Making a family tree, how do I do it?

Question

My grandmother just passed away and willed our family tree to me. She spent 20+ years making it and when she had stopped it was the 3rd largest in the usa. Now it needs updating badly and I think I can date it back further. How do I find the information? I have the the sheets I need but not the information. I know she dated it back as far as it goes in the US. Is there a way to track the records in england? Please Help me!

Answer 1

first, dont be silly girl. start with your mom or dad (who ever is your grandmothers mother) then start asking keep asking till you find the most info, even if its only first and last names, you can build from there. also asking her sister/brothers if they are still alive will def help. make sure to include you, and your siblings then go from there (first , 2nd, 3rd cousins)

Answer 2

First, wow are you ever lucky!  Second, I recommend ancestry.com.  Not only can you enter your family tree there but, you can also search records and attach them to people in the tree.  You can also search England if you get the world deluxe membership.  You do have to pay for it but, I have found it well worth the money.

Answer 3

A good idea that is free is to post to message boards online. Rootsweb and Ancestry.com run message boards by surname and location, just post the names, dates, locations and information you are looking to the respected board and wait for a response. You might not get a response but you could get an invaluable response from a long lost cousin.

Make sure you take care of that much information and be careful who you let have it, it's not very often you come around that much information that easily ;)

Answer 4

I agree that you will need to speak to your family members about the family tree to find out what they know. They may know something that isn't on the tree yet. When someone researches their family tree, they will try to speak to their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc, but it's easy to forget the younger generations. Your parents may know an awful lot too, so it's worth asking them.

Even if it's not HISTORICAL information yet; one day it WILL be. Don't discount anything from your research. I spent time interviewing my mother, and she kept saying "no, I don't need to worry you with that, because it's not important". Everything has value when it concerns your family tree, because you could find a link back to it at a later date.

If you need information from England, you should first off find out where those ancestors came from in England. Even though England is small in relation to the States, the records will e kept by different localities.

See if you can dig up their birth certificate. Do you know roughly what year in which they were born? If they came to America by boat, they will be on the passenger lists, so it may only tell you thatthey are from England, but it might tell you an area, like Middlesex, or Kent or even a city. This might help you in tracking down a birth.

Try www.freebmd.org.uk. They have free birth, marriage and death records which you can search by name, area and years. It's not complete yet, so don't worry if you don't find what you're looking for.

If you need any more advice, let me know. All of my research has been in England, and I'm living there, so I can probably find out a far bit for you if you can give more details. Drop me a message whenever you have a query and I'd be happy to help.

Also if you can give me a specific subject, for example prisoners, workhouses, census information, birth certificates etc, I may be able to tell you more. It's really hard to give you a thorough answer on here without knowing what you NEED to know.

Answer 5

you ARE unique... you are not just starting out from scratch.

With grandma having researched for that long.. take a long look at what there is, and you should see the common element there to be SOURCES and records. Those are the foundation, and your success depends on knowing that.

The goal isn't how many persons you have.. the goal is taking the ONE person that you choose to focus on, then 'proving' his connection (ie to his parents).  Yes, genealogy is traceable in England, and we have numerous persons on here that are skilled in those records. Grandma went to the immigrant ancestor.  If that ancestor was born in the 1600s, it is worth knowing that vital records started about 1837 in England.. and you won't need to worrry with that. You probably have the immigrant from other lines.. some might be from places other than England?

http://www.genuki.org.uk/

This site is one I have always thought to be fairly good for the UK.. but up front.. I admit, I have NOT made a lot of effort to work overseas records.

One hard thing to accept for many.. there IS A POINT where you will not find records further back for a person. A good example is that parish records start "about" 1600, so it can be flipping a coin if your individual HAD any records. SOME lines (more prestigious families, so forth) HAVE been studied in depth, and worked back, by very qualified researchers, and you might tie into one of those.

The last option is to carefully evaluate how much effort you want to put into going back further.  I personally have crates and cabinets of papers.. and my need now is to "wrap up" some of it.. example, my daughter's ancestry into a sort of book form that I can put on cd's, catalog the documents that I do have and consider where I might want to donate them, so forth.

For now.. post some of the names/dates that you already have and be sure to put the location in the header, so you can get acquainted with the folks in the UK, that can start you in the direction you want.

And.. be proud that grandma trusted you with something that WE HERE KNOW was of more value to her, than almost any material thing.