Tracing Your Channel Island Ancestors

Description

This is an expert introduction for the family historian to the wealth of material available to researchers in libraries and archives in Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark.  Full information is given on how to access the birth, marriage and death records which are only available in the islands and differ in format from those in England and Wales.

The authoress covers the census, church records, nonconformist registers, rating lists, newspapers, will and laws of inheritance, official records and the variety of other sources that can illuminate past life and make family history research so rewarding.  Migration has played a large part in the history of the islands and details of the records are fully explained.

This authoritive and easy-to-use guide to these collections and the author’s advice on how to use them and get the most out of them will be invaluable to anyone who is trying to find out about the life and experience of an ancestor who lived in the Channel Islands or was connected with them.

This book is also essential reading for anyone who wants to explore the history of the Channel Islands.

Marie-Louise Backhurst has lived in Jersey for over 40 years and has studied Jersey’s history and its families in depth and written Family History in Jersey.  She is past president of the Channel Islands Family History Society and the Société Jersiaise.