Well that's an easy one, first start with what you know. Get it all put down, clarify it with perhaps an older member of the family. You, your Parents, Siblings, your parents Siblings, Grandparents, There Siblings. Once you have got down ALL you know, the fun part starts. Visit EVERY known living member of your family. Take with you either a tape recorder, or pen and paper, also take your own research information with you. Share this information, let them look through it, Its amazing how many corrections they will make, and extra members of your family they will add. "There is great aunt Jess, she had an child to a previous marriage". NEVER dismiss what people say, My Mother was know all her life as "Betty", her real name apparently "Elizabeth Lillian Spilsbury" Only after her death did I obtain her birth certificate to find that her birth date was a couple of days different, and her name was "Elizabeth Lily". My father celebrated his birth day one day wrong, its amazing what you will discover. When you have completed the rounds of your family, you will find you have a wealth of information, and if you have a scanner, you can borrow those photographs, scan them, Return them as soon as possible, and I bet they have found more, and these will be of more interest, by the time you go back again, the most precious ones come out of the old tin.
To obtain copies of these, one has to send to St Catherine's House in London, these records can be quite expensive, or the best way to obtain these records is to find the Registry area listed, But one problem exists, there where boundary changes in 1974, a new County was established, "West Midlands" this county took land from Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and Worcestershire, the very area of the Garbett homeland, but most original registry areas still exist today. So the answer is to try to find the registry area on the Internet, [If researching from abroad]. The original documents are held at the local registry office, However, you are not allowed to view these, but in the case of Marriages, you get an original copy of those records. The Births, Marriages and Death Records from the local Registry office costs £6.50p as of the year 2001.
When using the internet for research, or IGI records, They are a fantastic source of information, and CAN lead you in the correct direction, But use this purely as a starting block, You MUST check out the original records yourself, Dont rely that someone else's has recorded thier records correctly. You will find mistakes, that you have made, and other people have made in thier research, Or if you are sharing your information, other people will find mistakes in your research, But thats good news, you can check it out for yourself, correct it, and you may be put back on track. Dont be put off by errors, and dont act like you cannot make a mistake. I have checked one internet site which seemed to relate to my family, I contacted the Author who did not reply, I contacted again as I had found errors in the information posted, Even though I know the email address to be active and correct, the person would not reply to me. A blinkered view of your records, will not help you, or anyone else using your records. So dont forget, Check out every scrap of information for yourself, Even the information provided on this site, CHECK IT OUT YOURSELF, if you find errors in records, TELL THE AUTHOR, and that includes US.