OUR FAMILY HISTORY AND GENEALOGY
HELPFUL LINKS PAGE

. . . .
. . . where we list useful links for those wishing to research family trees in the UK and Ireland


We get so many enquiries for help and guidance on this subject, it seemed that we needed an extra page of links. We do hope you find it helpful, whoever you are looking for, wherever they are at rest .


For anyone interested in Valerie's, or my, family and relations, a brief description and some related family names appear right at the bottom of this page. We are trying to trace some of our own histories, and any help or information would be most gratefully received.

The Public Record Office - for the United Kingdom . . .
is also the home of the Family Records Centre - the foremost source of genealogical information in the UK, this is the place to find out if likely records exist. They can't trace your family tree for you, but they do list the documents you need to see for your particular search, which town or parish records, etc. You can also order missing birth, marraige, and death certificates online. This is a good place to point out that it is not possible to trace whole trees on the Net, but sites such as these save a lot of what used to be unbelievable legwork for the dedicated, to say nothing of a fortune in petrol or fares. Invaluable.

The BBC History Unit . . .
has a fantastic amount of leads and cross-references for budding genealogists like us, an enormous amount of help and advice, tips on pitfalls, etc. Well worth a visit, and useful for whatever stage you are in your quest.

a poppy . . . that is for remembrance

Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A truly wonderful link to an incredible database of all the names of all the servicemen and women who lost their lives in the two Great Wars. Whether they have a known grave or not, or lost at sea in the Royal and Merchant Navies or of RAF aircrew, if they died in the serving of the Empire, from whatever country, Canada to India, or Fiji to Gibraltar, their name appears here. They are not forgotten . . .

GenUK . . .
is also a good place to start if you already have family information from a particular town or village; the subsidiary pages are organised by county - very useful. They can also tell you if someone is already researching your name . . .

IGI - ie, The Mormon Church in the USA
Unbelievably, the Mormon Church has one of the most extensive archives of births, marriages and deaths anywhere in the world, and possibly the most extensive in the western English-speaking world.

Sheila Jones . . is a renowned UK genealogist, whose website "Pedigrees and People of the United Kingdom" is a mine of otherwise hard-to-find information. As she claims, her site is a Family History Web Site where "Information Makes a Difference". I'll say it does .. see the downloads for the 1851 census records, emmigration records to the New World and Australia, and the huge list of census 'strays' . . the people caught out on census day visiting in another town or county, and so not showing in the town or at the address you would have expected to find them.

Some Parish Records . . . are already available on the Net, just a few for now, but more and more are becoming available all the time.

Directory of Irish Sites . . .
a useful overall view of many Irish sites to help in your search for those Celtic ancestors.

The General Register Office for Scotland . . .
has a wealth of information in parish registers dating back to 1553, statutory registers from 1855 and the 10-year censusus from 1841 up to 1891.

Gen Forum
Lots of genealogical forums here, search for everything from surnames to coats of arms. And make some friends along the way . . .

Deja . . .
is the site to search for your name on other websites. It could well be that your long-lost relative already has his or her own home page!

RootsWeb . . .
an all-encompassing site with many links to records in other countries, other languages, etc. Brilliant for nationalities other than 'recent' British, such as post-war European immigrant families from Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, etc, and 1950-60's families from the Carribean, Africa, and Asia.

Familia . . . is another all-round site that lists family a tremendous number of history resources in public libraries in the UK and Eire.

whowhere.com . . . a real People Finder - they pride themselves on finding anybody - all communications - phone, e-mail, etc, all over the world.

AND FINALLY . . .

. . . a picture and brief history of Aylestone St Andrews Parish Church, where we were married.

We hope the above has been helpful - please, please tell us via e-mail should any of the above links fail to work. Anyway, we dabble in a bit of family history ourselves, and you are always welcome for a chat over a metorphorical cup of coffee - it's just that you'll have to make your own!

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For those who are maybe interested in our own family, and associated names,
the following tells who we are, and where we are from . . .

Our short family tree . . . is on a separate page.


Valerie is a STEVENS, of Aylestone, but whose father was originally from Hinckley in Leicestershire. Her mother is a SWANWICK, from Blaby, south of Leicester. But her mother's mother was a FRETTER, of Aylestone near Leicester, but originally from Northamptonshire, just over the county boundary, around Spratton and Welford. Coincidentally, we now know that Spratton church is that of St Andrews, and Val and myself were married in St Andrews Church in Aylestone, in 1971.

Both of us grew up in Leicester. Val attended Sir Jonathon North School on Knighton Lane East until 1967, and I was at Crown Hills Secondary at the top of Gwendolen Road up to 1965. We met in 1968 whilst both were working at Simpkins & James in Horsefair Street. If anyone can email some fair pictures of that shop for our own archives, they will be truly blessed.

My family, name HAYWOOD, are all originally from the Pegs Green, Griffydam and Coleorton areas of NW Leicestershire, in the Coalville - Ashby - Whitwick triangle, but predominantly Griffydam. Any news on these would be very helpful. And my mum was a HOLT, of Coalville, but whose father Harry, was born in Donnington-le-Heath, and his father was from Thurlaston. Mum's mum was a MANDERFIELD, from the Shepshed area. Any help there too would be much appreciated. My dad's mum was a SMITH, of Aylestone, and because some of Val's family are of the Aylestone and Blaby areas, we wouldn't be surprised if we are also distantly related down both our mother's lines.

Any help would be much appreciated, and maybe we could perform a likewise service for someone else - this is what the Net was made for, after all . . . .

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