About

Discovering English Ancestors was begun c. 2005 by David Pratt, a retired member of the History Department faculty. Pratt was a trained historian and accredited genealogist, specializing in English research. He compiled his extensive knowledge of English research, particularly the intricacies of pre-1858 research, and condensed it for this website. The organization and content still reflect his original vision.

In 2017-18 updates were made by family history majors working under the direction of Professor Amy Harris, Pratt’s successor as the English genealogist/family historian in BYU’s history department. The massive undertaking to update hyperlinks, refine discussions of methodology due to increased accessibility to digital resources, and expand the information about Dade registers was largely undertaken by Becca Curtis and completed by Carly Bagley.

The inclusion of the Dade Register catalog and map is the major contribution of this recent update. It is the only place online covering the content (and changes over time) of Dade parishes. We hope it proves useful to researchers interested in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century research.