Archives hold a mass of information that can provide a family historian with the basic names, dates and places for compiling a family tree.

Additionally, they hold a mass of fascinating items that can help with visualising an ancestor's neighbourhood and what their everyday life might have been like.

School records, employment records, minutes of business and local government meetings, maps, family photographs, school and neighbourhood photographs, apprenticeship documents and poor law and workhouse records are just a small selection of archive items that help with getting to know ancestors as real people.

Archives also hold many records with information that can't be found anywhere else. The name of the father of an illegitimate child could maybe be found on a Poor Law bastardy or maintenance document, or the housing conditions in a locality could be found in a medical officer's report.

The key to unlocking the secrets of archives is the Access to Archives site at www.a2a.org.uk This is an online collection of catalogues contributed by English archives. Not all, but many catalogues have surname entries which makes looking for that elusive ancestor quick and easy.

There’s lots of help on getting started on your family history as well as information, resources, hints and tips for those who are already addicted.

If you’re wondering about the different kinds of archival records that might be useful to a family historian, there are brief descriptions of these and the information they may contain. On some pages you will find images of documents from the archives of the North West of England. Where file sizes are so large as to slow down the loading of a page, there is a link inviting you to obtain the image from the server. You can then view and print out the document using you favourite graphics program.

Should you also be worried about who's going to continue your researches when you're gone, there's a page to help with getting children interested.

You’ll also find lots of links should you want to know more about any topic, and lots to show that family history research really can be FUN!

 

Return to the main web site of the Greater Manchester County Record Office

© GMCRO. The copyright for pages on this web site rests with the Greater Manchester County Record Office. You may download and read this material. However, you may not alter the information, repost or sell it without the permission of the Greater Manchester County Record Office.  All pages on this site are best printed in landscape orientation

Email