Although there’s an amazing wealth of family history resources on the internet, there are good reasons for getting out and about. You can visit places where your ancestors used to live or were buried, and there are archives in every county which will help you with your research. There are also hundreds of local and national museums which can help you imagine what your ancestors’ lives were like – from working farms to historic dockyards, industrial heritage centres to textile museums. Here we present just a sample roundup of places around the UK you could visit, along with some of the key archives for your own research. You can find more ideas in features throughout this publication.

London

Geffrye Museum
Kingsland Road, London E2
A series of period rooms and gardens showing English domestic interiors from 1600 to 2000, and an 18th-century almshouse (open selected days only).

Highgate Cemetery
The most famous graveyard in the capital, where luminaries from George Eliot to Douglas Adams, and many ordinary Londoners are interred

Museum of London
London Wall, London EC2
The definitive museum of London history from before Roman times to the present

South-East

Museum of English Rural Life
Reading
This houses the most comprehensive national collection of objects, books and archives relating to the history of food, farming and the countryside

Oxfordshire Museum
Woodstock
This small but very well organised museum typifies regional museums around the country

Weald & Downland Open Air Museum
Near Chichester
See traditional crafts at work in authentic historic buildings from all eras

South-West

Gloucester Waterways Museum
Part of the National Waterways Museum (with other sites in Ellesmere Port and near Towcester), here’s where to experience life on the nation’s canals and rivers

M Shed, Bristol
Bristol’s industrial museum has had a major revamp, and tells the story of this important city and port

Museum of Bath at Work
Explore the spa city’s retail, health and industrial history

East Anglia

Museum of East Anglican Life
Stowmarket
Explore old shops, crafts and traditional machinery at an eclectic museum set in the countryside

Strangers’ Hall
Norwich
This museum presents life in Tudor and Stuart times through period rooms

Midlands

Black Country Living Museum
Dudley
An open air museum at the heart of Britain’s Industrial Revolution

The Workhouse
Southwell, Nottinghamshire
The most complete workhouse in the UK, run by the National Trust

North-East

Beamish Living Museum
County Durham
Beamish is a well known open air museum which aims to tell the story of life in North East England during the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods

The National Coal Mining Museum
Near Wakefield
The museum offers visitors the chance to go down one of England’s oldest working mines and discover the history of mining, and the stories of the country’s miners

York Castle Museum
The York Castle Museum is one of Britain’s leading museums of everyday life, best known for its recreated Victorian street, complete with an array of working shops

North-West

Manchester Jewish Museum
Experience the oldest surviving synagogue building in Manchester, and learn about the city’s Jewish heritage

Merseyside Maritime Museum
Liverpool
Learn what life at sea was like at one of the major ports of embarkation for emigrants to North America

People’s History Museum
Manchester
The story of democracy in the UK, and of ordinary people’s home, work, and leisure lives for the past 200 years

Port Sunlight Museum & Garden Village
Wirral
Explore the model community built for soap factory workers in the 1880s

Scotland

National Museum of Rural Life
East Kilbride
Visit this historic working farm to experience the rural life of your Scottish ancestors in the Lowlands

People’s Palace
Glasgow
Located on Glasgow Green, the People’s Palace tells the story of ordinary life in the city from 1750 to the end of the 20th century, including a reconstruction of a tenement flat

Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life
Coatbridge
Explore the industrial history of Lanarkshire in the exhibition hall and on board a working tram around the site, to visit the mine, sawmill and miners’ cottages

Wales

National Museum Wales
Cardiff
Explore every aspect of Wales’ rich history and archaeology

National Woollen Museum
Near Newcastle Emlyn
Wool has been even more important to Welsh history than mining – find out about it here

National Slate Museum
Llanberis
Travel into the past of a key industry, set in the dramatic landscape of Snowdonia

Northern Ireland

Ulster Folk & Transport Museum
Near Belfast
Explore cottages, shops and a farm showing what life was like 100 years ago