Every family has a history. Most people in Britain and Ireland are able to trace their ancestry back through a dozen generations (or more) discovering along the way a pageant of forebears - rich and poor; heroic and tragic; bad and ugly. In this new enlarged and updated edition, the authors describe how, step by step, the history of a family may be discovered and a pedigree drawn up. This book shows how the framework of a family three may be constructed from the accessible official records of birth, batptism, adoption, marriage, divorce, death and burial. From these bare branches the family tree blossoms into life with biographical information gleaned from the archives of church, state and local administration.

David Iredale and John Barrett are professional archivsts whose lifetime experience of local records, genealogy and historical fieldwork has been shared in published articles on family history, prehistory, local history and archive administration. They are co-authors of three books in the Shire list, 'Discovering Your Old House', 'Discovering Old Handwriting' and 'Discovering Local History'.