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Lavishly illustrated and breathtaking in coverage, Ancestral Trails guides the researcher through the substantial British archives, giving a detailed view of the records and the published sources available, analyzing each record and guiding the searcher to finding-aids and indexes. The early chapters help beginners take their first steps by dealing with such matters as obtaining information from living relatives, drawing family trees, and starting research in the records of birth, marriage, and death, or in census records. Later chapters guide researchers to the records that are more difficult to find and use, such as wills, parish registers, civil and ecclesiastical court records, poll books, and property records. So the book is ideal for the beginner and the experienced researcher alike and will enable those who are persistent enough to trace their ancestry back to the Middle Ages.

One of the aims of the book--entirely unique to it--is to link sources together, to ensure that researchers can use material found in one source to assist a search in other sources. Another aim, somewhat more modest but equally essential, is to bring the reader up-to-date with the many important changes that have taken place in English genealogy over the last few years. These changes include the movement of census records and the indexes of births, marriages, and deaths to the new Family Records Centre at 1 Myddelton Street, London; the opening of the 1891 census; the placement of parish registers in county record offices; the transcription and indexing of census returns and parish records; and county and regional boundary changes. Anything even slightly affecting your research is thus dealt with and brought up-to-date, making the book an essential reference and an indispensable field manual.

"No other publication gives such comprehensive and up-to-date guidance on tracing British ancestry and researching family history. Illustrated throughout with more than ninety examples of the major types of records, and with detailed lists of further reading, Ancestral Trails will be the essential companion and guide for all family historians."--Anthony Camp, Director, Society of Genealogists

This book is also available in a paperback version

RELATED BRITISH BOOKS
In Search of Your British & Irish Roots
The A-Z Guide to Tracing Ancestors in Britain
Beginning Your Family History in Great Britain


EDITORIAL REVIEWS

"The face of English research is changed by this superb book."--NATIONAL GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY, Vol. 87, No. 4 (December 1999).

"Chapter by chapter, the author does an admirable job of guiding any genealogist through the labyrinth of sometimes unfamiliar records. Ancestral Trails is highly recommended to any person wishing to tackle research in British records and most certainly should become part of any library's genealogical collection."--AMERICAN REFERENCE BOOKS ANNUAL (2000).

"This is a terrific book for serious genealogical research in England. Herber, who took ten years to write this book, obviously knows his material well. The book provides a very comprehensive description of the majority of records the researcher will encounter in English research."--FEDERATION OF GENEALOGICAL SOCIETIES FORUM, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter 1998), p. 29.

"Herber's book is billed as 'the complete guide to British Genealogy and family history,' and that is exactly what it is. Thoughtfully designed, this orderly, comprehensive, and elegant work guides the researcher (beginner or advanced) through the entire process of tracing British heritage, from obtaining information from living relatives to drawing family trees and starting research in the birth, marriage, death, or census records."--LIBRARY JOURNAL (March 1998), pp. 81-82.

"Here is that one volume researchers need to guide them through the maze of genealogical research in Great Britain. A must for anyone who has genealogical connections to British families."--PILGRIM NEW LETTER, Vol. 87, No. 4 (Spring 2000), p. 14.