Addresses - pin down the location of a member of the family at a particular date, enabling you to plot their movements over the years. You will obtain addresses from many documents which are dated, get other addresses from people's memories - curiously, they will remember the address, but seldom the dates. Use the documents to narrow the gaps. If you can get addresses from far enough back, you can use them to consult census records.

Census dates vary from country to country, but in Scotland the most recent available census is 1901.In England it is 1911.

Addresses help with a number of matters, such as who was living there at certain times. Sometimes you can identify someone by them living with other relatives (or just visiting, at census time). The address can also give clues to financial matters: certain addresses indicate more salubrious living conditions than others. Remember that in urban areas it was common to rent your flat in a tenement block, and families moved to larger flats as the family expanded or the family income improved.

If you have an address, you can look that street name up in old maps and find out exactly where your relatives lived. The accommodation may have been demolished and replaced over the years, so look for a map close in date to when they lived there. Your family may also have photographs of former homes, so look on the back of the photo for the address. If you find educational records with the local authority archives, it is usual to find the home address of the child/youth. The same applies to work records: the employer should have your relative's home address on file.

Search out all the addresses you can. They will all help to tell the family story.