Please help with my family tree!!?

Question

I want to start researching my family history but at the moment it is so overwhelming and I am not sure where to start!

Can you please tell me what information and resources I will need? Where do I start looking? Are these websites you pay for legit? If they are I don't mind paying for them.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

First, you start with yourself.  Then add parents, grandparents and any older relatives you know of.

Ask questions of the older generation before they are gone.

I use Ancestry.com and yes it is legit.

Caution: it is addicting.

Answer 2

Start slow, and take it one person at a time.  Start with yourself and work backwards.  There is no hurry, because it is a lifelong hobby.  No matter how much you find out, there will always be more to discover.  You will get more enjoyment out of the research and discoveries than having a finished product.

You will use a combination of free and paid sites to get the most out of internet research.  But not everything is on-line.  You may find yourself digging through old records in county courthouses and parishes as well, or traipsing through old cemeteries.  The best paid site is Ancestry.com.  There are 2 options for subscription.  You can get the US membership for $150 a year, or the World membership for $300 a year.  The US membership gives you access to hundreds of thousands of US based records such as military records like WWI and WWII draft registration cards, all the census records, ship rosters / immigration records, birth and death indexes, etc.  The World membership gives you the same thing, but on a world-wide basis, like census records for Europe, etc.  I advise taking it slowly.  I currently have the US membership.  I am not ready to take my research yet across the pond, so I will not pay for the world membership until I get to that point.  I have tons more research to do on this side of the pond first.  The cost may sound like alot, but considering the convenience and the money it saves you in the long run, it is worth it.  If it were not for Ancestry, you would have to go search for the original records yourself.  The travel to do that in gas, lodging, etc., for one trip will far exceed what you pay for one year on Ancestry, and is also way more work to find those records than looking them up on Ancestry.

Some good free sites are:

www.rootsweb.com

www.familysearch.org

www.findagrave.com

As you learn more about how to do it, you will discover for yourself more resources that work best for you.

Answer 3

Genealogy is addicting because it is like putting together a big jigsaw puzzle, the more pieces that fit, the more your family's story is put together. First of all you need to decide which branch of the family you wish to start with which would probably be the family with the most information you can find from parents and Grandparents. Maybe you have a great aunt that kept all the funeral cards or obituaries in a shoe box. Are family entries in family bibles, for instance. Write down everything because a clue may come later in the most unexpected places. Generally the first place to start is an obituary which would normally list all kinds of clues such as parents, children and siblings and where the person' birth  occurred.  A Mormon Church in your area would have experienced researchers that could help you get started, and help you look for information on their website.

     On the internet start with Cyndi's list site. Sign up for a message board in the area you want to search and ask for help. Generally the rootsweb message board participants are happy to share their knowledge. If you are in the United States, check the State you need at USgenweb for information and volunteers. You can look at the 1880 census free on ancestry and do a search to see if your family information is well represented. I found very little on ancestry on my Belgian ancestors so it was not worth my time to pay the fee. In this part of Europe more information was found in my case on geneanet. World Connect is another database to see if someone's family tree matches yours. Another free site is the new beta Mormon site with the 1900 census. sometimes just googling your surname and genealogy yields information.

Good luck!

Answer 4

You can start with yourself. You, your parents, your grandparents etc. Add the relatives you know. Research for family tree of your first cousins. You might get a part of your family tree. There are various sites where you will get ample information. A few among them are :

www.ancestry.com

www.cyndislist.com

www.familysearch.org

www.rootsweb.com

www.tribaljunction.com

www.genealogy.com

Answer 5

You do research the same way you eat an elephant.

One bite at a time.

Eliminate the idea of being overwhelmed.. take out your birth certificate, verify the information there to identify your own parents.  Do not laugh at me (at least until I do a good joke). Many people find errors on their own records.. AND the point is to start right, using DOCUMENTATION.  You have now started.

If your last name is Jones.. that might throw you. Until you realize, you are NOT researching the Jones family and all of them in the world. The only one you need would be your father.. and using your records about him, you know exactly where to look for his parents.  Once you have proven you, you will use their birth/death records to document them and find facts that you did not think about. Those "facts" are not only proof (each step of the way) but leads to further. You knew his mom was Jane, but you didn't know her maiden name or that she was 42 when he was born, AND her place of birth was <fill in the blank>.

www.cyndislist.com is an encyclopedia of sources.. of course, zoom in on explicit sites. You have no need of NY sites if your ancestors were in South Dakota. THE MORE EXPLICIT YOU ARE, THE MORE YOU FIND. Example.. where can I find cemetery records is huge and vague. My grandma Joan Smith died in 1873 in Memphis, and I want to find her grave is explicit (and someone here will  likely find the answer).  

Ancestry.com has all the US census records from 1790-1930, and these are a major source (you may be in the UK but the premise is the same).  Yes, ancestry.com is worth it.  Trust me.. you'll pay to get them from elsewhere, and with the cost of gas.. ancestry is a bigger bargain all the time.

Your assignment for tonite is to find that document. Tomorrow, you can come back, and keep on getting acquainted here.. we'll keep you going.

Answer 6

Start first with what you know and what you can find out from your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and any other relative who is willing to talk.  Go to ancestry.com and post questions on the message boards.  I have found answers about relatives on my father's side of the family dating back 400 years by reading responses and making inquiries on that board.  There are many other websites which provide genealogical information as well.  Just beware of sites maintained by the Mormons.  Their data can be inaccurate.  I found information provided by them which had my grandmother married to her nephew.  Here's the link to ancestry.com's message boards:

  http://www.ancestry.com/community/