WHEN it comes to tracing your family history there are many different things to consider.

How much information can you discover from the family you have around you? It really is the first place to start, says Jane Milne from Bolton Family History Society.

But with genealogy being such a fascinating subject and an incredibly addictive subject how far back can you go and how many of your ancestors are you likely to find?

A member of Bolton Family History Society thought up this little quiz that is worth pondering and may give you rather surprising results.

The first question posed was that, obviously, you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents and so it goes on.

If you are generation one in which single generation are there more than one million people?

The answer to this is 21st generation which would have 1,048,576 people.

The second question is that assuming each child is born when the parents are aged 25 what year have you reached?

This would be 1514 for a child born in 2014.

Also if you find every parent, grandparent and great grandparent — and so on — in which generation would you have 1,000 people in the tree?

This would be the 10th generation.

Family history continues to be a popular pastime and there are various websites dedicated to helping those studying their past.

Ancestry.co.uk is a very popular source of information and has many different registers available to peruse including census records, birth, marrriage and death and war records — particularly helpful to those of us tracing family members who died or fought in World War One.

As Jane remarks: "The oldest family member that I think I have found is in the generation with 8,192 people in it so I have only 8,191 left to go to even up the whole tree."

Family history continues to be a popular pastime and there are various websites dedicated to helping those studying their past.

Ancestry.co.uk is a very popular source of information and has many different registers available to peruse including census records, birth, marrriage and death and war records — particularly helpful to those of us tracing family members who died or fought in World War One.

For many people the stumbling block is knowing where to start with the investigations and that is where Bolton Family History Society comes in — not only with family history in Bolton but wherever your family may be from.

There are family history courses available from Bolton Family History Society by Margaret and Colin Calderbank. These are available at various locations throughout the Bolton area and last five weeks.

To find out more about Bolton Family History Society and the courses available contact bolton@mlfhs.org.uk or Barbara Owen, the secretary, on 01204 309515.