The 'big buzz' of tracing history

By Rob Liddle
BBC News

The Brighams - a look of royalty about them?

The complete 1861 census has become available online, meaning five censuses can now be accessed via the web - a move certain to fuel a growing national passion for the past.

She's never acknowledged it, but I'm the Queen's cousin - it says so on the internet.

A 20th cousin, once removed, but a cousin all the same, ready to do my duty should others closer to the throne become incapacitated.

I got bitten by the family history bug a few years ago, when I did a journalism job that involved getting a lot of birth, marriage and death certificates.

My grandmother (back) trained to be a teacher

My mum asked me to look up something she wanted checking and it got me interested.

The thing about family history is that one piece of information gives you a clue about where to find out the next bit - it's a bit like a giant crossword puzzle that no-one else necessarily knows the solution to.

You have to use a mixture of logical and lateral thinking - census transcriptions aren't always what they seem - to make progress and there's a big buzz when a hunch pays off.

My researches have uncovered all sorts of characters in the family - with a fair share of black sheep.

One great-great grandfather was a customs officer who was demoted for spending his staff's wages before paying them.

He lost his new job after being spotted taking a tipple when he should have been working on the dockside.

The most promising line stems from the Brighams, who were joiners in north Northumberland in the 19th Century.

Finding them on the census helped me trace the line backwards to John Brigham, a Navy officer during the Seven Years War, who took part in the Battle of Quebec in 1759.

With the help of other internet researchers, I have traced his line back with some certainty to around 1500 - then there's a rather tenuous link to royalty.

John Brigham (third left) appears in the census from 1871

Other pictures the census has helped to paint are less grand, but more dramatic.

For instance there's the tragedy of the great-great-great grandfather who fell off a ladder while painting a house in London's Grosvenor Square in the 1850s - made all the more poignant as his son died in a similar fashion a few years later.

The census can help bring ancestors to life - seeing 10 members of your family sharing just two rooms in a notorious London slum 110 years ago, makes you empathise with those who suffered such poverty.

Doing family history used to involve trawling through lists of names and numbers in dusty records offices.

Nowadays it can be a completely different experience, with the birth, marriage and death indexes and so much census material available online.

There's also a rapidly growing community of people with specialist knowledge or other useful resources who are eager to help you. The whole process seems to bring out the best in people.

I'm just waiting for day someone finds the documents that prove my claim to the throne and posts them online.