How to Start

Tracing your ancestry can be a very long, time-consuming process, so before launching into the project it is important to take some preliminary steps:

1. Decide which line of your family you wish to trace: it is easy to be sidetracked by coming across records of other branches of the family, or unrelated families of the same name, and so waste time and effort.

2. Get ALL the information which you can from members of your own family - names, dates and places. Even when some of this information proves not to be accurate, it can often provide useful clues or pointers in the right direction.

3. Read one of the many guides to family history research which are now available.

4. Try to find out whether anyone else has done work on your particular family. The best way to do this is to contact the local Family History Society; most of these Societies keep a register of their members' interests. A list of such Societies in Cheshire is given below: