We were amazed at the popularity of the Ancestry Academy 12 months ago. The good news is, we've planned five different workshops this time, all hosted by our family history experts and packed with hints and tips to help you uncover your family's best-hidden secrets.

For those of you who are new to family history, we'll walk you through the basics - from creating your family tree to pinpointing relatives in census, birth, marriage and death records.

If you're ready to delve a bit deeper, we'll explain how you can combine parish, military, immigration and other more advanced records to piece together your ancestors' lives. Then, our third talk will look into worldwide records, from American censuses to Australian passenger lists.

We'll also have a very special workshop from celebrated actor, social history expert and friend of Ancestry.co.uk, Tony Robinson. Tony will celebrate our launch of the 1911 Census by examining what Britain was like at the time, and what kind of lives your ancestors led.

Plus, computer experts MyHistory will provide top tips on using our award-winning Family Tree Maker® software - and introduce the new features in the 2011 version.

All these workshops are completely free, and there's no need to book in advance - just come along and grab a seat. To make sure you don't miss out, check our free guide. As well as a workshop timetable and a handy map of the show, this is packed with suggestions to help you make the most of your time.
Download your guide now

As part of the Project, you're among the first people to see some of our most fascinating records. Plus, you get permanent free access to both the indexes and the images in any collection you help to transcribe - the indexes are then free to all our members.

Right now, our members are working hard to complete the transcription of our new Post Office Appointment Books. These records form a register of everybody employed by the postal service in the UK from 1831 up until 1969. They're obviously crucial to anyone researching ancestors who worked for the Post Office over the last 200 years, but they also provide an intriguing glimpse into an important part of our social history.

We're well on our way to getting these Appointment Books transcribed, but we'd love to make these fascinating records available to everybody as soon as possible. So, we'd love it if as many of you as possible could join the effort. Not only will you be helping to preserve an important set of records for future generations, but you'll be working alongside like-minded family historians to make it happen.

Join the Ancestry World Archives Project now

The Card Catalogue is designed to help you pinpoint which collections your family members are likely to appear in, before carrying out a search. It can be a huge time-saver, helping you find relatives within certain types of documents, in a specific region, during a given period in history.

The screen's split into two areas - a list of collections on the right, with categories including types of records, places and dates on the left. When you select what you want on the left, the list on the right is narrowed down. If you're looking for something specific, simply type in the Title and Keyword boxes.

If you're looking for overseas records, don't forget to untick the box that says 'Only records from the UK and Ireland'. In an instant you can use the Card Catalogue to narrow down searches in Canada, Australia, the USA, Europe and more.

1) Imagine you have an ancestor you know was born in Yorkshire in the 1790s. The Card Catalogue makes it much easier to hone in on collections that may include their birth record. In the panel on the left, click 'Birth, Marriage and Death including Parish' under 'Filter by collection'.

2) Next click 'United Kingdom', and then under Filter by Collection choose 'Birth, Baptism and Christening'. This will get rid of all the collections devoted solely to marriages and burials.

3) Now we want to narrow your results down to the correct region, so first click on England, then scroll down the list of counties to select Yorkshire.

4) The birth we want is in the 1790s. You'll see a grid of decades running from the 1600s to the 1990s under Filter By Dates - click on the 1790s. There are 32 record sets that match our criteria listed on the right.

5) At this stage, the 'Sort By' menu is handy for managing the filtered-down list of records. If you want to see the biggest collections first, choose Sort By Record Count. Or perhaps you did a search a few months ago and want to see if we've added more records - in that case choose Sort By Date Updated.

Perhaps the best collection to search for this birth is Yorkshire Extracted Parish Records, which contains 990,000 Yorkshire baptisms, marriages and burials. Thanks to the Card Catalogue, you can search knowing you won't have to wade through possible matches for the whole of the UK.

This month's questions are answered by professional genealogist Chris Paton and top military historian Paul Reed.

Without a trace

Q. I'm stuck. My great-grandfather Charles Robert Middleditch was born in 1839 in Saffron Walden, Essex. I can find him in the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 censuses, and he married Mary Ann Bunton between January and March 1860. In the 1881 Census, Mary Middleditch is shown as a widow living in Wimbish Essex.

I've searched in vain for a death or burial record between 1871 and 1881. I've also looked for emigration, prisoner and probate records, without success. I'm starting to assume that he didn't die in the 1871-1881 decade but disappeared for some reason.

Ray Grainger

A. Charles is noted in the 1871 census as a farmer and beer seller at Potash Farm and Beer House. He's therefore likely to be listed in the City and County directories for Essex at Ancestry.co.uk - try to follow his listings each year from 1871 to 1881 to see if and when the listings suddenly cease. That may narrow down the date of death, or a possible date when he sold up, though bear in mind trade directories were usually a year out of date by the time they were published. It's also worth checking for an obituary in local newspapers – ask at the nearest record office.

It may also be that his death was simply missed in the national indexes. Contact the local superintendent registrar's offices in Essex to see if they can check the local death register for you - Radwinter will most likely be covered by the one in Saffron Walden.

Chris Paton

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