how do i start on a family tree?I thought i would try to do one for my girls?

Question

and one more thing if your grandparent was born in another state how can you get their information?
all of my grandparents have passed away and the rest of the family either don't talk or don't know
this is something i would like to do for my children so they wont have to ask others
THANKS FOR ALL INFORMATION AND ANSWERS

Answer 1

Wendy has a great answer. Cyndis list is a great resource with a whole lot of very helpful links.

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 parents 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 2

there are tons of sites online that help you find the information that makes up the ancestry for your daughters. One good place to START is www.cyndislist.com which includes several how to guides.
Questions in your immediate and extended family is the preliminary step, to get some names and places. These are a foundation, and it is very very critical that you BUILD on this. Among the most common errors that people make is "I am a Jones", they look for the earliest Jones to come the the country and attempt to force fit together. After months of brick walls and wasted energy, they find out the early Jones came in 1600, their real ancestor came in 1800 and was not related at all.
Another good source is the us gen web, which is a national (world) wide network of volunteers, who gather and post such things as cemetery surveys, marriage records, biographies, etc. Level of quality does vary... these are strictly the result of how much energy is put into the job.
As for folks talking/ giving info... well, if they knew all the stuff and gave it to you, there would be no research involved at all. It is when you personally find out what they never knew, that it really becomes exciting. And it is NOT all online. There could be a family Bible hidden in your cousins attic. Land records are incredible sources for proof of relationships... due to sheer volume, they are seldom accessible online.
www.genforum.com (and other locations) have surname boards for discussing all family, and there are also email lists focusing on a surname or locality. Go for both. When you are on the xxx county list, you often find a local resident... and glory be, they live 1/2 mile from the cemetery you need, and will stop by after work for you, as a courtesy. THIS is how people get around the distance issue.
Many people like ancestry.com, although I have never used it. They do have census records, which are a key piece of the puzzle. PLEASE be aware that easy is not always preferable. There are many compiled family databases that are careless, and inaccurate, because of being based on hasty conclusions. Other files are incredible, since they rely on..and specify... the SOURCE where the information is found.
Expect to have fun and to meet great people. It can become a lifelong passion.

Answer 3

If you don't have room for pictures try http://www.genopro.com
You just type in information and it will draw the circles and squares for you. The tricky part is the lines but I'm sure you can get it.

Answer 4

start with your immediate family and work your way back. there is software that you can get to help you, or you can use the internet to find things...

Answer 5

I would start at www.ancestry.com and work the family tree on the site.

Answer 6

like muffin said go back and start there yada yada yada but a free site is geni.com also you can post pictures and stuff it is really cool