(Article 1 of 4) Everyone has the urge to study their family history and do a genealogy research project. This article and the next three to follow will help you get started the right way. Get in the habit of following the described procedures and it will pay off for years to come.
Even with the internet now this is not a project that you can perform quickly. It will become a lifelong hobby for you once you really get bitten by the genealogy bug. By following the ideas listed in these articles you will see your family tree start to branch out with each new discovery.
Do not waste any time on trying to hook up to some famous person that you believe or have heard that you might be related to. It may turn out that you do descend from, or are related to this notable person but if you do not follow the recommended procedures here you will never be able to prove it.
Here are the first five methods to follow to start a genealogy research project:
1 - Start with what you know about your immediate family and work backwards. This is the most important point and you must do it this way. The documents that you locate to prove your connection to each generation will provide the clues you need to discover the next older set of ancestors and their siblings.
2 - Interview your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and all known relatives, especially the older ones. Most of them will have some clues that you will be able to use in your search. Even some of your contemporary modern day cousins, second and third cousins will have information to share that will provide clues. Remember that you are not likely the only descendant of these ancestors.
3 - Start now to get in the habit of using spiral notebooks for recording your data. Spiral notebooks will be very handy in keeping your research in some form of chronological order. Make sure you date the pages and make notes of what library or courthouse you found the records in for each day. You will have plenty of loose sheets of photocopies and miscellaneous notes to file but if you use the spiral notebooks they will be a big help as the years go by to be able to go back and refer to.
4 - Make a Pedigree Chart of your direct ancestors only, and then make Family Group Sheets (FGS) for all of the married couples. The FGS is probably the most important document to create because this is one place that you can see each family unit with all of their detailed vital statistics and dates. There is a place for the husband and wife, each of their parent's names, and all of their children and who the children married.
5 - Use all of the Federal Census and State Census data that you can get on each person. Here you will get names and dates and immigration facts and you will be able to see the neighbors within their communities. The Federal Censuses are all on line now through subscription websites like ancestry, footnote and HeritageQuest. Some of the digitized censuses are also online for free through the Mormon website at familysearch dot org. Check with your local public library as many of them have online subscriptions that you will be able to access these censuses with from your own computer or certainly from the library's computer.
Special resources used for genealogy are Old Newspaper Articles.
Stay tuned for installment #2 of 4 in this series.
Keywords: genealogy research project
