Saturday 2 February 2013

Subscribe to a Family History magazine...









I have subscriptions to both Your Family Tree and the BBC Who Do You Think You Are? magazines. I have bought other ones as well in the past but these are the two I find the most helpful and interesting. Sometimes if I see another Family History magazine in the shops with something interesting to my research on the front cover I will buy it, but the above magazines are definitely my favourites, both are really good magazines and I like them for different reasons.

A few months ago, I was reading my copy of the Your Family Tree magazine and there was a really interesting letter from someone who had been struggling to research their Royal Marines ancestors in the early 1800's to 1850's. The letter and the expert advise response gripped me, as I have also hit several brick walls in researching my great, great, great, great grandfather, John Davidson, who was in the Royal Marines. (See my Davidson Page, Chapter 1 for my information about John Davidson) The letter was asking similar questions I had and the expert advise in the response was spot on and has opened up some avenues for me to look into. The only problem is to see the records I need to get myself down to The National Archives in Kew, London, which I do intend on doing one day soon!

Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich c1900
(Image link: www.wikipedia.org, Author: Calsicol, 12 July 2005, accessed 15 Feb 2014)

My favourite parts of the magazines are:

  • the letters
  • the Q&A or Ask the Expert sections, where you can write in with your brick walls for expert advise - its surprising how often there is someone else out there asking the same questions as yourself
  • the readers own interesting stories about their ancestors
  • special articles, giving a minefield of tips to help your research and knowledge about general history - what was happening where in the world, what was life like for our ancestors

The most useful parts of the magazines are:
  • News - especially about new records being released online
  • County information - each month they focus on a county and if its a county of interest to me then its very valuable information
  • Book, website, TV, software etc reviews
  • The extra freebie downloads
  • All the tips your pick up from reading the magazines

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan

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