Today is

By: Ikedi Ani-okoye

History of their families

As our lives become busier and we find ourselves juggling work and family life, often needing to relocate our homes for career reasons, it's no surprise that more -and more people are looking into the history of their families' pasts in order to connect with their roots. once the preserve of a few professional genealogists, researching your family history is a now a booming pastime.

Millions of people have been inspired by the EBC's series 'Who do you think you are?'- where Ielebrities from iulian Clary to Jeremy Paxman discover their unlikely origins - to begin investigating their own family trees. So, howto start. Ifyou haveolder relatives,talktothem!

They arethe living memory of your family and can be a mine of information: they may be able to tell you about family relationships, names, work, and addresses that could take many hours of research to unearth from official records. As well as personal memories, there may also be photographs, diaries, or possibly a family book inscribed with generations of names.

All these things help to build a picture of the past, and can give essential clues. Once you've gathered this information, it's time to stat digging deeper! Getting to grips with oicYal records may seem daunting, but staff in archive offices are very knowledgeable and are there to help. Here are some pointers:

The modern Census

The modern Census was first taken in 1841 and every decade after that. The records remain closed for 100 years, so the most recent census available at Qresent is for 1901 As now, the Census recorded details of all residents at a given address, and is one of the most useful tools for the family historian. You can find the 1901 census online at the National Archives website. (Results for earlier decades are kept at the Family Records Centre, based in Clerkenwell EC1.) can also get copies of old birth and death certificates as well as marriage, baptism and burial records.

The Family Records Centre will advise you on where to find all this information. Working or living in the ET4 area, you are near some fascinating archives that hold family history material. The Museum in Docklands, housed in an atmospheric Grade 1 listed warehouse at West India Quay, is a museum celebrating the history of London's port river and people. At the Museum's newly opened Sainsbury Study Centre, the files of private dock policemen and salaries of Sainsbury's cheese mongers are just some of the records taken care of by the museum's archivists!

The two collections - the archives of the Port of London and the Sainsbury Archive - are both kept at the museum, and offer a variety of family history material. Although in a delicate condition, 19th century staff lists of the private dock companies still survive at the Museum in Docklands archive, along with more recent staff records and the service records of many of the dock policemen whose job it was to patrol and
protect the docks from theft. There is also a collection ef over 40,000 dock related photos, as well as Port of London Authority staff magazines.

Family history enquiries come to the archives from all over the world: many locals left the poverty of the docks to create new lives in Australia. Their descendents are now looking back to their East-End beginnings and visiting the Museum in Docklands or emailing an enquiry to the archives as an essential part of their research. Thousands of Londoners have worked for sainsbury's over the years, and the Sainsbury Archive contains staff registers, photographs and illustrated staff journals, as well as a vast array of packaging and machinery, from 1930's curry powder to a 1950's stocking stretcher!

Tower Hamlets Local History Library in Bethnal Green is an essential port of call for anyone studying the E14 area. Photographs of local pubs, streets and buildings are available, along with newspapers, maps, and census material And if you want to find out all about the Isle of Dogs, there is no better place than the Island HistoryTrust:thYsthriving independent history group has collected thousands of images of Island families, all with individual names. so, what are you Waiting for? Start looking at those old photos - you never know what gbur past may hold!