Introduction to Research

SRA is one of the UK’s leading specialist research organization. Whether the research is archival, online, libraries or consultancy based, our specialist team are suitably qualified and equipped to fulfill your research requirements.

I first encountered family history upon entering the employ of the Public Record Office, now The National Archives, for the first time in my role as reader advisor, helping researchers to navigate their way round the 9.5 million catalogued documents housed there. Up to that point, I had always been led to believe that family history was little more than a hobby, and wasn't 'real history'. Yet several things quickly became apparent - first, the amount of time that was required to trace a family tree properly. In the days before the Internet revolutionised access to name-based records, all searches were conducted by hand and would take weeks to hunt down that elusive ancestor on a census record. It could take years to carry out searches that today might only take hours.

Second, the sophistication of some of the researchers often put seasoned academics to shame in terms of the scale and scope of material viewed. Because family history research often spans several centuries, by definition you encounter different periods of social history, which means a wide variety of sources are required to fully paint a picture of ancestral life.

Finally, it was obvious that the researchers were thoroughly enjoying themselves, particularly when making a great discovery and often because of, rather than in spite of, the complexity of the archive in which they were working. There was a real sense that they considered themselves to be detectives, rather than historians, and the enthusiasm they brought to the subject was refreshing.

My own interest in family history started from a professional perspective, when I was asked to act as the genealogical research consultant for the first series of Who Do You Think You Are? Previously, I had undertaken research for the media across a wide range of programmes, from houses to ship wrecks via industrial heritage, and my specialist skills were more concerned with the ability to find things in archives, rather than an in-depth knowledge of genealogy. Yet even though I was not researching my own family history, there was still intense satisfaction to be gleaned from making key discoveries, working on the individual story lines and showcasing important aspects of British social history from the perspective of the people who lived through momentous historical events. Two further series down the line, and the programme is just as exciting to work on as it was in the beginning - though genealogy itself has changed beyond all recognition in the intervening period. The Internet has brought record series into our homes, and family history is probably the third most popular use of cyberspace.

The whole point of the exercise is to discover not just who our ancestors were, but what sort of people they were and how they lived their lives. With the development of online collections, the tree-building becomes also a preliminary stage to the real business of research in archives, libraries and museums across the country and indeed worldwide. With this in mind, it is perhaps more useful to think of your research as personal heritage rather than family history, because this includes associated topics such as house history, local history, social history, community history and so on. That is one of the joys of the subject - there's always something else to find out, and your ancestors will soon become your tour guide on a fascinating journey into Britain's history.

NIck Barratt