Learn how to find your family's story for National Family History Month

President of the Tasmanian Family History Society in Launceston, John Dent, is encouraging anyone interested to talk to their older family members and begin recording their histories as early as possible.

This month, he hopes that people will start taking an interest in family history and record information even if they're young.

It's important to start talking to your living relatives even if you're not interested in family history because the information might come in handy later on.

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"Just take an interest in your family and where you come from and how you relate to others, especially in Tasmania because there's a lot of people who are related to each other."

"And it's always good to know how you fit into the picture of Tasmania's history and how you relate to other people."

Mr Dent also has plenty of tips for anyone wanting to start researching their family history.

Mr Dent said the first step for anyone wanting to start is to write down everything known about their parents and grandparents and go back as far as possible.

"You want to record their births, deaths, marriages and where they lived.

The first step is putting down what you know," Mr Dent said.

Once you can't get any further, there are several resources that you can use to track particular people further.

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The Tasmanian Names Index on the Tasmanian Archives Office website.

You can put in a person's name and search across various categories, Mr Dent said.

And you can then find the original records of marriages, births, and deaths.

This is also a useful resource if you have an ancestor who's a convict.

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But Mr Dent warns that you'll likely find someone with the same name as your ancestor.

You can't just accept any name that you find, he said.

"You've got to actually trace it back through linkages and connections."

That's where the first task of recording all that information comes in handy.

Another useful tool is the Trove database which allows you to search newspapers.

"Searching newspapers for the name of the person that you're interested in can give you a lot of detail about their lives. When they appeared in court or when they were in a census or where they lived somewhere or when they put an ad in the paper or that sort of thing."

"So there's lots of different things that you can do to put a bit of flesh on the bones of your ancestors life basically, to give a bit of colour to what they what they did."

Once you need to do a bit of deeper research, you can go through church records to get details on births, deaths and marriages.

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"If you're looking at people who've got owned land, then you can go through the Land Information System of Tasmania."

Once you reach a block, you can also access resources from the Family History Society in Launceston.

"We can help people where they have run into blockages or things they can't get past. We're often able to help sort things out for people," Mr Dent said.

There's often a fee for these services and sometimes the information isn't always accurate, Mr Dent said.

"And so you do have to take that with a bit of caution," he said.

And with family history, a valuable resource is talking to your older family members who can have information that isn't available through records.

Your family won't be around forever and it's good to record the memories of your older relatives while they're still alive, Mr Dent said.

"But once again, you have to be careful because sometimes their recollections are not always 100 per cent perfect."

You may find things that you think might be out of character for your family like an ancestor being adopted or born illegitimately, Mr Dent said.

"So you've got to be prepared for those sort of things."

Forty or 50 years ago, people were uncomfortable about having a convict ancestor, he said.

"Now it's great. Everyone wants to have a convict in their family tree."

Tasmania's historical record is "terrific" and a lot of it can be accessed online, Mr Dent said.

"It's certainly a good time to look at your families because there's so much more information coming out all the time."

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