Getting started
When you decide you’d like to discover your family’s past, it can be difficult to know where to start. We have the world’s largest online library of family history information. More than that, though, we’re here to point you in the right direction, and help you make the most of all the resources on our site.
Many people like to dive straight in and search for a particular ancestor. This is great fun and may give you instant information. But you’ll often get a lot of results, which can be both confusing and overwhelming.
It’s usually more rewarding to follow the simple steps below. They’ll help you move back through the generations, and gradually uncover the story of your family’s past.
Four steps to success
1) Tree
First, create your family tree on our site. It doesn’t matter how much you know – just start with yourself and add as many relatives as you like. Also fill in any key dates you can, such as births, marriages and deaths – if you get these wrong, you can always go back and change them later.
To start building your family tree, you’ll need to register for free.
Start your tree now or Watch our video tutorial
2) Hints
As you add more people to your tree, you’ll soon see 'shaky leaves' next to some of the names. We’re constantly checking our records to see if we have information on your relatives – the leaves mean we think we’ve found something! Just click on a leaf to see what we've uncovered.
3) Search
The largest part of our library of information is millions of family history records – from censuses and birth marriage and death indexes, to military and immigration records. You can search these records for yourself, to learn more about your ancestors’ lives and keep growing your family tree.
To view complete records, you’ll need to be a full member.
Start searching now or Watch our video tutorial
4) Share
Your other goldmine of information is our huge community of members. Click on any person in your family tree and choose the Member Connect option to see who else is looking into your relatives – as long as they’ve given their permission. Then get in touch to share crucial information and get hints and tips for your research.
You’ll find more detail on each of these steps, and everything else to do with family history, in the three main areas of our Help & Advice Centre:
Find out how to use our site
Learn more about our records
Get general family history advice
For more help, you can contact us 7 days a week. Find out how