It’s your history

This is an open invitation for you to explore your very own history! Not some celebrity. Not royalty. You. Each of us has a unique and very personal background, with some often fascinating twists and turns in the story, at times quite emotional, but the challenge is knowing just where to look for the information and how to record it.

In this Digital Age, much of that information is now available online, and the coming year's programme will build on the successful outcome of previous years by suggesting that, by the end of the year, you are very likely to be able to trace a line in your ancestry back to the early 19^th century by simply searching for records online, many of them free.

Who is It For?

The programme is designed for people who are starting from scratch, but if you’ve dabbled before and could do with a thorough refresher, you’ll be more than welcome!

Programme

Each session will start out with an informal talk on a particular set of records and how to get the most from them. This little bit of formality is followed by an open session, exploring the online potential of the many family history websites using the free Wi-Fi available at the LKR. You’re encouraged to bring along your laptop/tablet, together with any of your notes, so that you can explore your origins online and share any of your problems with the group.

Whilst this programme aims to demonstrate how many vital family records are now available online, it’s important to emphasise that, even so, this merely tickles the surface and plans are afoot to offer u3a members a trip to The National Archives, where records of just about everything that happened at a national level are held, going back more than 1,000 years. Did your ancestor fight at Waterloo? His record may be there. You may be descended from a French immigrant? His naturalisation papers will be there. More news on the details of this trip at later meetings in the year.

Like a Challenge?

If you’re one of those people who likes to have a target to aim for, it would be to find your great-great-grandparents by the end of the programme! (That’s not trivial, by the way, you have 16 of them!)

You may remember your Grandad, but who was his Grandad? Have you ever considered that you might have third cousins? And what is a “second cousin, once removed”, anyway? Should you ask for a DNA test for Christmas? Come and join us in the Family History group and we'll try to help you chase down these questions and a lot more about your own, unique, origins.

We all come from somewhere - where do YOU come from?