Family History Companion: The Knowledge You Need to Speed Up Your Research

Practical and portable, this easy to use handbook offers new insight into family history today. Drawing on the expertise of the National Archives, it explores terms, topics, sources and record types from medieval times to the present, explaining how and why they can help your own research. Equally suited to browsing or quick reference, it combines wide-ranging knowledge with practical tips and advice.Compact in format and affordably priced, it offers well-organized information on, for example: key concepts in family history, including the census, parish registers, wills, trades and professions, immigration and emigration, military service and empire, land records and maps; record types and series (at the National Archives and elsewhere) and how to access them most effectively; the latest electronic developments, and advice on efficient online research; researching minority groups (religious or ethnic); demographic history (internal and external migration, denization, citizenship applications etc); hundreds of family history terms, acronyms and abbreviations; key institutions and how to use them; organizations and societies (local to international); and, the history of family history.

Mark Pearsall is the Family History Specialist at the National Archives. He is co-author (with Roger Kershaw) of the highly successful Family History on the Move (2006) and Immigrants and Aliens: A Guide to Sources (2004), as well as a regular contributor to the popular family history magazine Ancestors.