TRACING our ancestors has never been an easier - or more popular - pastime. Now, thanks to a new website, www.1837online.com, information on births, deaths and marriages is available with a few clicks of a mouse. But why are we so anxious to find out where we come from? And do we really know what we are letting ourselves in for when we start delving into the family archives?

Colin Miller, head of operations at 1837online.com, says there has been a major boom in family history. ''Over the past year, there has been an increase from one monthly magazine to six magazines specialising in the subject. What you can find is that your family is entirely boring - that they were a bunch of farm labourers or something like that. But on the other hand you can find murderers, or that you descended from a miscreant sent to Australia.''

Audrey Collins, reader adviser at London's Family Records Centre, says that it is not uncommon to find a few skeletons in the family closet. While working as a freelance researcher, she found out that a man who died in the 1890s before the birth of his child had actually been hanged for killing somebody during a botched robbery.

''Unfortunately, the client didn't want to carry on after they'd discovered that. But I didn't think the man was guilty - I found out that he was protesting his innocence to the last.''

Collins says that there has been a turnaround in people's attitudes to researching their bloodline. Whereas they used to like hearing that they had descended from the rich and famous, many now prefer to hear the gritty truth.

''People quite often like finding something a bit notorious and interesting. If you find you have an ancestor who was hanged for murder it can be quite interesting, exotic and Dick Turpin-ish. It depends how far back it was.''

She says hushed-up pregnancies are also frequently discovered during research. ''One of the most common discoveries is people finding out that their saintly grandmother was pregnant when she got married. Another common one is finding out that she lied about her age on the marriage certificate.''

Collins adds that many families tend to pass down stories about famous ancestors - and are often disappointed when the truth is revealed. ''People will say, 'According to my grandmother we are related to such and such a person' - but it is very rarely true. The interesting thing is that in the process, you find out how these rumours started. There is some substance to most family rumours. One researcher said he was asked about someone supposed to have an ancestor who died at Waterloo. They discovered that the man actually died when he fell down a flight of steps at Waterloo station.''

Steven Bruce, principal researcher at Yorkshire family history, says people trace their ancestors to give them a sense of knowing where they come from. ''It's a sense of history, a sense of belonging. I once found out that one of my customers was descended from the High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I. Things like that are always pretty exciting for the person concerned.''

Bruce says he believes 1837online.com will be an immensely useful tool for people tracking down their ancestry. It took around three years to put together and uses information from the Family Records Centre. More than two million images are available and the information dates back from 1837, when records were centralised. Researchers are able to trawl through indexes of births, marriages and deaths by paying between five and ten pence per page.

Although it has already been used by professional genealogists, the site was not initially publicised amid fears that huge demand could lead it to crash - as when the 1901 census went online three years ago.

Miller describes the site as a ''unique'' tool which will revolutionise the task of tracing ancestors.''This hasn't existed before, this is unique. It is a great place to research family history.''