How do I start my geneology?

Question

I'd like to learn more about my ancestors, but problem is, I don't really talk to any of my family and don't know any names farther back than my great grandparents. How would I even begin to start going further back?

Answer 1

What you already "know" is called preliminary research. You need to be certain that you take the info you presently have been given, and BACK IT UP with independent sources and documents. Exactly what those documents are, will depend on the time frame and the location. For instance, birth/death certificates as we know them, are generally a product of the 1900's. Before they were issued, other items like church records, tombstones, census records serve the purpose.
THOSE SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS form the foundation, and will "lead" to the next level. IE.. birth certificates, when found, have the name of the parents.. as do death certificates.
After you have pulled the preliminary stuff together... look at the gap in your information. What do you LACK... and use the internet, to see what there is that is likely to answer the question. Example... you know dad died in Texas... look at the child's records to pin down WHERE in Texas... and look for cemetery records for that county (or biographies, or wills, or....) Of course, you keep your eyes open for others with the same name as you are looking... 2 weeks later, it may hit you that this is the grandfather that you didn't expect.
One site I highly suggest is www.cyndislist.com, with thousands of resources. Browse through them, and the light will start going off in your head as to what is out there.
Remember this... when no one has the answer to give you, when it is not already posted online... that is when YOU ARE DOING real research.

Answer 2

You know more than I did when I started out. Check to see if your ancestors are on the social security death index. (Search the internet for SSDI.) If so, it'll give you a date and county where they died. Request the death certificates. That will give you birth date (and hopefully location). Use that to request birth certificates, which will give you their parents' names. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's a cycle of research that should get you back at least several more generations before you run into major roadblocks.

Answer 3

. Most states did not keep records before 1900 so any old family bibles is the best start. That is where all families recorded births, deaths and marriages. Also the local geneology society can guide you to the public records etc.

Answer 4

The easiest way to study more about your ancestors is fairly easy. It will take a little time doing some research.

If you have the names of your parents, their parents (both sides), their parents parents and you know where they were all born and died, then go to their birth records and check the mother and father slots and all the sibling spots to find all the names going backwards in your family.

Answer 5

There are a lot of info on genweb.com. Also try your library or a nearest library. Ask for help. They are always so good at helping.

Answer 6

The best place to begin researching your family tree is with your very own family. Get a note book and write down everything that you know about yourself and your siblings. Include dates and places of birth, marriage and if applicable death dates and places of interment. As soon as you have all that, move back a generation to your parents. Once you have all of that, move back to your grandparents and keep going until you run stuck. Once you have written down everything you know, talk to your family members. Sometimes even your siblings know more than you do, but usually if you talk to your parents or grandparents they can go a generation or two further than you can simply because they are a generation or two older than you.

One thing I should mention to you since you are a new genealogist is to document EVERYTHING! This will save you so much work later. If you get a date from Grandma's bible, simply document that information. If you can get in the practice of doing this from the beginning, you will avoid making the big mistake that most of us genealogists made while we were starting out. Think about it... if you have 50 people in your family tree, you might be able to keep this information "in your head", but what happens when this number rises to 500 or 50,000? After a while genealogy gets in your blood and 50,000 people is not and unfeasible number.

What happens next is up to you. What are you interested in? Would you like to know who all of your great great grandparents are? Are you interested in a particular surname? Are you trying to prove that you are related to someone famous? Only you know the answer to these questions? Once you've decided which avenue you want to explore you can continue. There are many records out there that genealogists use. Many of them are free, but there are others that are by subscription.

One thing I need to mention is that to trace your genealogy right, it is going to cost you, whether it be for a subscription to a genealogy site, paying for vital records, making copies of documentation, buying gas to visit libraries or cemeteries, but these are such worthwhile expenditures. The nice thing is that it is not money you spend all at one time. Many of my roots came from Michigan so everytime I go up there for a visit, I carve out time to got to the library or to the cemetery etc.

There are many people on this forum who are avid genealogists who have never paid for a membership to ancestry; however, I have found it invaluable. I live next to a branch of the National Archives and they have every census record in existence. If you start out looking up people in the census using the microfilms, there is a process you must follow that requires you to look at two microfilms before you find the census page of the family that you need. This is very time consuming and if you are looking up a family member with a name that is usually spelled wrong, there is no guarantee that you will find it. The beauty of having a membership to ancestry is that they have the censuses fully indexed meaning you can type in a name and pull it right up without looking on two microfilm rolls. Further, you can manipulate spellings of the name and the places you are searching in a single search. This alone has made Ancestry worth the money I have spent for a subscription. Many times Ancestry runs specials and I pay under $100.00 per year so if you divide that by 12, the expense is less than a subscription to Netflix or just about anything else. Ancestry also offers Military records, obituaries, marriage records, birth and death indexes and much much more.

With that said, there are also a lot of free resources. I have over 500 links to free genealogy records that I myself have found online. Here are some that can help just about everyone.

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f... This is the webpage to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

http://searches.rootsweb.com/
This is a list of popular searchable databases on Rootsweb. There is a link to the Social Security Death index, as well as death records for California, Kentucky, Maine, and Texas. There are some international databases included too.

http://www.ellisisland.org/
If you are from the United States and know that you have ancestors that immigrated from other countries, there is a chance that Ellis Islands website could help you. You can actually look at the ships manifests on this site. It is so cool! You could even get information like how much money was in your great grandfathers pocket when he came over.

Then there are the message boards at both Ancestry and Rootsweb. They have boards for surnames, counties, States, and countries. This would be a great place to post information you already know about family members and attempt to build on it. It is always wise not to post information on living family members.

http://boards.ancestry.com/default.aspx...
http://genforum.genealogy.com/

You can also look at many of the existing trees out there to see if anybody has created one including members or your families. Sometimes you get lucky, but if you find one out there, I would recommend researching the information yourself before including it in your tree.

http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/...
http://www.gencircles.com/

After you get so far, you may want to try to input your information into a family tree program. There are several commercially available; however, there are a few that you can download for free off of the internet. PAF (Personal Ancestry File) is a very respectable program that you can download at

http://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs/sto...

There are several different language versions available. Most programs have places for you to document your sources and have a file format called GEDCOM making it easy to share your tree with people using a different genealogy program or easy for you to change programs without reentering all of your information.

So, as you can see from my answer... there is a whole lot to learn about genealogy and finding resources. I learned just by jumping in and doing it. Once you get out in the genealogy community you will see that there are a lot of people eager to help you in any way they can. Have I made mistakes along the way? You bet... who hasn't? You will find though that the rewards are numerous and that it can get quite addicting.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me through my profile. Good luck!

Answer 7

familysearch.org
is a good place to start.