Tracing Your Female Ancestors

A simple, easy-to-use guide for British family historians wishing to trace their female ancestry. Everyone has a mother and a line of female ancestors, and often their paths through life are hard to trace. That is why this detailed, accessible handbook is of such value, for it explores the lives of female ancestors from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the beginning of the First World War. In 1815, a woman was the chattel of her husband; by 1914, when the menfolk were embarking on one of the most disastrous wars ever known, the women at home were taking on jobs and responsibilities never before imagined. Adèle Emm’s work is the ideal introduction to the role of women during this period of dramatic social change. Chapters cover the quintessential experiences of birth, marriage, and death; a woman’s working and daily life, both middle and working class; through to crime and punishment, the acquisition of an education and the fight for equality. Each chapter gives advice on where further resources, archives, wills, newspapers, and websites can be found, with plentiful common-sense advice on how to use them. “A unique and information packed instructional reference and guide, Tracing Your Female Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians is an extraordinary and thoroughly user friendly manual that is unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Genealogy collections and supplemental studies lists.” —Midwest Book Review

This book on researching female side of the family emphasized on British research.

This first-ever guide reveals special strategies for overcoming the unique challenges of tracing female genealogy. Readers will be able to uncover historical facts, personal accounts and recorded events to form an intriguing narrative biography of the women in their ancestries.

An easy-to-use, straightforward guide for British family historians looking to trace their ancestry using DNA testing. DNA research is one of the most rapidly advancing areas in modern science, and the practical use of DNA testing in genealogy is one of its most exciting applications. Yet there is no recent British publication in this field. That is why this accessible, wide-ranging introduction is so valuable. It offers a clear, practical way into the subject, explaining the scientific discoveries and techniques and illustrating with case studies how it can be used by genealogists to gain an insight into their ancestry. The subject is complex and perhaps difficult for traditional genealogists to understand but, with the aid of this book, novices who are keen to take advantage of it will be able to interpret test results and use them to help answer genealogical questions which cannot be answered by documentary evidence alone. It will also appeal to those with some experience in the field because it places the practical application of genetic genealogy within a wider context, highlighting its role as a genealogical tool and suggesting how it can be made more effective.