Ancestry Research in the United Kingdom
Over the past 20 years we’ve carried out extensive research on hundreds of families at repositories like the British Library, National Archives of the UK, Society of Genealogists Library, National Archives of Scotland, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, and Family History Library in Salt Lake City, USA. Over time, we have gained a wealth of expertise in a wide variety of research areas relating to British genealogy and family history, and many of the families we’re currently working on are available for review on this site. If you’re looking for assistance with your genealogy project, we’d love to help, as we have extensive research experience in all parts of the United Kingdom, including England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Please click the link below if you’d like to hire our team to assist you with a custom-made genealogy project in any of these places.
Humans have lived in the United Kingdom since Neolithic times, as seen by evidence of their presence in places Stonehenge and Avebury Circle. The British Isles have been mentioned in historical sources since ancient times, with cities like Colchester (77 AD) and London (80 AD) being some of the oldest in the country. With the defeat of the Celtic tribes by the Romans in 43 CE, most of present-day England, Scotland, and Wales was incorporated into the Roman province of Britannia. After the fall of Rome in 476 AD, the country was settled by Germanic tribes such as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who came to the country from Germany and Denmark. Many indigenous groups also lived in the British Isles during this period of time, including the Picts and Scots in Scotland, and Ulaid and Dál Riata in Northern Ireland. 9th century Viking invasions of Britain and Ireland also brought waves of settlers from places like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, a strong French influence was felt in the country for many years. In the 1500s and 1600s, Queen Elizabeth I and King James I established colonies in Ireland and North America, and after the creation of the United Kingdom in 1707, Britain subsequently became a global empire. Your ancestors may have played a part in this age-old story, and perhaps left behind important documentation that you can uncover with the help of a professional genealogist.
Records for England can be found at the National Archives of the UK in Kew, Surrey, as well as the British Library and Society of Genealogists Library in London. For research relating to Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh hold large collections of records. For Wales, many interesting records can be found at the National Library of Wales (AKA Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru) in Cardiff. The Public Record of Northern Ireland (AKA PRONI) and the Linen Hall Library in Belfast also have large collections relating to Irish and UK genealogy. In addition, many records can also be found at the local level at civil registration offices, church parishes, regional archives, and local libraries throughout the United Kingdom. Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths began in the UK during the early 1800s and church parish records are sometimes available dating back to the early 1500s to help with your research.
If you like to continue research on your own, please click on the following links for additional resources relating to your British history and genealogy. To get the best results with your research, we'd recommend subscriptions to the following sites, as well as autosomal and Y-DNA testing to help with any longstanding brick walls you may have encountered your tree.
If you’d like to learn more about your own family history and are interested in building a high-quality, well-documented tree, we'd love to help. Our professional research team can gather records for you in all parts of the United Kingdom and former British colonies. The surnames listed below belong to some of the most noteworthy in the UK, whose families have been thoroughly documented our site. Please click on the links below to visit some of the pages we've created on these families, which might give you some idea about what we could also achieve for you during a typical British genealogy project. Our on-the-ground team of researchers, who live in places like London, Cardiff, and Edinburgh, can help you find your ancestors in the UK, as well as helping you trace any lineages that may have emigrated from the country to places like the United States, Canada, Ireland, and Australia.
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