Researching your family history can be an extremely rewarding pasttime, and should you be lucky enough to have your family roots in Merthyr Tydfil, you will find a wealth of knowledge and resource at your fingertips to help progress your search.

Millions of people throughout the world do it, but creating a family tree   is not always easy.

The search can be addictive and will take a lot of your spare time and some money. It will probably send you to other parts of the country and might make your friends and family ask to talk about something else! However, finding out about your family - where you came from - can give you an awful lot of pleasure and knowledge about your heritage and ancestors.

Some basic tips

Don't make assumptions. Having the same name doesn't make them a relative - you have to prove a link. It is not and was not unusual for people with the same names and of similar ages to live nearby.

Don't be surprised if dates and reported ages don't always match up. Birthdays and precise ages were far less important a hundred years ago. My grandfather gave a few different ages for the census question about his age over the years (not from vanity). It is not unusual for people to spell their own names differently.

  Expect to have to travel. Due to our history, very few people can claim to be descended from the people who inhabited the area before the Ironworks started in 1759. People came to Dowlais and Merthyr Tydfil to find work and a new life from all over the country - and a few other countries - especially Ireland. Most people living here are not descended from "local" families.

If you are fortunate, your ancestors and relatives came from an area with good records. Sometimes, however, you may hit a dead end - and you will never find where some people came from.
 
Good luck, it really can be worth it!

If you really are lucky you will find that someone else has done a lot of it for you - although that does not happen often.