How do you start to put together a family history when you don't know much about your family?

Question

I'm not sure where to begin and don't know what my resources are, especially since I've never done this before....Can anyone help? Thanks!

Answer 1

If your parents and grand parents are living they can give you other info about dates of birth, siblings, and maybe info on your great grandparents. If they arent living start with the obituraries of your parents and grandparents. Ancestry.com has a lot of census info through 1930, and you can look for your parents and grandparents in the census info and work back through the generations.Through this site you can access the social security index to get specific dates and places of death for any deceased family members. Once you have this info you can locate obits which give more info. Any older relatives may have old pictures, news articles, obits, and general stories they remember from their younger years. Good luck in your search.

Answer 2

You could start by "interviewing" your relatives, especially older relatives. I did this with my uncle and learned all kinds of stuff. Ask if you can tape it, and just ask some open-ended questions and let the relative just talk. When you hear something you didn't know, prompt for more details. Start a list of names and places that are associated with your family.

Once you run out of "oral history," then see if your local public library has a history/genealogy section, where you'll most likely find how-to books on researching your family tree. The bits and pieces you collected from your interviews will give you places to start.

After that, there are lots of places to get more information, including websites and special genealogical libraries (including some extensive ones sponsored by the Mormon Church, but covering the general population).

But start with the living people in your family, because they won't be around forever, and they probably know things about your family that you won't find anywhere else!

Answer 3

First of all .. you need to gather the information from your living relatives .. yourself (Birth date/location, Graduations, Employment, Marriage date/location, Children (date of birth and where), Date of Divorce/where, re-marriage/when/where, etc), your siblings (the same information), your parents (both mother and father ... again the same information), and your grandparents (again the same information.

IF any of these are deceased, then you need to add the date of death and where they were buried .. then you need to contact the library or the local paper of that location to obtain a copy of the obituary notice. It will list some facts on the person's life, as well as living relatives and those who passed on before.

A copy of the Birth certificate for all family members provides also important information on the Parents of the baby -- their ages at the birth, the dates of their birth, where they were born (sometimes), and the birth order of the baby. Also .. any stillborns or losses of children are also clues you can find in the Birth Certificate.

Keep going in this manner.

Then the diagram starts with YOU as the trunk -- your spouse next to you, and the children you both share are below you (The couple). ABOVE you are your parents, above your spouse are their parents, and so forth.

It looks like a tree (literally) both above the ground, and the roots under the ground (which are your descendants).

Answer 4

you can't put together a family with little to no information. start with you and your siblings, your parent, grandparents, do informational interviews and record them...branch out from there, you need proper names, places, dates to research further...you need to know when and where they were born, died (if applicable), married, children, etc...you may opt to pay for someone to do it for you or gather resources but you do need the basic info I outlined for you...go to your favorite search engine and type in "family tree" hit enter and go from there...you could also post this question on geneaology section of yahoo answers...good luck!

Answer 5

under is a short bibliography of articles that element a thank you to place an oral historic previous mutually which would be as complicated or so basic as you like it to be. in spite of this, you'll want the two to record your interviews besides as write up your memories of the interviews quickly whilst they take place. you could additionally verify with the kin tree branch of your community public library the place a reference librarian who focuses on kin tree will maximum probable teach you some community occasion of oral histories.

Answer 6

ASK YOUR RELATIVES