Has anyone looked into their family’s ancestry? Does anyone know past their grandparents/great grandparents?
I’m Australian born however my grandparents were born in England and I’ve always wanted to investigate the family they left behind. Has anyone tried “Ancestry DNA” or done it the old fashioned way? Did it work, was it easy?
Australia being a relatively “young country” our records are not as easy to dig up. Love to hear from the other side. Cheers 
Yes. I’ve had the dna analysis done. I was hoping to be a Viking or similar but it turns out that we’re from Settle, a small village in Yorkshire, for many generations past.
Fairly easy to get back to about 1830/50 in the UK as birth,deaths, marriages registered. Before then more difficult.
My Mrs is looking into our seedy history we have both good and bad and some really strange stories coming from them ( documented ) she has been able to go back as far as 1750 so far and still searching 
@Rab04
I researched my dad’s side of the family back in the late 1980s -mid 90s, when you had to do it all in libraries and record offices: pre-internet, so lots of scribbling, travelling and heaving big old books off shelves. I was helped by the fact that my paternal surname is fairly uncommon. Managed to trace that branch back to the early 17th century: farmers in Staffordshire.
Discovered some interesting stories along the way, including the fact that in the 1920s my grandfather and his brothers (who had all been Lancashire cotton mill workers before WW1) became entrepreneurs, setting up several of the first greyhound racing tracks in the UK.
I also discovered that if a certain painter/decorator from Liverpool had been decent enough to marry my great-great-great grandmother when he got her up the duff in 1845, my research would’ve been made a lot more difficult, cos we’d all have been called Evans. 
I have one line back to around 1670 or so,some of the others are a little more challenging for various reasons.I have heard mixed responses to Ancestry DNA .
It all depends just how much you already know and how much you are prepared to spend as to the results you are likely to get.As for how easy it is I am sur with a little patience you will soon learn the basics and if you get stuck just ask for some tips without giving too much info away.
I done some digging years back and found out other members of my family had researched our ancestry which they discovered on my mums side I have pirate 
blood and then on my dads side we have noble French blood! Plus all bits in between trace parts of my family from London, Ireland 
, Spain, Germany… was really interesting and feels like I’ve reconnected to my history.
I joined numerous ancestry websites following my
Fathers death to look into our family history. Most want credit card details instantly.
I joined a few too but discovered they either do the easy job that you could do in by going to the registry office to ask or they do this silly search on their data base to check if they have any other members with connection to your last name. Both ways seemed rather pointless to pay a monthly fee towards 
I managed to trace some of my Family back to 1600 on one side.
Wow! That’s nearly teatime!
(Sorry… couldn’t resist. That’s really impressive work. 
)
Thats awesome, would be well worth the research.
Thanks @Gazza_64, I printed off & laminated my entire Family tree so far on both sides of the family, including a few photos, I gave a copy to my Father, he was really pleased.
Thanks @Rab04, I pay the subscription monthly, I did look at getting It done professionally, but when I emailed a genealogist the costs we’re horrendous, it would have cost me about £6k. I decided to use Ancestry instead, they have been very helpful. I think I’ve got as far as I can at the moment. I found out my great grandfather was killed in WW1 near the Somme, I paid for a message to be engraved as part of a big memorial to the fallen who died there.
Some of the hourly rates charged by genealogists are a real joke especially as they may not actually find find the information you are interested in but still charge you a small fortune.