• Home Page
• -
• Leisure and culture
• -
• Local history and heritage
• -
• Family tree

Access Tools

Records and facilities to help you trace your family tree are held at Huyton Library.

Holdings include:

• Parish registers
• Census returns
• Street directories

Tracing your family history - step one

Write down everything you know about your family. Interview other family members. Do not forget other branches of the family. Make a note of everything and who told you about it, even if you doubt it’s accuracy, there is often a grain of truth in family legends. Gather together the entire documentary evidence i.e. family bible, old photographs.

Try to ascertain some or all of the following facts:

• Dates of births, marriage and death
• Names of immediate close family
• Specific names and addresses of everyone
• Jobs, trades or professions held
• Religion or place of worship
• Family names, especially surnames on the female side of the family.

Tracing your family history - step two

There are many books written on this subject have a look at:

• Tracing you Family Tree, Cole J and Titford, J
• The Concise Guide to Tracing your Ancestry, Loomes, B
• Discovering Your Family History, Steele, D
• Tracing you Ancestors, the A-Z, Saul, P.

Tracing your family history - step three

When you have accumulated as much information as possible the Local History and Archives Library can assist your research by providing access to the following records.

It is also useful to join your local Family History Society or a Family History course. Knowsley Library Service hold Family History courses in each of their libraries. The courses run for 10 weeks and are currently free of charge. This can help you sort through the avalanche of sources available.

Civil registration indices

This is more commonly referred to as the St Catherine’s House Index, the General Register Office or just the GRO. It provides an index to all the births, marriages and deaths registered in England and Wales.

It should provide enough information to obtain a copy of the full certificate from a local Registry Office or a certificate by post by sending the appropriate fee to:-

Certificate Services Section, General Register Office, PO Box 2, Southport, PR8 2JD, Telephone 0845 603 7788

Huyton Library holds the General Register Office Index (on microfiche) for the following years:

• Births 1837 - 1983
• Marriages 1837 - 1983
• Deaths 1837 - 1983

Census returns

Together with Civil Registration Certificates the Census Returns are probably the most useful way of helping you to trace your family back to about 1800. At Huyton Library we hold the Census Returns from 1841-1891 for the Knowsley area and some of the Liverpool districts. We hold the 1881 Census Name Index for the whole country.