Family history makes your ancestors the main protagonists in the drama that is life. RICHARD FOSTER reports.

FAMILY history has blossomed into one of the country's biggest hobbies.

Genealogy is the third most popular pursuit on the internet, behind porn and personal finance.

Last week it even attracted more television viewers than live football. An estimated 5.5 million viewers watched actress Jane Horrocks discover more about her Lancashire roots on BBC2's Who Do You Think You Are? on Wednesday evening.

That was more than the 5.1 million viewers who watched BBC1's live coverage of Chelsea's FA Cup fourth round replay win against Everton on the same night.

Horrocks's quest proved to be as compelling as all the others in the genealogy series, which has already featured TV interviewer Jeremy Paxman, actress Sheila Hancock, actor, writer, director and wit Stephen Fry, and the flamboyant entertainer Julian Clary.

The series concludes tonight with the family history quest of Gurinder Chadha, writer and director of the feel-good movie Bend It Like Beckham.

All the celebrities have discovered that family history is not for the faint-hearted. Their researches have unpicked many threads from the tapestry of human life: poverty, wealth, pain, suffering, sacrifice, happiness, sickness and death.

Jane Horrocks discovered a black sheep in her family of devout Methodists. Ernest Cunliffe emigrated to Australia in 1910, earning a living as a "billiard marker" - a professional referee in snooker and billiard clubs. Horrocks imagined her ancestor as a charismatic "hustler" eking out a living by fleecing unwitting opponents in a boisterous dominion of the British Empire.

My most abiding memory of the TV series is of Stephen Fry being confronted by his own connection to the horror of the Holocaust, when Hitler's regime exterminated six million Jews.

Fry took a camera crew to a grand apartment block in Vienna, the home of his great-grandparents, Berta and Samuel Braun. He noticed a plaque by the entrance. At first, he thought somebody famous had lived there; then he saw, among the names, those of his great-grandparents; finally, it dawned on him that those listed on the plaque were inhabitants of the apartment block who had been deported by the Nazis.

Berta and Samuel were sent to a ghetto in Riga in 1942, along with 65,000 other Viennese Jews. Only a handful survived - both Berta and Samuel perished in the Nazi killing machine.

Fry, seemingly as quintessentially English as afternoon tea, was linked by flesh and blood to the Holocaust. His tears spoke volumes.

You do not have to be a celebrity to find family history stimulating.

Janice Olsen, of Holgate, York, started tracing her ancestors when she was given some family photographs after her uncle died.

She said: "My curiosity was aroused. I wanted to put names to faces and find out what I could about those in the photographs."

Researching your family's history can be compelling; as you peel away the layers, there is always something new to discover.

Janice's research led to a group of remote islands off the coast of Norway and within the Arctic Circle. She used the internet to access the National Archives Of Norway, which proved invaluable.

The internet has proved a powerful tool for those researching their family tree. They can now access records without having to visit the country in question.

Janice's great-grandfather, Andreas Olsen was born in 1853 in Lodingen, in the Vesteralen Islands. Fishing was the main industry there for centuries, but now it is a centre for whale-watching voyages for tourists.

The islands lost their independence in the 14th century and were placed under the control of Bergen, Norway's second city.

By royal decree, all fish caught by the islanders had to be shipped to Bergen for export. Bergen's merchants set the price paid to the islanders for the fish. They also controlled the price of goods sold to the islanders.

It was difficult for the fishing industry of the islands to thrive under such a harsh regime.

Andreas Olsen left Lodingen to seek work in Bergen. He became a bookbinder and married Karen Larsdatter. They had six children. The eldest was Alfred Johann, Janice's grandfather, who was born in 1882.

Alfred travelled the world as a merchant seaman before settling in North Shields, on the north east coast near Newcastle. There was a large Norwegian community there due to the strong North Sea trading links between the United Kingdom and Norway.

Alfred married Marie Hansen in the neighbouring town of Tynemouth in 1920.

Marie was born in Bergen in 1889, the daughter of Anton Hansen, a master baker, and his wife, Elen.

Marie left Norway to live in North Shields, where she worked as a cook at the home of the wealthy Robinson family, owners of the Stag Line shipping company.

Marie and Alfred, who continued to work as a seaman, had three children, including Alfred, Janice's father.

The family of Janice's mother is rooted in the once-mighty coal mining industry of the north-east.

Her great-grandfather, Joseph Burnett, was born in South Shields in 1865, the son of George Burnett, a shipwright.

Joseph worked as a blacksmith in Washington, County Durham. His first wife, Mary, died in childbirth in 1901, in her mid-30s. The baby did not survive, although she left seven children for Joseph to support, the eldest being 14 and the youngest two.

A year later, in 1902, Joseph married Sarah Todd, the daughter of a coalminer. Aged 25, she was 12 years his junior.

Joseph, who left the blacksmith trade to work as a miner, fathered another eight children, including George, Janice's grandfather, who was born in 1905.

All of Joseph's sons, except one, became miners. The exception was Edward, who joined the police.

Janice's grandfather, George, left school at 14 to work at Glebe Colliery in the Washington coalfield. His first job was above ground, looking after the pit ponies. After two years with the ponies, he went underground.

George married Elizabeth Brewer in 1929. They had two children, including Janice's mother, Jean, who was born in 1930.

Jean married Alfred Olsen, an engineer, in 1955. They settled in Newcastle and had two children, Janice, born in 1960, and Debra, born in 1964.

:: How to get started

Researching your family history is one of the fastest-growing hobbies in the United Kingdom, with more than 25 million people engaged in connecting with their ancestors. If you need help getting started, Ancestry.co.uk offers this guide:

The first steps to starting your family history:

1 Write down everything you think you know about your family with names, dates and places where the events occurred.

2 Start with yourself - siblings, parents and grandparents and work back through the generations.

3 Ask members of the family for further information and recollections and make notes. Ask older generations about their parents and grandparents.

4 Check your attic for old photos (inspect the back for names and dates), official documents and personal material such as letters, diaries and other memorabilia.

5 Show your findings to your elderly relatives to see if they jog any memories.

6 Document the information you have found by organising your family tree highlighting what you know and what you don't know.

7 Compile a list of questions and use your family tree to decide who you want to research first.

8 Check to see if someone has already done the work in the family or another organisation such as the Society Of Genealogists.

9 Confirm if you can find all your information online or do you need to visit an archive.

10 Preserve and share the research with others so that the legacy lives on.

:: Using the internet

Ancestry.co.uk, in association with the National Archives, is the only website that provides access to six complete censuses, from 1851 to 1901.

A good tip when looking through the census records of England and Wales is to get your grandparents and great grandparents' details and start on the most recent collection which would be the 1901 census.

The first census of the UK population was taken in 1801 and every ten years since then. The census provides a snapshot of the population on a particular night. With each census, the range of information required has progressively increased.

Civil Registration Records (Birth, marriage and death records)

You can purchase duplicate birth, marriage and death certificates from the Office of National Statistics. These are the building blocks of your family tree and chronicle a person's journey in life. Indexes survive from 1837 when the system was introduced in England and Wales. Ancestry.co.uk offers access to birth, marriage and death records for free through its partnership with FreeBMD.

Parish registers

In 1538, each parish in England and Wales was required by law to keep a register of every baptism, marriage and burial that took place. Many of these original records survive and can help you trace your ancestors, provided you know the parish in which they lived. You can obtain this information from census records such as the 1851 census.

Another good place to start your search could be the Family Tree page in the CommuniGate section on www.thisisyork.co.uk

Updated: 11:09 Wednesday, February 15, 2006