Cultural Devon / Devon's History and Heritage / Family History in Devon

Family History in Devon

Who do you think you are? Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor ¬- digging back into the past to discover what your ancestors did and where you come from is absolutely fascinating. If your roots are in Devon, tracking down your past will prove highly rewarding - and fun.

Putting together all that your family members can tell you and following up on some of the many on-line ancestry sites can take you a good way up the family tree. But there still is an enormous volume of records not on computer, just waiting for a little researching to bring them to light.

The Devon Record Office in Exeter is a treasure house of records - from parishes, families, estates, schools and societies - where you will be welcome to ferret out all kinds of facts to help you piece together the jigsaw of your family's history. And other archives elsewhere in the county are equally eager to help.

Devon folk often stayed in same area for many years, so visit the places your family once lived, and suddenly your past will come to life. You will picture your forebears at work and at play, even find their graves, and share a little of the countryside that meant so much to them.