For me it started on a wet Saturday afternoon approximately sixteen years ago. I was at a loose end with no inspiration of what to do. A suggestion from my mum was how about looking at our family history. She had started to research it in the 1970s before the invention of the internet when you had to go to Catherine House as the only means of looking for civil registration certificates.

We started on Ancestry.co.uk and relatively quickly we had confirmed the original research she had done with the discovery of census records between 1851 and 1901. The 1841 and 1911 collections had not been released yet. Every discovery we made was intriguing and asked more questions and gave us ideas about we wanted to find next. Together we have visited areas all over the country, not only to visit records offices but also to find where our ancestors lived. In the hope when we walked down a road, that the house we found on a census record was still there and hadn’t been demolished in favour of newer developments.

Researching my ancestors' history gives me an insight into the type of lives they had, how they were employed and where they came from. There is an interest in finding out not just their names and key dates but how they lived and how their lines descended and converged to the current day. Along the way I have met relatives I didn't know I had and visited places I have never been to before. It makes history accessible to me and makes me closer to my predecessors when I think... Did they walk down this street? Can I identify characteristics in them that I have inherited?

If this has inspired you to consider who you have descended from. I would welcome the opportunity to help you discover your family’s past.