Tracing Your Family Tree: The Comprehensive Guide to Discovering Your Family History (Genealogy)

The writing is clear and concise and the examples given are crystal clear representations of the topic under discussion. The illustrations are purposeful and not simply gratuitous eye-candy.

The organization of the book is superb. It begins with the most basic and general record types a new researcher would need to access such as information from home and relative sources, civil registration, national censuses & parish registers. Each subsequent chapter introduces more complex and specialized record types in descending order of overall importance to the average researcher.

It is as if Jean Cole and John Titford, two giants in U.K. genealogy world, are right with you holding your hand each step along your research path.

This is not a detailed reference work such as Mark Herber's "Ancestral Trails". But if you could purchase only a single beginner's guide to genealogical research in the United Kingdom, "Tracing Your Family Tree" is the one to get.


Good basic and more advanced book   October 28, 2001
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

This book starts off with the basics of family tree research but also includes more detailed information for when you get further involved. As a first timer researching my family tree I found it very useful and would recommend it to people starting out in genology.


If you ever want to trace your family tree don't miss this!   January 18, 2001
15 out of 15 found this review helpful

A fantastic book for first time genealogists such as myself, I found it easy to read and used many of the handy hints it contains. Sadly, it doesn't have a great deal on internet searching, but if your looking for UK ancestors in particular, it is invaluable. I would definately recommend this book, it is a wonderful guide and helps the reader ascertain just what kind of information they are looking for and how do go about searching for those details and stories that make the hobby of genealogy so exciting. At the very least it taught me how to spell genealogy correctly and not to get stuck just on one particular ancestor who all your family want to know more about..e.g. Dick Turpin (if you belong to the Turpin family), Jean tells you that there is normally more than one 'extraordinary' individual in anyones family and they should also be looked at...since I have read and studied this guide I found out that I am related to a famous watch maker, a witch who was hung etc., and plenty of family wars abound. Start tracing your family tree now and get this book to get you started, you won't regret it, I promise!