How to find family history online
The popularity of TV series about history and, especially, ancestry – such as the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? – has led to a boom in interest in discovering family history and drawing up family trees. This has been made all the easier with the explosion in digital media, with an enormous amount of documentation – like the UK census – going online and becoming freely available.
There’s also an ever-expanding number of computer programs and websites that can walk you through the process (if you feel you need guidance), contain the information you need to trace your ancestors and help you create a detailed family tree or family history document to pass down to your children.
This guide explains how to use Genes Reunited, a genealogy website. It will explain how to register and search for ancestors and build up a family tree. Some searches may require you to pay a fee, however it is free to build a family tree and to add information to this.
You’ll need:
- An internet connection
Follow these step-by-step instructions to sign up to Genes Reunited:
Step 1: Start Internet Explorer and go to http://www.genesreunited.com.
Step 2: The main page will ask you to either log in with your login details if you have already registered, if you have not already registered, click Register Free.
Step 3: Fill out the information required on the next page. At the bottom of the page, there are questions about whether you wish to receive a newsletter or other information, just leave ticked or click to untick if you don’t want to receive this. Then click on Register Free.
Step 4: Now your account will be set up and you will be logged into the site. Now you can start a family tree.
Step 5: Click on Build your family tree on the main page.
Step 6: Your family tree will load in another window, with you at the start of the tree. Add all the information that you know about this person (in this case, you) in the form at the bottom of the page and click Save Changes. You can now build on your tree at this point, by adding other relative information that you may already have, for example mother or father’s name, even if it is just names at this point. Other information can be added at a later stage, as you continue your search.
Step 7: Click on one of the buttons at the bottom of your family tree window to add another person to your tree and in this case to you – either a sibling, child, mother or father.
This will add a new person as a box in your diagram of your tree at the top of the page and you can now put in the information that you know in the form at the bottom of the page. Then click Save Changes to save the information.
Step 8: Continue to add any other information that you may have into your tree to build up your tree. To add further information to anyone in your tree, double click on their box in the tree diagram to open up the form, add the information and click Save Changes. To add a photo to anyone in your tree, click on Add a Photo here and browse your computer for a photo to add.
Step 9: To search for family records or information you will need to go back to the main page of GenesReunited, which should still be open on your computer, as a family tree will have opened up in a new window. Â On the main page, we can either do a quick search, or do a more advanced search in the ‘Search Records’ menu at the top of the screen.
Step 11: A results page will load. You may get quite a few results, many of whom may not be your relatives, so you may need to either modify your search or go through each result. Next to the result that you wish to look at, click on View to see the information transcribed, or click on image to see the original image of the census. As previously mentioned some searches may require a fee and you may be asked to sign up and pay at this point.
Free versus subscription
When joining Genes Reunited, as well several other genealogy websites, you have various membership options. It is, of course, for you to decide which one suits you, but here is a run-through of the differences:
Free membership
- Access to the Genes Reunited community.
- Genes Reunited will match records to your surname to speed up searching.
- You can build your family tree.
- You can search for records, but not necessarily see them.
- You can choose to ‘pay per view’ and pay a small fee to look at individual records that you come across.
Standard membership
As free, plus:
- Access to non-indexed birth and marriage records from 1837-1983 (England and Wales).
- 50 free credits to access all the Genes Reunited records.
- Ability to get in touch with other members directly.
- View trees of over 10 million other members.
- This costs £1.67 per month* for 12 months or £2.50 a month* for six months.
Platinum membership
As standard, plus:
- Unlimited access to the 1911 census where you can see your relatives’ handwriting from the time.
- Unlimited access to the Victorian Census Records from 1841-1901 (England and Wales).
- Unlimited access to birth, marriage and death records from 1837-2004 (England and Wales).
This costs £6.67 per month* for 12 months,  £8.33 per month* for six months and £19.95 per month* for one month.
To sign up directly, click the banner below:
* Prices above expressed monthly. Genes Reunited take the actual payment as one lump sum for full value of membership.
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June 10th, 2011 nancyduin | No Comments »
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