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Step 1
The first and MOST important step is to ASK ASK ASK!
Ask your living family members their parent’s names, their sibling’s names, and their parent’s sibling’s names. Find out if your relatives know their grandparent’s names and their grandparent’s sibling’s names. Sometimes your relatives will even know their great grandparent’s names. ASK! In my experience, sometimes people will know more than they tell you. Most people like direct questions. Rather than saying “Can you tell me everything you remember about our family?” say something more like “I’m researching the family history and I’d like to ask you a few questions.” Then you can start by asking about the information listed above. -
Step 2
The second step is to DOCUMENT.
Take a notebook along with you to write down the things your relatives say. You could also take a tape recorder if you’d like. Remember if you want to use a tape recorder, take a notebook with you as well. Some people may not like the conversation recorded.
Be sure to record what information is being given and who the information came from. Try to avoid writing “This came from Grandma Smith.” This may be what you know her as but it could get confusing down the line. You could write something more like “This came from Grandma Smith – Jessie Ann Smith.”
If your relatives have copies of photos or records be sure to get a copy for yourself. One thing that I have found to work very well is to take a camera along. Be sure to photograph your relative and other relatives that might be there. The camera can also be used as a means of coping records. Many relatives seem to enjoy this as it means they don’t have to hand over their documents for you to go get copied. This isn’t a matter of family trust, it is more a matter if irreplaceability.
Note: If you are not a good photographer or you do not have a camera please get copies of documents anyways. Even if it means driving your grandmother to the copy store. -
Step 3
The third step it to ORGANIZE.
You will want to place your records into some sort of organization that fits you best. You could file you documents by placing all death certificates together, all marriage records together, etc. A system that works for me personally is filing families and their records together.
For Example: John Jones and Sallie Smith get married. I would place these two people in a new Jones family file together with their marriage record, death certificates, census records, and other documents pertaining to the two of them. This is also the place where their children’s information such as birth certificates would go. Once the children get married a new family file would be created for each child containing information on their spouse and children. You would continue to repeat this process with each new family.
Since family history is a matter of working backwards, here is another way to explain filing families. John Jones and Sallie Smith are married and are in a file together with their family. Once you find the parental information for either person you would then create a new family file for them. Say you find out that John Jones’ parents were Joseph Jones and Amber Abbot. Once you find this information a file for this Jones family would be created. I tend to name my files after each person. In this case the file would be Joseph Jones and Amber Abbot, or something similar. In this file you would put records pertaining to Joseph Jones and Amber Abbot and their children. Every time you find someone’s parental information you would repeat the process of creating a new family file. -
Step 4
From here your research begins. This is where you would start looking for information on people that your relatives were unable to give you.
Comments
sue282 said
on 7/1/2008 This is a good explanation of how to get started. Perhaps you could do another article on the steps you used in researching beyond info given to you by family members.