My own Family history research

My name is Keith Newman, I am from Clevedon in Somerset.  I first got into genealogy after my nan died, I was looking at some old photos she had including the one below. It had a date and and a name John James Baker stationmaster at Bratton Fleming in Devon written on the back.  It got me curious as to who he was, what he did and how he lived his life.  I uncovered that he was my Great Great Grandfather and slowly pieced together a story of heartache and tragedy ending with John taking his own life.             

Now I was hooked on finding out as much as I could about the rest of my family's history and after spending hundreds of hours staring at a computer screen,  spending hundreds of pounds on subscriptions and certificates and using helpful research tips from others and finding a few of my own, I now have a family tree of 3500 people spanning 21 generations and growing all the time, uncovered all kinds of info of my family proving and disproving many family stories and even discoverin

Genealogy as a hobby

Genealogy is a fantastic hobby to be involved in and there are many options as to how to go about it. From the paid sites like Ancestry, Findmypast and Genes Reunited which is probably the easiest way to do it, although sometimes the records can be badly mistranscribed,  to all the local family history society`s  up and down the country  which are excellent if your family never travelled much and stayed in the same area which are generally around £10 for a years membership, there is also a few free sites like Familysearch.com or of course there are people like me who can either just get you started or do the whole thing for you!     

Either way genealogy is a fascinating thing to be involved in and it's good to know that my work into my family tree will make sure that my family history is preserved for generations to come. Will yours?

Setting up my family tree research business

Help me with my family tree

When a friend of mine said to me "can you help me with my family tree" It got me thinking can I make a little bit of money out of my hobby so after helping him with his family tree. I set about setting up my own business and soon found lots of people were interested in their genealogy but never had the time,  the patience or hit a brick wall which they just couldn't get past and gave up! and just jumped at the chance to get their family history researched properly and efficiently and some of the letters I've received gives me so much satisfaction and makes me very proud of a job well done. 

After a bit of trial and error with the presentation and content of my family tree research packages I now feel very happy and confident that they offer fantastic value for money for anyone interested in their own family history!