Looking up at National Archives

[Terry]

Well, that really does cheer me up Having just found my gt grandfather in the 1861 census in the navy on a ship in Port Royal Jamaica, in 1871 census he was still in the navy but was at home with his family in Plymouth, and knowing from the 1881 census that he then became a coastguard in Lincolnshire, and knowing that he died between 1886(his last child was born in 1887 in Saltfleet) and 1901 census when his wife and children were back in Plymouth. I was hoping to find some sort of records for him.
From the 1881 census I can track him around by the birth of his children
1873 to 79 in Fosdyke
1880 in Saltfleet
1881 in Skidbrook
1887 in Saltfleet
My other problem is that at that time the family appears to have been Catholic.(at least his marriage in Plymouth was at the RC church in Plymouth)

[Mythology]

There is an awful lot of very useful stuff at Kew, and the last thing I want to do is to put anyone off going there - just be prepared for things to take longer than you thought unless it's really something dead simple, and don't expect to necessarily find all the answers in one visit.

I'd agree with Geoffers, get used to the place and get used to the system. If you try and rush things, you will probably miss something, and it could be the very thing you're looking for. I have, for instance, known people miss things is the well-known "burnt records" because they assumed that the first catalogue reference they came across was the *only* relevant reference, didn't read through the explanations properly and consequently missed the bit that says "Files discovered out of alphabetical sequence (after their correct place has been filmed) have been filmed and placed at the end of the series."

Ordering in advance will save you a bit of waiting, but personally I don't bother. In rather the same way that Geoffers suggests for those on a first visit, I like to mooch around and see what's new since since I was last there anyway, or maybe use the waiting time for doing a few look-ups of things that are on film, or having a look around the library.

With any record office, I tend to take the view that "it takes as long as it takes" rather than specifically aiming to get items (a), (b) and (c) on my long list done on a particular day, and with Kew I certainly wouldn't set any targets.

It is well and truly worth visiting, and if you are used to the average English county record office you should not find it too much of a shock. If you have grown up largely with the internet though, and are used to having everything indexed by *name*, be prepared to slow down and step back twenty years!