Does anyone have pointers for someone starting out?

[somf4eva]

Hey Everyone!!!
My name is william parks and I am really interested in my families history but i where I can start. i fell like my family is losing its history and I want to know where everyone came from. I dont even know what country I am from. Does anyone have any help?

Thanks alot!!!!
William

 

[97trsgl]

Try researching the relatives that you know of first. That's always the best place to get started

 

[Sybaris]

I've been doing genealogy for about 5 years. To me it is a thoroughly fascinating hobby and an endless detective story. Like yourself I wanted to find out where all the branches of my family are from and have been pretty successful at doing it. I've even gotten some branches down to what ship they rode to the U.S.. or rather colonies.

The first thing to do is get a database going. I use Brothers Keeper. Then start plugging in all the information you can find starting with your parents. Ask them everything about their parents and associations. Then go to your grandparents and so on.

Some key forms of information are:

Birth Certificates
Death Certificates
Census Records
Tax Records
Marriage Licenses/Affidavits
Obituaries

Of course the availability of some of these will be dependent on state laws.

On one of my branches I was fortunate to find a published family history going back to the 1700's so a lot of the leg work had been done. BUT even that document wasn't accurate as it didn't contain some key second marriages of my ancestors.

Another excellent source are a couple of the online genealogy sites like Genealogy.com or Ancestry.com, and Rootsweb.com. They have message boards and you can usually find a board in the locality you're searching and sometimes people will look-up information in their local libraries for free. Those sites also contain family trees posted by other genealogists and if you're lucky maybe someone has already mapped out a branch or two of your all the way to Charlamagne. Caution and analysis must be used when incorporating any of these family trees because not everyone utilizes concrete confirmation to prove association/relationship.

I have taken all of my branches about as far as they can go. What I'm doing now is collecting early photographs. It's been fun knocking on the doors of distant cousins, telling them all about our family history and seeing if they have paintings or photographs of our ancestors. I've almost completed my collection of photographs of all of my gg-grandparents.

Save all your notes, question everything and everybody, be organized and have fun! Oh, and don't mind those skeletons, every family has them.

 

[somf4eva]

Hey, thanks for the help. I do have a book like that but that is only one side of my family. I will keep looking though. This is soo fun.

 

[Cool CD]

William, Here's a link to the Mormon Church's genealogical data. Your ancestors do not have to have been Mormon to be listed in this database. You may find a good starting point there.

http://www.familysearch.org/

 

[bluejeans]

Hey Everyone!!!
My name is william parks and I am really interested in my families history but i where I can start. i fell like my family is losing its history and I want to know where everyone came from. I dont even know what country I am from. Does anyone have any help?

Thanks alot!!!!
William

Rootsweb.com is great.
LDS,genealogy,and Genforum message boards.
You can see if your surnames have a message
board already started and ask them if they know
of any of your relatives.
Thats how i got started.

 

[Rich48]

I might suggest family Bibles. The information in these is usually very accurate as it was put in as the events happened. But it should be verified from other sources.

Try your local library. Many have family history sections, and these are often very good, even in smaller towns. Also, many states have state historical libraries. I live in Ohio, and the Ohio Historical Library is a fantastic place to do reserch, both in books, in the stacks, and on microfilm.

Rich

 

[draconus71]

I think the first place for you to go looking for your anscestors is at your local library. They usually have the area census',and they save all the newspapers onto microfiche. Make sure you have at least a name to go on and start there. You will be amazed at what you will find. Thats where I started my search and I now have one side of my tree traced back all the way to the 1600s. Hope this helps

 

[TxCutie]

http://www.familysearch.com
http://www.ancestry.com
http://www.genforum.com
http://www.genealogy.com
http://www.usgenweb.com
http://www.rootsweb.com

Those are some really great sites. My Nanny (grandma) has been doing family genealogy for over 20 years now and US Gen Web, Ancestry, etc. are some of her favorite sites to go to.

 

[geoffins]

those sites all look great!! thanks people!!