Issue 53 of Your Family Tree is on sale now! This month features an 'access all areas' guide to The National Archives. We also advise you on where to look for your family treasures, how to approach research using tax records, and how to set about locating WWI ancestors online The National Archives – Here's how to get the most out of your trip to The National Archives. Discover how to find and order the documents you need, plus we've got interviews with some of the key movers and shakers at TNA Find your family treasures – Cardboard boxes everywhere are hiding genealogical gold. Keith Gregson explains why family historians should brave the spiders in the attic Tax records – Whether it was on windows, the poll tax or whig powder, in our five page special family history expert Else Churchill explains where you need to look for tax records Find a WWI hero online – An essential guide to the website 1914-1918.net for those researching their World War I ancestors

Plus... The story of a 19th century spirit photographer, Father John Twisleton investigates whether religion is in the blood, our region guide to Buckinghamshire, a free CD packed with family history software, and much, much more!

At 100 pages, and selling for £4.99, issue 53 of Your Family Tree is great value for money. Pick up your copy today, or buy online by clicking

Family historians will be pleased to hear about the launch of a new, free, online family tree software, Family Tree Builder, by Findmypast.com. Lead developer Matt Garner from top US genealogy firm PedigreeSoft pointed out that they had designed the programme to “adapt to the needs of the professional genealogist but also to be intuitive to the beginner.”
The software enables you to create a tree from scratch or upload a GEDCOM file exported from any existing family tree programme. This will allow the user to “store all [his] source details and notes, photos and memorabilia in one place while providing full reporting, tree-building capability”. The current beta version is available free on the website now, although further enhancements and features will be added during the next couple of months. In addition, there are already plans to introduce enhanced, paid options with extra storage and capabilities later in the year. 

To find out more about Family Tree Builder, go to the Findmypast.com website.

With Ancestry.co.uk's third British telephone book release you can now gain online access to neary 1,300 telephone directories. These run from the very first published in 1800, right through to 1984 and the arrival of privatisation. The directories contain near full coverage of England, and there is also significant Scottish, Welsh and Irish content.

As they were updated on average every 12-18 months they are extremely useful for tracing ancestors in between census years. The phone books also contain an advertisement section which may be of interest to those with businessmen ancestors.

To browse the records, go to the Ancestry.co.uk website.

Ancestry now offers online registration records of every birth, marriage and death recorded in England and Wales in 2005. Over one million names have been added to the records that date all the way back to 1837.

All marriages to take place in Breconshire, Wales between 1813 and 1837 have now been added to Ancestry's parish register collection. The index has been transcribed from parish registers which are a useful source for family historians as they predate the introduction of civil registration in 1837. Details included are the names of both partners, the marriage location, and whether or not there was a marriage licence.

To access these records, go to the Ancestry website