Hi everyone, just got into genealogy in the last few days. Having a lot of fun so far. My main reason for getting into it, was because I lost contact with the entirety of my paternal family. I was attempting to create a family tree in order to find out aunties, uncles, cousins, second cousins etc, so that it might help me establish contact with the family again.
My question is specific to the UK as I think the rules and record types vary from country to country. Am I right in thinking that the only way to trace my pedigree is to buy my fathers birth certificate and use that to find my grandparents, and then buy their birth certificates to find my great grandparents etc?
And Once I find my grand parents, how do I find their siblings, and children so that I can find some of my living relatives? At the moment I only know how to go up the ladder, and not parallel or back down the ladder again.
Any help will be appreciated. A humble request to admin not to move the thread as I need to know regarding the UK specifically, and any general sections will have people from the states and other places where the rules and techniques and laws etc will all be different. Many thanks
So far I have only managed to locate my dad and his brother on the birth index, and my grand parents in the marriage index. I have not been able to get further than this and don't have any further informatio. My plan next is to purchase my dads birth certificate so that I can find my grandparents birth dates so I can locate them in the birth index, Unfortunately Mason was a common surname in Yorskhire so there were many people born around that time with similar names so I can't go further than this without learning additional researchign techniques.
Many Thanks.
Dawud Beale