present for my dad, im new to this!?

[MaryA]

Hi jomalomo and welcome, You just carry on as you are doing asking questions and I bet your nan will be more than happy to reminisce, most "mature" folks are glad of an audience. 

While you are listening, and great idea of Wendi's to take a recorder, don't forget to try to pinpoint which sides of the family people are, she may well talk of relatives of her husband, her father or her mother and afterwards you might well wonder who they are connected to.  A good idea also is to try to pin her down with dates, perhaps not definite years, but maybe something that happened about the time of, say ... the Great War, or another event which would help identify a birth, death, marriage or anything else.

Good luck and I'm sure you'll have lots of fun.
Mary

[JillJ]

Welcome aboard Jomalomo - you have a very interesting time ahead of you!  Enjoy!

Jill

[jomalomo]

i cant believe that ive stumbled across such a nice bunch of people, your all so helpful!

[jomalomo]

hi all. me again
 so where do i ask someone to look something up. and who am i asking? and where do they look it up? confused?

[MaryA]

That's us, we're here to be stumbled over, try us!  

I'm just so glad that you still have your nan to ask questions of, you should get a lot of information from her, and I bet you could make a wonderful narrative to go with the family tree for your dad.

Mary

[jomalomo]

ok then. i think there was a steven/stephen morris. born around 1867ish? what can u tell me about him?? thanks!

[Nessie]

No need to be confused. Look for the Somerset board and click new topic at the top of the page. Then put your question

The census for different years are a good place to find information and freebmd for births, deaths and marriages.

Go on try asking a question, you will be surprised how quickly someone will try and answer you.

[MaryA]

OK well maybe your best idea is to now transfer your postings to the London Board as, although many of us will pick up your queries from there, you might find people with specific knowledge of the area will be able to help.

Try to give your nan's date of birth and her parents names and if she remembers how old they were when they died and where.  If you can manage to get the names and ages of some of the family together in 1901 and if possible where they were living,  then that would be your starting point, to ask for a look up on the 1901 census.

Don't forget that there's going to come a time when you won't know a mother's name or a father's name going back a bit and the only way of getting them might be to order a certificate.  We'll advise on that when we find it's going to be necessary and hopefully the reference for the birth or marriage might be able to be looked up online and then just the ordering of the certificate will be �7, but lets leave that just for the minute until you find out what you need. 

Go post your family on the London Board and see how you can proceed.

Edited afterwards, Nessie might be right, depending on where they were living in 1901 it could be either the London or the Somerset Board you would need.

Good luck
Mary

[MaryA]

Jomalomo, you will have to remember that whatever you find might not all be good, many of us have found jailbirds, bigamists, paupers and illigitimacy amongst our ancestors.

Be prepared for whatever might turn up as it all adds to the variety of family life which existed in the last couple of centuries.  For example if you had any Irish blood some of your ancestors might have escaped from famines with nothing in their pockets, on the other hand you might find you are related to royalty!  It's all good fun as you watch their fortunes go up and down, round and round.

Mary