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The best place to start is with government records, in particular the Public Record Office (PRO) for Great Britain located in Kew (London), which is the national archive and holds documents dating back to the 11th century, including such amazing records as the Doomsday Book, medieval manuscripts and maps, Bligh's account of the mutiny on the Bounty, Guy Fawkes confessions, Jane Austen's will, Shakespeare's will, charts drawn by Captain Cook on his voyages to the Antipodes, sketch maps by Lawrence of Arabia amongst a host of documents.. Visitors are welcome to inspect any document or image they like. The 1901 census returns have also just become available to view (although heavily booked weeks ahead) for those undertaking family tree research. Housed in a massive complex the size of a city block, PRO is accessed best by train from Kew railway station.

The Public Records Office (PRO) also runs the Family Records Centre in Islington (London) which houses all the births, marriages and deaths records in England and Wales from 1837 to the present (earlier family records are at PRO).

The General Register Office (GRO) holds records for all births, deaths and marriages registered in England and Wales from 1 July 1837, and adoptions and still-births from 1 July 1927, up to approximately 12 months ago, and certain events registered abroad. You can only obtain information from the entries by purchasing a certificate. You can apply for certificates in person at the Family Record Centre in London, or by post, fax or e-mail to our their production site at Southport. Alternatively if you know in which district the event occurred you can buy certificates from the relevant local register office.

If you apply via the Family Record Centre, (FRC) you will have to look up the GRO index reference for the particular entries you are interested in from the registers held there. You do not need this information if you apply to Southport but the delivery time and cost is reduced if you do. Many main libraries and public bodies hold copies of microfiche containing GRO index references that you can use to apply for certificates at Southport.

The Family Records Centre (FRC) is run jointly by the General Register Office (GRO) and the Public Record Office (PRO). The FRC brings together some of the most important sources for family history and is situated in Central London at 1 Myddelton Street, Islington, EC1R 1UW. The material held at the FRC includes indexes of births marriages and deaths in England and Wales since 1837; indexes of legal adoptions in England and Wales since 1927; and the PRO's most widely consulted documents - population census returns for England and Wales from 1841 to 1891.It is however horrendously busy with genealogy researchers, particularly groups, and great care must be taken to avoid visiting the same time as large groups. Click here for information regarding Coach Parties

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Statutory Civil Registration didn't begin in Scotland until 1855. Before that, information is only generally available from the old Parochial Registers. Some of these have not survived and, because there was no compulsion to register the basic family events of baptism, proclamation of banns (marriage), or burials, they are seriously incomplete. It is possible therefore that if your ancestors left Scotland before the late 19th Century, you may not be able to track them down. You will therefore have to rely on your surname to get an idea of which part of Scotland your forebears came from.

The National Archives of Scotland (NAS) http://www.nas.gov.uk/ Based in Edinburgh, NAS has one of the most varied collections of archives in the British Isles. It is the main archive for sources of the history of Scotland as a separate kingdom, her role in the British Isles and the links between Scotland and many other countries over the centuries. The NAS holds records spanning the 12th to the 21st centuries, touching on virtually every aspect of Scottish life. The NAS is the repository for the public and legal records of Scotland but also holds many local and private archives. It also advises Scottish government departments, institutions, businesses and private individuals on the care of their records.

The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) is the department of the devolved Scottish Administration responsible for the registration of births, marriages, deaths, divorces and adoptions in Scotland, and for carrying out periodic censuses of Scotland's population. Further details are available from the GROS web site.

The Scottish Tourist Board has a superb web site dedicated to preliminary Scottish Ancestor research and the history of Scotland.

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The National Library of Wales is the premier centre for family history research in Wales, holding records covering the whole of Wales. Apart from its collections of printed materials, which include electoral lists, newspapers, journals, and directories, NLW holds a whole range of such useful resources for genealogical research as parish and nonconformist registers, marriage bonds and affidavits, probate documents, estate records and personal papers, pedigree books, copies of census returns, plans, sale catalogues, and tithe maps and schedules. Public Records Office of Northern Island (PRONI) is the official place of deposit for all public records in Northern Ireland. They try to provide as many as possible of their 55kms (!!) of records available to the public for consultation and research. Admission is free, and staff are on hand to advise.

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In 1922, the Public Record Office, which housed many of the family history/genealogical records of Ireland, was destroyed during the Irish Civil War. Major destruction and loss of the 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 census returns as well as extensive legal, family history and other historical records and archives were destroyed. (Some people calculate that over 80% of all archived Irish genealogical records were destroyed.) Unfortunately, as was the case world wide in the late 18th and early 19th century, many other records were lost or destroyed due to neglect and ignorance. To add insult to injury, under the dark period of British rule, census returns for the 1861, '1871, 1881 and 1891 were destroyed, some for making paper pulp during World War 1 and also by the Register Office in Dublin, for reasons best known to only very few people..

However, as Ireland is Irish (!) and the Irish are formidable people (and footballers!) extensive genealogical research facilities still exist and are being improved daily. The best of these are in Dublin and Belfast, the two main centres for genealogical research in Ireland. Dublin mainly for the 26 counties of the Republic, and Belfast for the 6 counties of Northern Ireland. There are also local heritage and genealogical centres in each county, with more than one in some counties, which provide search facility for a charge.

GenUKi is a great web site to start researching your Irish Roots before coming to Ireland. Note: it is not a commercial site and no information gleaned from the site is to be used for commercial purposes.

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is the official place of deposit for public records in Northern Ireland. PRONI hold millions of documents, which relate chiefly, but by no means exclusively, to present-day Northern Ireland. The earliest record dates from 1219, with the main concentration of records covering the period 1600 to the present.

The major genealogical online resource for Ireland is the Irish Family History Foundation which is the is the co-coordinating body for a network of government approved genealogical research centres in the Republic of Ireland (Eire) and in Northern Ireland, who have computerised tens of millions of Irish ancestral records of different types, with the process ongoing since 1990 with 500 people engaged daily with the task. For Northern Ireland only, the General Register Office (GRO) is responsible for the administration of marriage law and the provision of a system for the civil registration of births, deaths, marriages and adoptions in. The office is a branch within the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, which is part of the Department of Finance and Personnel.

The Irish Times has an extensive database and search facility (Its not all free!) for Ancestor Research. The single most important item of information for Irish family history research is a precise place of origin, and the most important tool in identifying Irish place names is the 1851 General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns, parishes and Baronies of Ireland.

Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin has, for many years, been a national institution and, as the final resting place for more than a million Irish men and women, a real embodiment of the nation's more recent past.

The official Republic of Ireland National Tourism Service

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