Soldato
Does anyone here have any prior experience of tracing family history? I want to try and trace the history of a family name, and so I'm after some information on available genealogy services in the UK.
The surname I'm looking into I know goes back to Ireland [via Scotland], so specialists in that area would be beneficial. On the off-chance someone here already has some info, the name I'm looking into (not my name) is Esler.
I'm not after the type of shopping-centre ripoff merchants where they plug your surname into a computer and give you a printout of your supposed coat-of-arms or tartan pattern. What I'm after is tracing back who was married to who, what they did and so on, if I can provide some names to start with - I think I have a couple of generations already. Likely costs, lead time and such for any commercial services would be appreciated.
Ultimately I'd like to give this information to someone as a gift, but I'm not completely averse to doing the legwork. Any pointers as to where I might start researching myself would be helpful too.
The surname I'm looking into I know goes back to Ireland [via Scotland], so specialists in that area would be beneficial. On the off-chance someone here already has some info, the name I'm looking into (not my name) is Esler.
I'm not after the type of shopping-centre ripoff merchants where they plug your surname into a computer and give you a printout of your supposed coat-of-arms or tartan pattern. What I'm after is tracing back who was married to who, what they did and so on, if I can provide some names to start with - I think I have a couple of generations already. Likely costs, lead time and such for any commercial services would be appreciated.
Ultimately I'd like to give this information to someone as a gift, but I'm not completely averse to doing the legwork. Any pointers as to where I might start researching myself would be helpful too.