TRACING YOUR ANCESTORS BEYOND PARISH RECORDS

Parish records only came into being in 1537/38, so it's quite difficult to trace your family any further back than that (unless you happen to have wealthy/noble forebears, of course!). However, there are some sources that could enable you to go even further, such as:

1. Wills; these can sometimes be found attached to public profiles on Ancestry etc., but you can also find some by searching The National Archives. If your ancestors hailed from Oxfordshire, the Oxfordshire Wills site is another good place look - remember to try multiple different spellings of surnames!

2. Inquisitions Post-Mortem; these date between 1236 and circa 1636, giving details of people who held land directly from the Crown.

3. Crown Wardship Records; these document land inheritance between 1540 and 1645.

4. Privy Council Records; these date from 1386 onwards, although some papers are missing. It may be possible to find ancestors mentioned in them.

5. Peerage; this website is a good place to find published genealogies of wealthy or noble families, but beware - they were sometimes fabricated in order to boost people's status! Link: https://www.thepeerage.com/

6. Google; simply typing a surname and location/county into Google can yield some interesting results, but be sure to verify them before accepting them as factual!

I'll add some more sources at a later date, so stay tuned! In the meantime, this free webinar is a useful place to start: https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/webinar-introduction-medieval-early-modern-sources-family-historians/