When you’ve already built the foundations of your family tree, the next step is learning how to delve deeper - beyond names and dates - into the stories that take you further into your ancestors’ lives and the world around them.
As the leading resource for British and Irish family history, Findmypast pairs easy-to-use tools and features with access to billions of records you won’t find anywhere else: parish registers, military, travel and crime records, nonconformist collections, old newspapers, and the most detailed version of the 1939 Register online. But the real magic comes from knowing how to use these resources to their full potential.
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Meanwhile, with these expert tips on using Findmypast, you can go further in your research and uncover the hidden details in your family story.
1. Use Workspaces to organise your research
If you’re like me, finding new information about a person usually leads to more questions: Why are they in this place? Who were they with? Can I prove it’s really them?
Findmypast's new Workspaces feature lets you compile, organise, and revisit your research projects in one place. Whether you’re exploring a single ancestor, teasing out a research question, or working on a one place study, this tool helps you keep track of notes, records, and ideas so nothing gets lost as you go.
One recent example of mine was for Audrey Thompson, a record-breaking Rat Catcher in the Women’s Land Army during the Second World War. Having been adopted soon after birth, I wanted to understand more about Audrey’s parentage and the situation around her adoption.
The birth registration for Audrey indicates she was the biological daughter of Leonard Thompson and Alice May Thompson, formerly Lane. He worked as a hotel porter. Audrey was born in Sowerby Bridge, 22 Jun 1924.
As I uncovered the records that told the story of Audrey’s biological parents – their marriage in England & Wales marriage lists, newspaper articles from 1927 detailing a bigamy charge, further newspapers from 1929 of the subsequent divorce – I kept notes in Workspace of what this new information provided.
Based on the timeline presented during the trial, the length of separation between Alice and Leonard, and the geographical locations of both, it does not seem likely that Audrey is Leonard’s biological child. She is more likely the product of an unknown affair, and as a result her adoption would have occurred quite quickly after birth.
2. Explore the Map on your tree
Findmypast’s Explore Map lets you visualise your ancestor’s life geographically, showing where they were born, baptised, lived, worked and moved based on facts added to your tree. Now this isn’t just a pretty picture – it can be so useful in understanding their lives.
There are layers of old maps and data points (like Blue Plaque locations, photo galleries, and memorials) built into the feature that show the development and detail of the locations in which your ancestors lived. You can see the significant local historical landmarks that would have defined their lives – churches, schools, industrial works, roads and railways – helping to build up a sense of their world. If you’re unfamiliar with a location, you can view it in the context of the parish, county, or country.
This visual approach often sparks new questions; why did a branch move counties, or why were they baptised in another parish? And can guide you through those natural next questions.
3. Master Newspaper searches
For those who haven’t tried searching newspapers yet, I say to you: you’re missing out! It will revolutionise your family history research, bringing ancestors to life and allowing you to connect more deeply with their very human experiences. Some of the most emotional discoveries I've had are through newspaper searches.
You’ll soon find that broad searches give you a range of results, which can be browsed and refined down as you go using the filters; many people like this approach and stick with it. However, advanced search techniques can be very powerful in getting you to what you’re after in an instant. My pro tip is to use the Phrase Search tool in Advanced Search; this allows you to search a combination of words within a confined perimeter.
Let’s take a recent example: In researching historical crimes for our Was Justice Served? podcast, many Victorian crimes are dubbed with salacious names to sell papers and offer continuity to readers, such as ‘The Barnsley Murders’ or ‘The Tichbourne Imposter’. The combination of a location + crime threw up thousands of scattered results.
One quick way around this is to search ‘The Barnsley Murders’ as a Phrase Search, which means that the system only looks for these 3 words within 8 words of each other. You can even narrow this down to zero, meaning only results with this exact phrase in this exact order are surfaced. It’s one of my favourite time savers but also allows me to expand my search across a broader range of newspaper titles – from all over the country – without losing validity in the search results.
4. Unpick Military Records with multiple search terms
Military collections can be incredibly rich, but they can be complex to match up. Details might appear under different spellings of a name, or vary depending on whether a regiment, battalion, or unit was recorded. On top of that, soldiers often moved between regiments, and the military wasn’t always consistent in how they noted the information.
The key is to try multiple combinations of search terms. For example, run one search with a surname + service number, then another with a first name + service number, and even variations of regiment names. Each search can surface a different piece of the puzzle, helping you not only understand your ancestor’s military experience but also uncover references to dependents or other family members linked to their service.
5. Get to know their world
One of the most rewarding aspects of family history is putting your ancestors’ lives into context. And it’s the core of what we do at Findmypast; helping you look beyond names and dates to really understand their world.
What environment were they living in? What kind of work did they do, and how did it shape their daily existence? What rights, or restrictions, did they face in society? What pressures and opportunities influenced their decisions? These questions help you understand not just who they were, but why they lived the way they did.
There are so many ways to explore this, some of my favourite on Findmypast are:
· Newspapers: Look beyond big headlines. Adverts reveal everyday products your ancestors may have used, food, fuel, clothes, even festive treats. Front-page stories and announcements of new technologies show the world they were navigating. If you discover an article about their wedding, take the time to browse the full edition to get a sense of their world as they entered married life.
· Browse-only collections: These can be such a goldmine! Spend time reading through these to grasp the rhythm of community life. For example, school records contain teachers’ notes on funerals, marriages, harvest festivals, or local events. These small details bring the wider social fabric of your ancestor’s community vividly to life.
· Review contextual information offered in the tree: When adding records to people in your tree, you may have noticed that new information pops up relating to the record. This might be around women’s voting rights in the 1900s or what their local area was like at the time. Our team has done the hard work for you, so have a read of this information to give you a sense of what your ancestor was living through.
· Historical photos: Findmypast’s photo collection offers thousands of images of places, people, and events. Search for your ancestor’s town or even their wartime regiment to gain a more visual sense of the world they inhabited.