Luton Outlaws - Independent Message Board for Luton Town FC

As an Ancestry subscriber of more than 20 years, I'd agree with just about everything said above, especially checking the information that comes up. So many people copy others' mistakes. I was fortunate in tracing my maternal grandmother's line - she was a Smith - because they were country folk who didn't move about very much till late Victorian times. Public records offices are an invaluable source of information, and also original documents. I can't describe the shiver I felt when I was able to hold an indenture document dated 1676 in which my Gt x 6 grandfather, who was a cordwainer, gave an apprentceship to "Thos. Clarke, a poor child of the town of fframlingham in the county of Sufk." To hold a document over 300 years old that had been held and signed by a direct ancestor was a special moment.

I also managed to discover that Farhat, who has my mother's maiden name, and I are 3rd cousins - this being a few years after we met in the Brickies after the York play off final.

But do be warned - genealogy is a time consuming pursuit, and can become very addictive, especially if you find an ancestor who was a "somebody", because then you'll be able to find all kinds of historical sites listing the gentry, who kept records from long before parish records became mandatory in the reign of Elizabeth 1st. I discovered I was a descendant of Sir Rafe Sadler, who was Thomas Cromwell's bagman and later secretary to Henry VIII, also the wealthiest commoner in England at one time. Through the marriage of his eldest son I was able to trace lines back to Charlemagne, William the Conqueror and Alfred the Great.