Talking to older relatives is a good way to start. Encourage grandparents, uncles and aunts, even cousins to reminisce about their youth and what they remember being told about the family. You may find that another relative is already researching your family history, and you could pool your information.

Start collecting material about your family - including birth, marriage and death certificates, photographs, diaries and letters. All of these will help you build up a picture of your relatives.

Be patient with older relatives and you may need to speak to them several times to jog their memories. Get them to show you their photograph albums, letters and family Bibles and it will trigger reminiscences.

But remember that memories can be faulty, so double-check all dates and names. Be very careful about recording all the information you get, and its source.

Checking the Records

Another invaluable source of information is the International Genealogical Index compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons. This contains about 80 million baptisms and marriages from parish registers between 1538 and 1875, arranged alphabetically in county sections. Anyone can look at this register at their local Mormon branch library - check the phone book for details.

Their records also cover entries world-wide, so if your ancestors were born, married or died abroad. This could be of great help to you.

The Mormons have begun to put their genealogical database on-line. It has the world's largest collection of genealogical data, which it has collated over the last 100 years. The on-line project initially puts 400 million names on-line, with more to follow.

Tracing your ancestry is encouraged by the church. The site has proved immensely popular , getting 500 hits a second and requiring extra servers to be brought in. You can find the site at http://www.familysearch.org

Wills

You can get a lot of useful and unexpected information from your ancestors' wills, which are often much more informative than death certificates. They'll give you an idea of how wealthy (or broke!) your relatives were, and the names of the executors and beneficiaries in the will could give you some intriguing clues about other branches of the family.

Copies of wills dating back to 1858 can be seen at local county record offices, or you can see them at the Principal Registry of the Family Division at Somerset House in London.

The Record Office

Each county has at least one record office: you may need a readers' ticket to use it. A record office can provide you with a treasure trove of data, including maps, trade directories, newspapers,records of local businesses and landowners, as well as details of schools and lists of apprentices in various professions.

Local libraries can also be a mine of information.

Join your local society

If you want to meet other people who are compiling their family trees, then join your local family history society. Contact the Federation of Family History Societies or look for a listing in your phone book. Most of the societies organise meetings and produce journals, and they are also carrying out useful work in indexing registers of census returns and births, marriages and deaths in their county.

You may also want to join the Society of Genealogists, although you can use their library for a small fee without becoming a member. However, if you join you receive the quarterly Genealogists'Magazine and you can borrow books, microfilms and microfiche.

Many family history societies will have lists of the families on which members are working - and the Society of Genealogists also keeps an index of them, so you may find your research overlaps with that of a long-lost relative!

Get on Line

Join CommuniGate and create a special page just for your family. Friends and distant relatives will be able to contact you from around the world. They can keep you informed on their research and update you with information they have found.

Handy tips

From the start keep detailed records of everything that you discover in your search. Use one of the many family tree computer programmes to store and index your research.

Dont just record the details - remember to note down each source so that if you find any discrepancies you can cross-check your information.

There are many reference books around which can help you in your quest. A good book for beginners to read is First Steps in Family History by Anthony J. Camp, available from the Society of Genealogists, price £1.45.

The Society's bookshop has many useful books and leaflets which are available by post - write to them for a list.

For those of Scottish descent try Tracing your Scottish Ancestry by Kathleen B. Cory (Polygon ) £7.95.

During your research you may well come across someone wih the same name as yours, but don't be tempted to launch into him or her, unless you are quite certain that it is a relative. You can waste a lot of precious time by going off at a tangent.

If you need help in tracing your family, or are struggling with documents in Latin or in indecipherable handwriting, consider employing a professional searcher. The Society of Genealogists publishes a leaflet listing professional genealogists.

When you are writing to someone for help or information, remember to include an sae. Librarians and record offices get many requests for help, so make life as easy as possible. Just like any other skill, tracking down documents and interpreting them can actually be learned. Some universities and colleges offer courses in genealogy, which you may find useful.