The first thing to do, is to gather as much information as you can from present day family members and any family documents you have at home.
Record what you already know such as names, dates and place of birth, marriage, and death, then use this to work backwards and fill in any gaps.
Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths
Civil registration is a national system of registration, introduced in England and Wales on 1 July 1837.
You can search online indexes, such as Free BMD. You can also search the General Register Office where you can also order copy certificates. These are also available from the local register office.
Church registers as far back as 1538 (and up to the present day)
Church records provide information about when people were alive through baptism, marriage and burial registers.
Registers for Anglican churches in Derbyshire can be consulted via Ancestry up to 1916 for baptisms, 1932 for marriages and 1991 for burials. Free access to Ancestry is available from all Derbyshire libraries.
Before 1733, almost all the entries in the church registers are recorded in Latin.
Similar registers are also available for many non-conformist churches. Some are available via Find My Past which is also be accessible for free in Derbyshire libraries, with others available on microfilm or as original documents in the archive search room.
Consult the Parish Register List and Non-Conformist Register List for details of the records available.
For more recent registers added to the church collections, you can search the online catalogue using the reference number given in the summary guides (Parish Guide and Non-Conformist Guide) or by searching in the 'title' field as follows:
- Church of England: place name and the word 'parish', for example: 'Alfreton Parish'.
- Non-conformist: place name and the word 'church' (or chapel if applicable), for example: 'Gresley church'.
For some churchyards and civil cemeteries, local groups have produced memorial inscriptions, recording the details of memorials and gravestones in and outside churches, these are often useful for identifying family relationships.
Census returns
A national census has been taken every 10 years since 1801, and from 1841 detailed returns listing individuals have survived.
The returns are available online (for example on Ancestry and Find My Past) up to 1911, and microfilm copies are available to 1901 at the record office.
From 1851, the returns include place of birth, and more detail is added over time making them very useful for helping to trace ancestors who may have moved around.
Depending on the date and place of residence, for some ancestors you may be able to identify the house they lived in, but house numbers and even street names are quite uncommon in most rural and semi-rural towns.
Bishops' transcripts
In 1598, parishes were ordered to send an annual copy of all baptisms, marriages and burials for the year to the church authorities.
For some parishes, the ‘Bishop’s Transcripts’, or BTs were made until the late 19th century and can be very useful when the original registers are hard to read or if a register is missing. Both BTs and parish registers can contain entries not found in the other.
Derbyshire was part of the Diocese of Lichfield until the mid-19th century, so the BTs are held at Staffordshire Record Office.
Cemetery records
Copies of cemetery records from 1855 to the 1990s are available on microfilm and DVD. The registers tend to include more information and there is usually a grave register to help identify the location of the grave itself.
Consult the Cemetery Records Guide for a full list of the records available.
Wills and probate
By at least the 13th century the Church had succeeded in establishing a jurisdiction in testamentary matters, which it retained until the Court of Probate Act 1857.
Most early Derbyshire wills are to be found among the records of the Diocese of Lichfield held at Staffordshire Record Office and can be accessed online via Find My Past. One exception was Dale Abbey manorial court which exercised its own probate jurisdiction until 1858.
Wills of persons holding property in more than one diocese were proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC), see The National Archives guide to Wills or Administrations before 1858 Guide for more information.
Between 1858 and 1928, wills (and letters of administration to 1875) for many Derbyshire residents were proved by the Derby Probate Registry and copies are available on microfilm or DVD – search the catalogue using the person’s name and reference D96/*.
Wills after 1928 can be ordered online from the Probate Service.
There are also thousands of wills among family and estate collections, particularly where they form part of a bundle or series of deeds to prove the title to property. The best way to search for such records is to search for the individual’s name in the ‘any text’ field in the online catalogue.
Guides to doing family history
There's a lot of information online about how to research your family history. Also, we have lots of general and specific guides (such as guides relating to ancestors in particular trades, those who broke the law and those who emigrated) in the local studies library to help you.
Find out more about your ancestors using records for digging deeper.