Throughout history many families left the British Isles and Ireland for pastures new, searching for a new life – perhaps freedom from persecution or an escape from prosecution, possibly simply to try and find a better life.

Your heritage - regardless of who you forebearers were or why they left for shores a long way from home - is what makes you. Who your ancestors were is what defines you - who you are – they are literally part of your DNA. But unlike the graph that reports on what percentage of you is X or Y, the chance to tread in the footsteps of family now long dead is the essential experience. To stand in the church where your great-great grandparents married, to stand in the street where your kin played or went to school, is to walk the true steps of history, your history. 

British Tours offer a unique way in which you can reach out to understand who you are, where you come from and live part of your own history. Genealogy is not solely a series of faded photos of people that you never met but an experience, an understanding of who you are, where you are from and an appreciation of where your ancestors were born, where they lived, worked, loved and prayed. Where they died, where they are buried and just who you are - their legacy.

Many of our guests have already researched their family trees and may have a list of places to visit; churches, cemeteries, schools and streets. You may have no more than a snippet of information - a place name, a surname and some idea of who your relatives were and where they lived. In that case, given a little notice our experienced guides can add to your information and look to local groups who might help, perhaps investigate local records. Certainly it will be more of an emotional roller-coaster than simply reading that a given percentage of you is all that remains of your ancestors' influence on your life.

It is said that you have to walk in their footsteps of history before you can truly hope to create your own.

So here is your opportunity; to walk in the footsteps of your ancestors – on a British Tours Family Ancestry Tour – for more details please contact us

"British Tours Ltd even solved one tricky problem: a South African looking for his father's birthplace from a pretty minimal clue. It had a good view of Cardiff docks and the street name had royal connections"
- Nicholas Faith, The Independent on Sunday

Read our guide Richard's Blog on a

Wright Brothers Ancestral tour