Apart from announcements placed by family and friends, and perhaps short write-ups on prominent citizens, there is also the possibility of news coverage of accidents, strikes, and many other events to which the family concerned might have once been party. You would of course usually require information that a particular ancestor was involved in something likely to be so documented as well as have access to a likely date of such occurrence before you can scour the newspapers with any reasonable chance of finding information worth the time and trouble involved.

The International Genealogical Index (IGI)

The Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints maintains a compilation of  names. Baptisms and marriages are included to approximately 1875, usually broken down into counties, and then into surnames and Christian names. IGI statistics are available on the Internet as well as at a computer base located in Utah in the United States, a veritable shrine for genealogists. There is a link to this index in the resources section of this book.

Military and Professional Records

Records of those in the armed forces were maintained from 1660 onwards, though not always to the quality or accuracy that researchers of today might have hoped for. Standards incidentally improved shortly into the nineteenth century.

Those seeking out details regarding soldier ancestors might find official discharge papers more than a little useful, particularly where ranks below officer are concerned.

Close to home one might find military museums and military societies maintain fairly extensive records on their colleagues of years gone by.

Many links to these records are also included in the resources section of this book.
For those ancestors engaged in other employment and professional sectors, a number of guilds and museums have emerged over the years, both to protect the interests of living members as well as to preserve the memory and traditions of those who aren't. Most of the early guilds and professional associations now have their photographs and other documents preserved in special museums dedicated entirely to the trade itself.

Among other useful sources of data are town directories and town books, more prevalent perhaps in the middle of last century than is the case today. Primary among these directories were such as 'Kelly's', in which each parish and its inhabitants were listed according to name, occupation, address and much other personal and employment detail.

The Percival Boyd Index held at the Society of Genealogists, lists some seven million names and-appropriate English marriages and London burials between the period 1538 to 1837.

Various other departments regarding immigration and emigration, poor law, and so on, can also increase the store of information you gain on any particular family or specific individual.

Finally, a wealth of information is available in the various genealogy libraries operating throughout the world, many of which maintain their own records alongside copies of official documentation.

Contacting Other Resources

Although there are many resources on the Internet for genealogical research, the information is still limited. The farther you go back, the more difficult it will become to locate information on your ancestors online. This is where some letter writing skills will prove useful. Whether you use email or snail mail, be polite. Please and Thank you can go a long way in helping you get the information you are seeking. When using the mail always include a self-addresses, stamped envelope. When writing your letter, be as to the point as possible about the information you are looking for. Be patient-Many of the libraries and societies that you contact have limited staffing and it may take several weeks to get to your request.

Putting Your Information Together

Now that you have done your research you will want to have a way to display what you were able to find. You may choose just to have the pedigree chart and supporting documents in a binder, but there are many more creative ways that you can use to display your ancestry to everyone.

With the popularity of scrapbooking you may choose to assemble a scrapbook with pictorial evidence of the locations from which your ancestors originated, reproductions of churches, landscapes, landmarks and even gravestones. You could include reduced size copies of birth, marriage and death certificates as well as photos of individual ancestors when available. Copies of newspaper cuttings can also be included. You could make several of these and give them to those family members who were particularly helpful or give them as gifts.

One popular method of displaying your ancestry is to have your family tree embroidered on a piece of cloth and then framed. This way it can be displayed for everyone to see.

Another option for those so inclined, would be to put your family history into writing, making a book for future generations to read. Using photos, newspaper cuttings etc. liberally throughout would make the book more enjoyable.

The ways that you can use to display or record your family history once you have researched it are limited only by your imagination.