Trace Your British Ancestry
Americans who want to research their British ancestry and find out if they descend from the very first British settlers can now do so quickly online
Each year more people come to Britain to research their family’s roots. Genealogy is being put into sharper focus in 2007, the 400th anniversary of the first British settlement in North America. The modern USA has its roots in Jamestown, Virginia when, in 1607 – a decade before the Pilgrim Fathers founded Plymouth, Massachusetts – a band of intrepid adventurers from Eastern England landed there. Think you might be related to one of the original Jamestown settlers? Log on to www.visitbritain.com/ancestry or www.beginyouradventure.co.uk to start to trace your British ancestry.
A recent survey by VisitBritain showed that as many as 50 per cent of potential Australian and New Zealand visitors to Britain wanted to research their British ancestry as part of their trip. Scotland welcomes over 250,000 visitors researching Scottish family history annually.
Tourist organisations make life easier by presenting material on special websites. VisitBritain’s www.visitbritain.com/ancestry has teamed up with www.ancestry.co.uk to provide a customised family name search function on its home page, while www.homecomingwales.com has a useful section on the origin of Welsh surnames. The Scottish site, www.ancestralscotland.com, includes a listing of events which may have a specific clan link, such as Highland Games, while www.discoverireland.com taps into the Irish Genealogical Project with 15 million records dating from the 17th century.
At some point every family historian is likely to check the National Archives, which hold the records of the UK government from the 11th century till today. A visit to their offices in Kew, West London makes it possible to see and handle a wide range of documents, see regularly-changing exhibitions and relax in a bookshop and café. See www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Four hundred miles north in Edinburgh, an exciting development is taking place for those researching their Scottish roots. A new Scottish family history centre will create a ‘one-stop-shop' for genealogy research in the centre of the capital by bringing together services currently provided separately by several organisations. Called the Scotland’s People Centre and expected to open in autumn 2007, it will enable visitors to search records, some 500 years old, trace their family tree and get a glimpse into the richness of Scotland’s past. It will include exhibitions, search rooms and retail spaces and be open to everyone. See www.scotlandspeoplehub.gov.uk.
Read about being a vagabond on holiday in Ireland by clicking here.
