolph will help.
Anthony has contributed to the Family History Researcher Course published by The Nosey Genealogist online.
This is Anthony Adolph who is a professional genealogist and author and we asked him for his tips:
“So, Anthony can you give my viewers some tips on how to do their family history?”
“Well the first thing is talk to your relatives and find out what they know.
“But I would advise being healthy sceptical about what they tell you and check that they are giving you the right names and the right dates and don’t take it for gospel. Go away and look at the original records and check.
“And that brings us to another good tip, actually – that is when you’re looking for records you’re going to be looking for birth marriage and death records often and they’re on many of the web sites where you can find references to births marriages & deaths. Now my advice is buy the certificate don’t try and save the money by not buying the certificate and then second-guessing what might be on it because you can go really badly wrong so buy the certificate. Then you are on solid ground and that means you can work further back with confidence.
“And maybe a third tip… I’d say have a DNA test. Have genes tested particularly if you can have your Y chromosome male line DNA tested because that will tell you where your family tree is going to go in terms of thousands of years. And once you know where the family trees going to go than all the rest of the genealogical researcher you’re doing is going to be building back along a path which already to a certain extent laid out. So I think DNA tests are really the way forward, actually. “