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Branching Out: How to Research Your Family's History
Each of us has a family. And every family has its own unique story. Our ancestors are what made us the people we are. But who were they? And what kind of lives did they lead? Simon Fowler is one of the UK’s leading experts on researching your family history. In ‘Branching How To Research Your Family History’, he draws on years of experience to produce the most complete, easy-to-follow guide to tracking down your ancestors. It will enable even a complete novice to trace a family tree going back several hundred years. ‘Branching Out’ includes sections on – How to research your family tree online. How to find information in census returns. How to discover what happened to your family in the two World Wars. How to find records in old newspapers. How to find out which of your ancestors emigrated – and what happened to them when they landed in a new country – as well as which countries they might have come from. And it has special sections on resources available in Scotland and Ireland. With ‘Branching Out’ you can begin the most fascinating journey of your life – into your own past. Simon Fowler is one of Britain's top family history researchers and writers. Trained as an archivist he worked on and off for over thirty years at UK's National Archives as well as editing two family history magazines. He has written dozens of books and articles on all aspects of family and military history.
- GenresNonfiction
Kindle Edition
First published August 22, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 23, 2020
Poorly written and full of formatting errors, such as apostrophes displaying as question marks inside black diamonds, this book is little more than a slightly annotated list of web sites for British genealogical research. While the author includes several record groups, the short book length itself shows none receive the treatment essential for someone new to genealogical research. The author fails to stress the importance of noting the source from which information was gathered and fails to discuss evaluating evidence. Almost every new researcher comes across records that disagree and without a foundation by which to evaluate the evidence, big mistakes will occur. While correlating bits and pieces of information to make an assertion might be a little more advanced, some sort of introduction to the concept and a reference to a source that would help a new person understand it would be useful. If someone seeks useful websites for British genealogy, a free copy of the book might be useful. Otherwise the free FamilySearch wiki provides links to many useful resources around the world for researching one's family.
September 10, 2016
For starters, this is very poorly formatted. All apostrophes show up as a symbol of a black diamond with a question mark in the middle. Very distracting.
Secondly, it's not very well written. In the introductions, the author frequently will start on a thought that could be elaborated upon with a decent paragraph but then cuts off after only one or two sentences before jumping onto another thought. Sentences are very short and choppy and could have used a lot more conjunctions to make it flow better. There is also no conclusion or sum up, it just abruptly ends with information and links about Irish genealogy and nothing to tell the reader that it's the end of the book, not just the end of a chapter.
Worse, I spotted some inaccuracies. The author claims that photography really became popular in the 1890s with the arrival of the Kodak Brownie but this camera was not released until 1900. The author also refers to it as the "Box Brownie" (with "box" being capitalized which means it's part of the name, not a mere description), which is not what it was called. It was merely the Brownie or Kodak Brownie. "Box" may be an accurate description of the type of camera it was but it was not the model name. For someone writing on how to do historical research, the author did not do a very good job researching the history of this camera.
There are some useful tips in here but the disjointed way it's written and the inaccuracies would certainly give me pause to recommend it as a good starters guide. It should also be noted that it is based on UK ancestry research. It may not by very helpful to readers from other countries or with other heritages. At the same time, I was surprised to find no mention of the UK Online Parish Clerks where you can find many parish record transcriptions for free. While it is by no means complete, I have found several Lancashire records of my ancestors there. The author does say he plans to update the book about every 6 months with any additional links but that brings me to the point of this not being very suitable to a book. Granted, ebooks are easier to update than print books! But it seems to me that with it being so short and with plans to update regularly, this would be more suitable as a website or blog. I picked it up for free, the digital list price is $2.99 and I'm not sure it's worth that, not when there are plenty of beginner's guides and compilation lists of helpful websites out there on the internet for free.
Secondly, it's not very well written. In the introductions, the author frequently will start on a thought that could be elaborated upon with a decent paragraph but then cuts off after only one or two sentences before jumping onto another thought. Sentences are very short and choppy and could have used a lot more conjunctions to make it flow better. There is also no conclusion or sum up, it just abruptly ends with information and links about Irish genealogy and nothing to tell the reader that it's the end of the book, not just the end of a chapter.
Worse, I spotted some inaccuracies. The author claims that photography really became popular in the 1890s with the arrival of the Kodak Brownie but this camera was not released until 1900. The author also refers to it as the "Box Brownie" (with "box" being capitalized which means it's part of the name, not a mere description), which is not what it was called. It was merely the Brownie or Kodak Brownie. "Box" may be an accurate description of the type of camera it was but it was not the model name. For someone writing on how to do historical research, the author did not do a very good job researching the history of this camera.
There are some useful tips in here but the disjointed way it's written and the inaccuracies would certainly give me pause to recommend it as a good starters guide. It should also be noted that it is based on UK ancestry research. It may not by very helpful to readers from other countries or with other heritages. At the same time, I was surprised to find no mention of the UK Online Parish Clerks where you can find many parish record transcriptions for free. While it is by no means complete, I have found several Lancashire records of my ancestors there. The author does say he plans to update the book about every 6 months with any additional links but that brings me to the point of this not being very suitable to a book. Granted, ebooks are easier to update than print books! But it seems to me that with it being so short and with plans to update regularly, this would be more suitable as a website or blog. I picked it up for free, the digital list price is $2.99 and I'm not sure it's worth that, not when there are plenty of beginner's guides and compilation lists of helpful websites out there on the internet for free.
August 21, 2016
Revising this book review, because I'm frustrated with it. I read this once in 2015 and it seemed to be much better at the time - lots of helpful sources, a bit of text here and there to branch the gaps making it a good how-to.
With time as I've learned how to do my own family's UK genealogy, I've found more and more to be disappointed with in this book. The formatting is atrocious, the list of links are often out of date (i.e. Forces War Records are not included here).
It's ok for the most beginner of beginners. Folks who are interested in genealogy will quickly move beyond it.
With time as I've learned how to do my own family's UK genealogy, I've found more and more to be disappointed with in this book. The formatting is atrocious, the list of links are often out of date (i.e. Forces War Records are not included here).
It's ok for the most beginner of beginners. Folks who are interested in genealogy will quickly move beyond it.
March 23, 2013
Really not much more than a list of websites and other sources.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews