Sources used

My first attempts at tracing my family history began with a visit to St Catherine's House, London, in the mid 1980s. Here I discovered huge volumes of indexes for all the birth, marriage and death certificates recorded since 1832.

Since then, my family history research has involved the following sources and activities:

Lincolnshire archives

Lincs to the past website 

Birth and marriage certificates

Census returns. In the early days, viewing these meant a trip to London and grappling with unfriendly mircofilm reading machines. Now the returns are all available online.

Probate records. Occasionally a family member wrote a will.


Interviewing family members. Well, occasional brief chats, sometimes associated with looking at old photos.

Travelling around Lincolnshire villages, visiting church yards.

For a while, in the early days of the internet, I made contact with distant family members researching names such as Carrott. Alas, I have since lost touch with them.

Poking around contents of family bookcases. I discovered one or two gems tucked away in old volumes, particularly old bibles.

Water Lane Methodist Church, Wilmslow. My grandparents married here in 1934 and I sent a speculative email to them, asking whether they might have any additional information. Bill Deverell, church treasurer, replied and has since undertaken further research, entirely unprompted but much appreciated. Thank you for your interest and help, Bill.