This is an extremely broad subject area so I shall try to provide some basic tips based on my own experiences but it is not possible to cover everything in a journal entry.

Genealogical research is not a task as easily undertaken in the subject area UK as in some other countries, particularly if you are researching from afar and depend on what is available online. For one thing, in some places like England, there is very little available online. The vast majority of the documents are stored in physical format only and either in the National Archives, or the Regional Archives, still others such as parish records can still often only be found in the parish itself. An added problem with the National Archives is that it has recently started to outsource access to much of its digital collections to other services such as Ancestry.com, and most if not all are fee-based. Not that the National Archives has ever been known to offer affordable documents either, the last time I ordered the digital copy of a Will it cost me 5 Pounds Sterling, and this was for ONE document. In any case, as far as England is concerned this means that there comes a point where one is either forced to hire a local researcher to do some legwork, or go to England personally. Moreover, what is available online (even in the subscription services) usually consists mostly of Indexes and Transcriptions, and NOT images of the original documents, which is what we are ultimately seeking as researchers.

Scotland is somewhat different and in some ways much easier, but not much cheaper. As far as I understand just about all records that genealogists would have an interest in are housed at the Scottish National Archives, and a large number of these are available through their online arm called Scotlands People. Be aware that Scotlands People DOES NOT contain everything that the National Archives holds. The folks there are continually updating their digitized images but it is a massive and expensive job and takes a long time. For one thing, it does not help merely to have the document scanned/photographed, in order for it to be placed in Scotlands People it also needs to be transcribed for it to be searchable. Not all transcriptions are as complete as we would hope and some record series miss enough transcribed data for you to be able to discern which “Donald MacDonald” in the long list of hits in your search results is the one that you are looking for, furthermore opening each individual to check if it is indeed the right person will cost you credits... However, the folks there are extremely helpful and go out of their way to support you so I don’t hesitate to contact them when I hit such snags.

Ireland actually represents two separate countries: Northern Ireland (official name) which is part of the UK, and the southern part, covering the vast majority of the island (5/6) referred to as the Republic of Ireland or just plain Ireland (official name) which is NOT part of the UK but rather a sovereign state and has been an autonomous country since 1937 and is today a separate member of the European Union. Regardless of the Irish area however, there is one aspect that does not depend on current political borders which is important to genealogists: a major part of Irish records were lost in the 1922 Battle of Dublin as a victim of the “Irish Troubles”, or Civil War. The two countries have separate archives today but this was not the case in 1922. Surviving documents prior to 1922 exist only in fragments. The irony here is that not long before this battle, the British Government had ordered that all parish records be collected from the various parishes and sent to Dublin for “safe keeping”. Had the government administrators and politicians not committed what IMHO is the ultimate act of stupidity, many priceless records would have been spared destruction. Some of the documents lost as a consequence of the Battle of Dublin dated back to the early Middle Ages (at least the 13th century). From an historian’s and researcher’s point of view this is nothing short of a catastrophe of Biblical proportions, as it is totally irrecoverable.

Wales: I have still to clock significant research hours in Wales to be of much help to anyone to here’s hoping that someone with experience will fill in this gap!

Last but not least, keeping track of one’s ancestors was an extremely import aspect of several original cultural groups who settled in the British Isles including but not restricted to: Gaels, Picts, Britons, Saxons, Vikings, etc...
As a result of this inherited cultural value, many antiquarian/historical and archaeological societies sprang up all over Britain. Their members would often go on field expeditions to transcribe parish archives, “walk a cemetery” or perform inventories of the graves found in burial locations, follow contemporary archaeological projects in various parts of the UK and report on the finds, visit privately-held document collections (such as family libraries of charter chests), etc. This information would be written in a report, submitted to the society and become part of their publications which could be monthly to yearly, depending on what periodicity the society decided to adopt. Many of these publications are today either not copyrighted or have outlived their original copyright and can be found in many of the digital libraries online such as: Internet Archive, Google Books, Open Library, Kobo, Project Gutenberg, Hathi Trust and countless others. These publications are an invaluable source of information to genealogists, as many contain transcriptions to records which may have been lost in the meantime. Published local and parish histories, almanacs and statistical reviews are often also valuable sources of information as well as the old published genealogies published by the family, to the official publications by authorities such as those concerning Herald’s Visitations to genealogies of the nobility and landed gentry in series such as those published by Burke, etc..

More journals will follow containing research resources in each area.