Find out what skeletons lurk in your family’s closet by tracing your family history on the internet. As August is Family History month, it’s an ideal time to start.

You’ll be surprised at how much information is out there, and how easy it is to trace your grandmother’s grandmother’s cousin. Just don’t blame us if you find out more than you wished to!

Get started

To start tracing your family history, you’ll need some basic facts. Find out as much as you can from living relatives, or by delving into the family archives. The more you know, the more you can find out.

Probably the best website to sign up to is Ancestry.com (or Ancestry.co.uk if your family’s roots are in the UK - the subscription will be slightly cheaper to access UK records, although to access SA records, you’ll need the Worldwide subscription). Go for the free trial first; you can always subscribe later. It will ask you for your credit card details, so if you’re not keen on paying, make sure you remember to cancel your subscription in time.

Ancestry will prompt you to start creating your family tree. Plug in all the information you can - the clever Ancestry bot will search millions of records and suggest matches, both in historical records and in other members’ family trees. You’ll know you have a match because of the cute little waving leaf. Make sure the person suggested is a true match, then accept the hint. If it’s a match to another member’s tree, yours can grow before your eyes, filled in with other people’s research. Win!

South African records online

Ancestry.com has a large database of South African records (they bought all the records from the now-defunct Ancestry24). This includes census and baptism information, wills, Boer War service registers and casualties, and even slave records. You’ll require membership (or a free trial membership) to access the details of many of these.

Useful websites

• GISA - Genealogical Institute of SA
• FamilySeach.org, although a lot of those links will simply send you back to Ancestry (and the pay gate).
• South African Genealogy
• 1820settlers.com is a mine of information for descendants of the 1820 settlers
• eGGSA (Genealogical Society of SA) for diverse records, photos, family Bibles, newspaper extracts and more
• The Genealogical Society of South Africa to link up with other researchers
• Rootsweb, an Ancestry.com forum with special lists for SA interests

There are many, many websites where you can look up records, and many researchers have created dedicated websites for their own surnames - Google is, as always, your best friend. You may even find odd references to your relatives in online newspaper records from the past, or even online versions of books.

Go old school

Of course, you can also go back to basics and search the National Archives for records older than 20 years. It’s a little tricky to navigate, and once you have all the reference numbers for the records you require, you’ll have to order them from the Archive Repository concerned. You can also go to the relevant Archive Repository’s Reading Room and request to view the record. You’ll likely be presented with a huge book to look your record up in - very much an old-school offline experience!

For births, deaths and marriages, you may have to contact the Department of Home Affairs, and for military records, the Department of Defence Archives.

DNA Research

If you’re not content with knowing the identity of your third cousin four times removed, you can go all the way and have your DNA analysed. The results will tell you your ethnicity mix and heritage, and some can even tell you which area of a particular country your ancestors originated from. Some can also reveal distant cousins in the same database, and some can even catch criminals!

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