How to Begin African American Genealogy Online

Genealogy is never easy. Black genealogy is even more difficult-but not impossible. The steps in this article will get you through the basics of how to be prepared and conduct a proper search for your ancestors online.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Acid-free paper
• Acid-free folders for each ancestor
• An ancestry.com subsription. (USA subscriptions can be almost $200 a year or $20 a month).
• A research calendar

1. Much of what I have learned about genealogy has come from an expert in the field, Tony Burroughs. I highly recommend his book Black Roots: A Beginner's Guide to Tracing The African American Family Tree. The first step for researching an ancestor is the same for both professional and beginning genealogists. A collection of oral history data is essential. To put it plainly, you need to ask your parents and older relatives about ANY and EVERYTHING they remember about the family history or a particular ancestor. Without first getting such basic info as
   What time period was grandma Sally born in? Where?
   Did she ever say who her parent's were?
   At what age was she married? Where?
   How many children did she bear? How many lived?
   
   The list goes on. I recommend Mary Loverde's book titled
   
   Touching Tomorrow: How to Interview Your Loved Ones to Capture a Lifetime of Memories on Video or Audio
   
   for a lists of basic questions to ask.

2. Next, we want to gather together all of the old family documents. That includes birth, marriage, and death certificates, social security cards, newspaper articles containing family info, school yearbook, diaries and journals, and old pictures. It's always a genealogist' s goal to preserve history. Therefore, try to photocopy what you can on acid free paper (especially newspaper since it deteriorates quickest). Photos should be copied in black and white (even if they are in color)because color photos tend to fade within 50 years.

3. Once you have your information organized in a way you can understand it, it's time to hit the computers. Make sure that you have ALL your folders ready. You will probably be successful on you first attempt and finding something about your ancestors. If you are, you'll want those folders nearby so that you can organize your information as you are printing in utter excitement.

4. Once you have set up an account on ancestry.com go to "family trees" on the home page. Type in the information you have for your particular ancestor and see if anyone else already has a tree for this person. Chances are you are not alone in looking for your ancestor. If you find a person, definitely contact them and tell them that you may be a relative and would like to compare information.

5. The next step is the fun part. You can begin to look up birth, death, and marriage certificates for your ancestors on ancestry.com. I would not recommend looking at the U.S Census or Military records until you read up on these very important documents. I recommend
   
   Finding Answers in U.S. Census Records by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Matthew Wright
   
   and other beginner genealogy books should suit well.
   
   Once you learn about this important aspect of it, you are set to go. And who knows? You may just be the next expert in the growing field of genealogy

Tips & Warnings

• You need to keep a research calendar. This means that you write in a notebook your findings and failures.
• EX: 10/30
• Searched for John Smith in the 1920 census in such a place, West Virginia. Yielded no results. OR you can list the results you did find. Such as
• EX: 10/30 Found two John Smith's in such a place, West Virginia. One was born in blank in 1910 and the other was born in blank in 1908.
• Be careful not to discard someone as your ancestor because the information doesn't match the oral tradition that you've collected. It is rare that records will correspond 100% with your collected data. Good Luck