Tracing a family tree from first principles by Mark Bowman.

Mark Bowman has been working on his own family history since 1968, and now has over 16000 people on his family tree. He has been helping others trace their ancestry at the Reading Family History Centre since 2009. Since becoming convener of the Reading U3A family history group in 2012 he has given many talks, mainly to local family history societies. In this talk he explains how, despite knowing only a single name and roughly when a person was born, he was able to trace the Spickett family back to a baptism in 1770. It provides an introduction to the most important family history research resources:

• FreeBMD gives free access to the records of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales back to the start of General Registration in 1837.
• GRO Online Index gives free access to similar information to that given on FreeBMD, but gives extra detail, particularly the mother’s maiden name of children born from 1911 back to 1837.
• UK censuses give a snapshot of households every ten years from 1911 back to 1841. Subscription needed.
• FamilySearch gives free access to (some of the surviving) parish records of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
• 1939 Register gives information about households at the outbreak of WW2. Subscription needed.

Local genealogy information  is available from the TADS Website.

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