Family Tree?

Question

Does anyone no where I can go to find my Family tree??? I would like to no who my ancestors were and stuff!!!!!

Does anyone know what websites to go to??

Answer 1

Hey brittni,

Your family tree is unique to you and your siblings. So, you will not find it already put together. Instead what you will find are Branches that may fit onto one of your ancestors, (uncles, aunts, grandparents, greats, etc.).

Start with yourself, get your long form birth certificate. Then look at it carefully. It names your parents, and their birth dates and location. Get their Birth Records, either from them or order them (more on this later - Vital Records). Once you have done that, you should interview all living members of your family that you can, to see what they know about Names, Dates, Places, Stories, Pictures, Wills, Probate, Bibles, and history of all branches of your family.

Then, get some GENEALOGY Software, see the sites below. These cost ab out $30 bucks and are the best for helping you organize information, pictures, data, and showing you what you still need to do. Some packages come with FREE time on PAY sites - take full advantage of the FREE time, get all the family trees you can collect that may have anything to do with you. After you get the software you will see how to do that.

The trees that you collect can be examined later! You want to verify the family ties so as not to make a FALSE tree. This takes time, so plan on this as a hobby.

After you get started, you will find more questions, please come back here and ask them.

Answer 2

The best place to start is with yourself, then your parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, etc. Talk to any living relatives you have and gather as much information you can from them. After that you can get a genalogy software to help you organize your information. I personally use FamilyTreeMaker. If your ancestors immigrated from another country you could check sites like the Ellis Island registry for records, Also if you family has been in one area for a few generations you should be able to ask local churches ifyou can browse their records. Also try any local historical societies. Try some of the following sites to help get you started and good luck.

Answer 3

Before you go to the internet, you need to go to your parents and your grandparents. A lot of the records you'll need to tie you to the records on the internet are covered by privacy laws. So living people aren't easy to find on the internet. You'll have to ask your parents and grandparents for the names of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. You'll also want to know where/when they were born, where/when they were married, where/when they died. Birth, marriage and death records are the bread and butter of genealogists.

From there, I would suggest you get it organized and spend a little time snooping around on the LDS family history website at http://www.familysearch.org The Mormons have the largest collection of genealogy files in the world and they share them for free on the internet. If there are records you can't find on the internet, then you can visit the LDS Family History Center in your area and they'll help you request microfilms that have the records on them but haven't been transcribed yet.

The next place to go is the surname pages at Genealogy.com. You'll find other people who are researching your family name and who can share information and give you direction in your own research.

http://genforum.genealogy.com/surnames/

After that, visit the GenWeb site for the counties where your ancestors lived. They're full of local records and local histories, as well as local volunteers who can help you with your research. http://www.usgenweb.org/

Finally, once you have an idea of which lines in your family will be easy and which ones will be hard, I would suggest you visit a decent sized library in your area that has a Genealogy room. There you'll be able to access one of the major genealogy research sites that usually costs a lot of money...only you won't be charged if you use the library's subscription to either Ancestry.com or Heritage Quest. You'll also have access to all sorts of records that haven't found their way to the internet, like Germans to America, the Wurttemburg Emigration Index, Dutch to America, etc. You'll also have old phone books and directories going back to the 1800s for that town which might help you figure out who had that name, where they lived, who their relatives and neighbors might be, etc.

As time goes on you'll find other sites that can help with specialized research. The best place to search for those is a site called Cyndi's List. She breaks things down by ethnicity, location, religion, time periods, etc. and is the most comprehensive source of sites on the internet.

http://www.cyndislist.com/

Hope it helps. Have fun with your search.

Answer 4

Ask your mom if she has charted it or maybe ask your grandparents who their parents were and what their names were.

Answer 5

http://www.familysearch.org

http://genforum.genealogy.com

http://lists.rootsweb.com