Start Learning Family History for Free
New to genealogy? Take your first steps with a free introduction to our Getting Started with Family History module, designed for those beginning to trace their ancestors in England & Wales.
Start Learning Family History for Free
New to genealogy? Take your first steps with a free introduction to our Getting Started with Family History module, designed for those beginning to trace their ancestors in England & Wales.
You’ll explore how family historians gather clues, assess evidence and start building a reliable family tree — with practical activities you can work through at your own pace.
Enter your details and we’ll email you access to the free lessons.
By signing up, you agree to receive the free lessons and marketing emails from the Society of Genealogists about courses, events, resources and other ways to explore your family history. You can unsubscribe at any time.
What will I learn?
You’ll explore how family historians gather clues, assess evidence, and start building a reliable family tree — with practical activities you can work through at your own pace.
These free first steps will introduce you to the way family history research works and help you begin thinking like a genealogist.
You’ll start to:
- understand where to begin with your family history
- think about what information you already have
- recognise the difference between a clue and reliable evidence
- see how our self-paced learning works
- try some of the practical activities from the full module
Made for beginners...
You don’t need any previous genealogy experience.
Whether you’ve just started wondering about your family story, inherited some family information you want to make sense of, or opened an online family tree and aren’t sure what to do next, these lessons will help you take a more confident first step.
Learn with the Society of Genealogists
The Society of Genealogists has been helping people research their family history for generations.
Our self-paced learning is designed to make genealogical skills clear, practical, and accessible. Rather than simply showing you where to click, we help you understand how to assess information, use records and make better research decisions.
You can learn at a time and pace that suits you, and return to the material as you need it.
A free introduction to our full beginners’ module
These lessons are taken from Getting Started with Family History, our complete beginners’ module. At the end of the module you have the option to continue to the full paid verion.
However, if you’ve already completed the free version, or would just prefer to go straight to the full module then please feel free to do so!