What to Start Your Genealogy Research With?
Starting family research isn’t easy – most novice researchers feel puzzled and don’t know what they should begin with.
The main rule for conducting genealogy research is to work from the known to the unknown. Given that a name is shared by many people across the globe, it’s vital to learn how to avoid accidentally attaching the wrong person to your tree.
Identify What You Know
Write down what you already know about your ancestors. Include key pieces of information like names, dates, places, relationships. Talk to family members, ask for details and family stories.
Create a chart to track your family roots. This chart will serve as a road map of your ancestors. Start a research log to keep track of the research you’ve already completed. Write down every source you’ve consulted – this will help you prevent duplicate searches.
Decide What You Want to Learn
Review the data you’ve collected, and determine what your research goal is. Check out what information is missing, and set a few goals to fill in what’s missing. Set one or two goals at once to avoid confusion and errors.
Identify Sources
Define what sources you’re going to use in your research. Most popular are:
Start with your home, look in the attic or a cupboard, they may come in handy. Many genealogists recommend starting the search with the U.S. Federal census as it may give you clues about your ancestors.
Research
List every source you have used and the information you’ve found. Don’t forget to write down every piece of information you manage to collect. You may find it helpful to organize the data by the last name. If you can’t find the record or a name in it, try an alternative spelling. Consult as many sources as you can while searching for a family or individual.
When it comes to online search, less is more. If you enter too much information into the search engine you might fail to find what you’re looking for. Try to use date ranges or enter less details about a person or place. Ignore transcriptions and search for original documents: firstly, there might be errors, secondly, the original copy may contain more useful data.
Analyze
Don’t just copy – analyze. Is the resource reliable? Evaluate all information and sources you manage to find – if it contradicts what you already know, look for other records to see which source is wrong. If you are viewing a compiled genealogy make sure the author provides cites to the original sources.
Explore
You might want to check if anyone has done the research before. Social networks and genealogy communities can become a source of finding information. There you can find links to the already published materials.
Back Up
It is important to back up your research. All it takes is a fire or a theft to lose all your valuable work. Regularly back up your work to an external hard drive. You may want to use Google Drive to transfer some work to the Cloud.
Share
Share your results with your family. Print your family tree to share your research with loved ones. Involving your relatives in your genealogy research can help you discover even more facts and stories. Besides that, you can share your results with other researchers and ask them for help - their expertise can help you to move forward more quickly.
Keep going
Genealogy research takes a lot of time and effort, and you can never tell how long your journey is going to take. The farther back you go the more ancestors you discover. The good news is that searching for your family heritage is exciting you’re unlikely to ever quit because there’s always another family story to chase.
History is about people. You and your family have your own stake in history through your ancestors. No matter what your ancestors were, they lived the action of their times and they form a direct link between you and the past. Never stop exploring and you’re guaranteed to find a lot not only about your family past but about yourself too.
