Ancestral Trials by Mark Herber (Sutton Publishing, £30).
TODAY, each person has four grandparents and eight great-grandparents, but go back seven generations and he or she will have 128 ancestors.
Go back 10 generations, and this figure increases to 1,024.
Mark Herber's book, now regarded as the essential guide to tracing those ancestors, is anchored in reality, as it includes material from his own family history research.
It guides the researcher through the substantial British archives with a detailed view of the records and published sources available such as parish records, wills, property records, the armed services, the criminal courts and migration.
This is the most comprehensive up-to-date guide to tracing British ancestry, covering research in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, plus the latest developments in information technology applications on CD and through the internet.
Mark Herber is a London-based solicitor. He has been researching his own family tree since 1979 and has traced some lines back to about 1580.
He is a member of the Society or Genealogists and is the author of various titles.
John Phillpott
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