what is the best way to lookup a family tree?

Answer 1

Hey Danobain,

Start with yourself. Get your birth Certificate. It points to your parents, study the connections that it makes to them. It should give their names, and birth locations and their ages when you were born. So, now you have enough information to go and get your parents Birth Certificates. Get them, see the vital records sites below, or look up Vital Records for the Town/City/County/State they were born in, and follow the process to get their records. Your parents certificates will give their parents, and so on. This system will break down, and takes some time.

While you are waiting on things like that to come in the mail, interview every living member of your family that you can. Get names, dates, and who their children are, and parents were, where they lived, were born, and died. Wills, probate, any legal documents give clues for your family tree.

You basically have to construct the tree yourself. No one in the world, except your brothers and sisters have the same tree as you, so no one has made it. Once you do the basic up front stuff, you might want to organize your tree information. I put some software sites below, you can get free software from The LDS Family Search site. Or you can spend some time figuring which package you would like to use, and buy it. Then start entering the data into the software. Now you have the tree started. You can grow the tree by discovering things about each of your Grand, Great Grand and their subsequent parents. Here are some web sites to help you. Do type your surnames into the Yahoo search bar with FAMILY as a search word and your SURNAME. That will bring up anyone interested in the same name, and you might get lucky with cousins. Also, Type SURNAME (your surname), and GENFORUM - that is a genealogy forum started in your name - if it exists, read the postings, and post your own questions to people with your interest at heart!

Wow, I feel like I need to breathe, but want to get you started. Try some of these sites, and get back here with any specific questions as you get this going.

Answer 2

The BEST way is to hire a professional genealogist who lives in Salt Lake City; give him/her $10,000, tell him/her to work for 200 hours and report back. That gives you plenty of time to go the the National Parks in Nepal, where you can shoot tigers with a 500mm lens from a hot air balloon.

If you don't like to travel but still want the best, repeat as above but retire to your country manor, where you can spend mornings in a wisteria arbor, listening to a Mozart concerto and eating melons cut with a silver knife.

If money is some object, you'll have to do it the hard way, like the rest of us:

I save this and paste it because the same questions come up a lot:

What are good free sites for genealogy?
Does anyone know about the {surname} family?
How can I trace my family tree, for free?

Sometimes in the genealogy category,
Arts & Humanities -> Genealogy.
Sometimes elsewhere. The fourth time I typed in three of my favorite links I realized it would be better to make a good list and save it. Since this is a general answer, some of the paragraphs may not apply to you. If you search or browse the resolved questions in the Genealogy category, you can find more links from other people.

Two warnings:
1) It takes time. Compiling a good family tree is like writing a term paper for a high school history class. You have to do research.
2) Most of the genealogy data on the web is about people born before 1900, to protect living people's privacy. You'll have to find your grandparents (or great grandparents) off the web.

Here are some large free sites.

http://www.cyndislist.com/
(240,000+ links, all cross-indexed.)
http://www.familysearch.com
(Mormon's mega-site)
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi
(450,000,000+ entries, some excellent, some bad, most in between)
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/default.aspx?ln=
Surname meanings and origins; no specific individuals, but fun.

These are for the USA only.

http://www.usgenweb.net/
(Subdivided into state sites, which all have county sites.)
(Canada has a Canadian Gen Web, with sites for each province.)
http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
(Social Security Death index - click on "Advanced".)
http://find.person.superpages.com/
(US Phone book, for looking up distant cousins)

These two are for the UK & Ireland only:
http://www.genuki.org.uk
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/


If you get serious, you should probably buy a genealogy program. I like Roots Magic. Family Tree Maker is very popular. Both are $29 in the USA, but you can sometimes find old versions in discount bins at software stores.

http://www.tedpack.org/begingen.html
has some tips for beginners.

Answer 3

The LDS church maintains the largest archive of genealogy information in the world.

www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHL/frameset_library.asp

Enter the names of your known relatives. Good luck

BTW you do not have to be Mormon to use their resources. They also have research centers in many cities. Try your white/yellow pages for a center where you can get help from people who know how to use the database.

Answer 4

Ancestry.com is awesome for that sort of thing.

Answer 5

ask ur granmother it normally works

Answer 6

with your sister performing oral under it.