Family and Local History MLitt
Planning a career as a genealogist or researching your family tree? Learn how to locate, read, and use available sources and archives to carry out your research
May 2021
60 months max
Distance Learning
Online
Discover more about sources and archives that could assist your research, and find out about historical context and your ancestors. Gain the skills to put together your family tree or do sustained research into a local area. As part of this course, you will research and write a dissertation on a topic of your own interest.
Our emphasis is very much on the records themselves. You’ll develop a thorough understanding of record types, the reason for their creation, their location, and the information they contain. By gaining this knowledge, you will have an awareness of the historical context in which records were created and used and develop an expertise in finding, analysing, and interpreting records for family and local history research.
Topics offered include:
- house history
- military archives
- paleography
- skills and sources for family and local history
You’ll receive a lot of online content right from the start and benefit from our flexible teaching model that allows students to take semesters off and learn from subject experts.

Sylvia Valentine, MLitt Family and Local History