So what are you waiting for? Get yourself there early and get your day at the show off to a great start.

For more information about the bookazine, click here.

Births, Deaths and Marriages, written by and starring David Schneider (The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge), is set in a Local Authority Register Office where the staff deal with the three greatest events in anybody’s life.

It features Chief registrar Malcolm Fox, described as: “A stickler for rules and would be willing to interrupt any wedding service if the width of the bride infringes health and safety. He’s unmarried but why does he need to be? He’s married thousands of women.”

Other characters include geeky Luke, ditzy Anita and pragmatic divorcee Lorna who has been drafted in to drag the office (and Malcolm) into the 21st century. To her marriage isn’t just about love and romance, it’s got to be about making a profit in our new age of austerity.

The next issue of Your Family Tree magazine, on sale 28 February will help you unlock the details held in birth, marriage and death certificates made by local record offices. Civil registration certificates of these vital events are crucial for your research, and using our superb guide to them you can become an expert on all things BMD. From ordering them, to using them alongside other resources to take your research even further, we’ll show you how.

Click here to apply for free tickets to the recordings of Births, Deaths and Marriages at the RADA studios in London.

Many of the files are available to view online and will be free to download for one month.

Charlie Chaplin’s file shows that MI5 investigated the mysterious circumstances of his birth. Chaplin, one of the silent era’s biggest stars, was viewed with suspicion in the United States because of his alleged links to communism but MI5 concluded that he was a “progressive or radical” rather than a communist.

Another file details a Nazi plan to produce fraudulent Bank of England notes during the Second World War and to scatter them over the British Isles. The object was to “create a loss of confidence and general confusion”.  By the end of the war the German strategy had largely succeeded as ,the file notes: “At present no one will accept a Bank of England note in any neutral country…except at a very large discount”.

For a podcast about the new files, recorded by Professor Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI5 click here.

This is the 28th Security Service records release containing a total of 86 files and bringing the number of Security Service records at The National Archives to 4,926.

Anniversaries of famous events always provide a chance to reflect on whether any of your family were involved, or if you had ancestors who went through similar experiences. The tragedy of the ill-fated Titanic 100 years ago will forever intrigue, but it’s also a reminder how perilous the sea can be. We’ll be helping you research your kin who perished at sea in our Lost at Sea special feature.

Though finding out how someone passed on can prove upsetting, it’s the last piece of an ancestor’s genealogical puzzle that also includes births and marriages. The civil registration certificates of these vital events are crucial for your research, and using our superb guide to them in this issue you can become an expert on all things BMD. From ordering them, to using them alongside other resources to take your research even further, we’ll show you how.

BMD certificates only go back to 1837, however, so luckily alongside this special issue is a detailed book we’ve compiled with the help
of Ancestry.co.uk to help your research before this crucial date. And what’s more there’s even a nifty magnetic bookmark for you bookworms out there.

We have all your regular favourites discussing Quaker records, genealogy cruises, bankers and moneylenders, an Isle of Man region guide and we show you how to get started with Scottish kirk records. Plus YFT114 has all the latest genealogy news, including a detailed examination of Britain’s most popular surname, Smith.

The next issue of Your Family Tree will be on newsstands 28 February, but visitors to Who Do You Think You Are? Live can pick up an early copy this week.

Getting your hands on a copy of YFT has never been easier. As well as being available from all good magazine retailers, you can order via myfavouritemagazines, the YFT Facebook page, digitally via Zinio (for Android) and via Apple Newsstand (for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch). YFT114 is offiically on sale from 28 February 2012.

A north Wales record office is restoring a rare 19th century book used by the Denbighshire Constabulary to keep tabs on repeat offenders.

Among the offenders are James Thompson (pictured) who was convicted of housebreaking at Rhosddu. His entry shows he had “8 previous convictions at Liverpool in the name of Robert Williams”.

One of the few women featured in the book is Alice Wilson (pictured below), described as a “a Rogue & Vagabond endeavouring to obtain charitable contributions by means of false pretences”. Her descriptions states she was “also wanted at Leeds, West Bromwich, Accrington, Ellesmere and Birmingham for similar offences”.

The book will be stored at Denbighshire Record Office under controlled environmental conditions.

Funding for this restoration project and several others came from a partnership between Museum Archives and Libraries Wales (CyMAL) and the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust. Other projects funded by the partnership’s latest round of grants include:

Flintshire Record Office: the Mostyn family wills

Carmarthenshire Archive Service: The Vaughan Pedigree

Gwynedd Archive Service: Parish Register Project

West Glamorgan Archive Service: Neath Abbey Ironworks plans

To celebrate the re-opening of Kensington Palace next month, the Historic Royal Palaces charity is telling the story of Victoria and Albert’s romance in five online episodes this week.

The films show the royal lovers’ story – from their births three months apart to their wedding ceremony – using excerpts from Victoria’s personal diaries and Albert’s letters.

The re-opening of the palace on 26 March will feature Victoria Revealed, a new exhibition showing pivotal moments in her life, including her birth, her unhappy childhood under the so-called ‘Kensington System’, and her first meeting with Albert on the palace’s Stone Stairs.

In the first episode, cousins Victoria and Albert grow up in separate countries with families planning their future together. However, their first meeting does not go according to plan…

To watch the rest of the videos visit www.victoria4albert.com.

You can chat live online to records specialists and research advisors from The National Archives as part of a special pilot project this week.

Between 1pm-3pm Thursday (16 February) and 9.15am-11.15am Friday (17 February) you will be able to talk privately to specialists from the The National Archives’ records website.

The National Archives’ Online Managing Editor, Nova Maxwell, said in a blog post: “We thought this type of service would be particularly well suited to the kind of enquiries we receive, both in the reading rooms and by phone or email. You see online support on many websites now: from banks and major retailers, to museums and other archives. It’s a great way of getting the information you need at the touch of a button, but with a personalised element; so you’re talking to a real records expert, not a computer.”

If the pilot is successful, The National Archives will roll out live chat as a permanent contact method.

This month’s book club read is Jenny’s War by Margaret Dickinson. The novel tells the story of a feisty Jenny, a ten-year old WWII evacuee who travels from East-End London to rural Lincolnshire – and back again.

If you’d like to know more about the lives of the WWII evacuees in your ancestry, drop us an email to annabel.andrews@futurenet.com and you can review the book and appear in Your Family Tree.

Family historians seeking ancestors in Wales will get access to a massive new WWI archive next year thanks to new a project starting this month.

The People’s Collection Wales will bring together currently fragmented or inaccessible source materials to make a unique digital collection revealing the hidden history of World War One as it affected all aspects of Welsh life, language and culture. The digital collection will be available online and contain digitised documents, videos,  photographs and audio sources. Translation tools will be available for non-Welsh speakers.

The archive is the work of a project led by the National Library of Wales in partnership with the libraries, special collections, and archives of Wales, developed by the Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum (WHELF).

The total cost of the digitisation project is £987,916. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) for mass digitisation of primary sources relating to World War One has provided £500,000, which has been matched by the libraries, special collections, and archives behind the project.

Paola Marchionni, JISC programme manager, said: “Through digitisation and collaborative working this project will bring together an impressive array of scattered content into one place and promises to become a key reference point for researchers and students looking at the Welsh experience of World War One.”

The project begins in February 2012 and the online resource will be launched in June 2013.

The latest issue of Your Family Tree is on the shelves now, and in it we help you become an expert using the most important records before the census and civil registration: parish records. Our comprehensive expert guide will give you all you need to know about the ten most useful records grouped under the parish record umbrella, from baptisms, marriages and burials, to wills and tax recofrds. We show you where you can find them, and most importantly, the amazing details they reveal about our relatives.
We also have an important guide to using record offices goes hand-in-hand with parish research. Though the online explosion has revolutionised genealogy, nothing can beat the magic of looking at the actual records in your local archive. Our no-nonsense guide will show you the best practice and hopefully spark you desire to spend some of your quality research time at the local office.
We also take a detailed look at house records and what they can tell you about how your ancestors used to live. Expert Celia Heritage dicusses how the census, deeds and maps can bring your forebears to life.
Then there is the exciting world of the sports club. From post-public school pursuits to focal points for working-class leisure, Joe Minihane looks at how sports clubs grew and developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
We have all your regular favourites discussing child migrants and evacuees, medical workers, a Northumberland region guide and we show you how to find wills and probate records online. Plus YFT113 has all the latest genealogy news, including a detailed examination of the latest DNA techniques and experts answer your questions. There are even free issue downloads from our website to accompany the articles and help your research.
Getting your hands on a copy of YFT has never been easier. As well as being available from all good magazine retailers, you can subscribe or buy the single issue via myfavouritemagazines, the YFT Facebook page, digitally via Zinio (for Android) and via Apple Newsstand (for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch).