Ancestors, Friends, and Family
Begin Family History
Where do I begin?
Family history research is intimidating. Therefore, many people never learn how to do it. Discover how easy it can be with the right tools. So, where do you begin? Do a search for Family History online and you will find many different programs and a lot of information. However, is the best place to begin? A beginner must do a few things before you hit your keyboard or search your phone.
- Ask yourself some questions.
- How much do you know about your relatives?
- Are your parents still living?
- Who are your grandparents and are they living?
- Can you find who their parents were?
- If not, do you have any living relatives you can contact?’
- Does anyone in your family already do family history research?
- Can you contact them?
First, gather information from your living relatives.
Here is what you need to know:
- Your parents and grandparents:
- Full names including maiden names
- Date of birth and place,
- Marriage date(s) and place(s),
- If they have died, get their death date and place.
- You need to connect to yourself deceased people on all of your lines.
Continue collecting as much data as you can on each family line. Every program begins with your family connections. Once you have collected this information, you will be ready to choose a Family Tree program or website. To clarify, Family Tree programs can be purchased and download to your personal computer. These programs give you complete control over your data. In contrast, Family Tree websites are online and can be a cooperative tree or a personal tree. Some cost money while a few are free.
Finding a Family Tree Site for Family History Research
We will begin with the biggest FREE site to start family history research, FamilySearch.org, which can make your job easier. However, understand this is a cooperative public tree where everyone can contribute and add information. Subsequently, they can also change information. Later in other posts, we will explore some paid trees like Ancestry.com where you can share your information but the tree is yours and nobody can change your information. You can make it public or keep it private. FindMyPast.com is a paid tree site as well with an emphasis on British records. These tree sites contain millions of records you can search to find evidence of your ancestors. We’ll talk about FamilySearch.org in this post.
FamilySearch.org - Free cooperative public tree
Go to FamilySearch.org and explore the front page of the site. Click “Create a Free Account and follow the instructions. If you belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you will need your member number. Ask your Ward leaders to help. You don’t have to be a member of the church to use FamilySearch.org. Once you have registered, you may begin. Now, you will need the information you gathered about your family. Start with yourself, and then your parents. When you add living people, their information will be private. You may add your children and siblings as well. Importantly, nobody in the tree can see living people you enter. If you and your spouse each have a FamilySearch.org login, you will both need to enter the living people.
Entering Deceased People to FamilySearch.org
Follow the instructions for adding a person. If the name has been entered before, a match will appear at the bottom. Compare your information. When its a match, just click the accept button and it will connect that person and their tree to your tree. You may gain many generations into your tree. If it is not a match, add them as a new person with the information you collected. If the person died within the last 110 years, you will need a death date. For people you connect with, you may look through any document connected to make sure the connections are supported. Sometimes, you will find people uploaded pictures or stories of family members you have never seen.
FamilySearch.org Help and Research Wiki provide many videos and helpful resources for learning how to do research. Just familiarize yourself with the help menu. Also, under the Search tab, you will see the Research Wiki. This contains useful information on how to do research in different areas of the world. Just search for the state, or country by name. You can find when birth, marriage, and death records began to be recorded by states and countries, as well as where to look for many of these records. Suggestions may be found on how to do research. You may find records be on FamilySearch.org, FindMyPast.com, or Ancestry.com, as well as other sites,as well as videos and tutorials to learn more.
A note on Family Tree Desktop Programs - for Family History Research
Importantly, FamilySearch.org is a great tool for beginning family history research. Now, with so many family records on the site, why use another program? Especially one on your own computer. Fair question. When you do your own research, you will want to keep a copy of your documents on your computer and connect them to a program you control, which can’t be changed by anyone else. Consequently, if you do notice someone has changed something on FamilySearch.org, you can correct it and show the reason why your change is correct because you have your own research. If there is a dispute, FamilySearch.org will look at the documents.
Indexing - Help Further Family History Research
Indexing is an important part of FamilySearch.org where millions of records are stored. Volunteers help make records searchable and available for people on FamilySearch.org. For example, in the past, records were searched from microfilm, consequently, the search was time-consuming and tedious.
Indexing makes the important information searchable and, above all, it’s available quickly online.
In conclusion, beginning family history research starts at home, interviewing your family and relatives. Once you have enough information, join FamilySearch.org, a great place to do your family history. Check it out and come back to learn more about other available programs.
Happy Hunting.
