Many of the standard resources for tracing family history are now available online:

• Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths for England and Wales from 1837 (sometimes known as the General Register Office index or ‘GRO’) can be accessed from free to use websites Free BMD and Staffordshire BMD. You will need to order any certificates from the General Register Office or local registrar.

• Our free to access Staffordshire Name Indexes website contains names extracted from various documents held by Staffordshire Record Office and Stoke on Trent City Archives. Some of the indexes are complete documents in themselves, whilst others allow you to order copies of original documents for a standard fee.

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website is another free to access resource that helps you to trace British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who died during the two world wars.

• Census Returns 1841-1911 are available on the subscription websites Ancestry and Find My Past. The 1921 census is currently available on Find My Past through a paid access option. These websites host other digitized or indexed sources, such as military records, passenger lists and entries from directories. They also include family trees uploaded by users.

• The Find My Past subscription website also holds the Staffordshire Parish Registers collection (1538-1900), the Diocese of Lichfield & Coventry probate records (1521-1860) and the Diocese of Lichfield & Coventry marriage allegations and bonds collection for Staffordshire (1636-1893).

• The British Newspaper Archive, another subscription website, provides access to a huge range of historic newspapers, both local and national. Staffordshire newspapers available include the Staffordshire Advertiser, the Staffordshire Newsletter, the Sentinel and the Burton Mail.

Although these three websites are available through subscription, you can access them free of charge at Staffordshire Libraries. If you live outside of the county, you may find your local library or archive service has a similar arrangement.