How can you trace your ancesters back a few generations?

Question

How can you trace your ancesters back a few generations?

Answer 1

get your parents names, then their parents name (your grandparents), then work your way back even further.  Use internet sites like Ancestry.com, see if you can find their birth records, etc. to get more info on who their parents were, etc.

Answer 2

www.ancestry.com is a great site with a good reputation.

Answer 3

Start with your living family and get as much information from them as possible, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you.  It might be they are confused on some things but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might be very significant. People who do this say after they get into research they go back later and listen to the tape again and hear things they didn't hear the first time around.

Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Birth and Death will have both parents' names including mother's maiden name and the death certificate will usually have the place of birth. Depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation, marriage certificates can contain family info.

Go to your public library and find out what all they have in genealogy. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com which has lots of records. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have U. K. censuses also.

Just don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on ANY website, free or paid.  The information is submitted by folks like you and me and most is not documented or poorly documented.  Even when you see the same info repeatedly by many different subscribers that is no guarantee at all it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying.  Use the information as CLUES as to where to get the documentation.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons.

Just call them or visit their free website,FamilySearch.org to find out their hours for the general public.  In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee.  

I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell.  I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources.  They are just very nice and helpful.

You won't find all the records online.  Also genealogist will not post info regarding living persons on line due to identity theft.

While you are at your library and the Family History Center you will probably have an excellent opportunity to talk with other researchers.  Sharing ideas and experiences are very valuable in genealogy.