How Can I Trace My Heritage?
There are a number of resources available that can help you trace your heritage. Some people are able to more easily trace their roots back further than others, but don't let the possibility of running into roadblocks stop you from researching your family lineage.
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Instructions
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Interview your older relatives. Your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older cousins. If you can, record these conversations or take copious notes. Take down names, birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, names of churches or groups your ancestors belonged to, schools they attended, their occupations, places they lived, any information regarding military service. Also make a point to ask if any of your ancestors went to prison or if they were involved in any type of court cases like paternity suits.
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Organize your information. Start with the relatives in your generation. Make an index card for each family member listing their name, their parent's names, birth date, and date of death (if applicable). Move on to the relatives in your parent's generation. Make an index card for each family member in this generation. Also include (if you have) information about marriage dates, occupations, immigration dates, different places of residence, military service, religious affiliations, group affiliations, and any other information that may be connected to public records. Move onto the relatives in your grandparents' generation, and continue to go back as many generations as you can go with the information you have so far.
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Search public records. Use the leads you've generated to search state and federal census records, birth records, immigration records, military records, county court records, city property records, prison records, death records, and old newspapers for items like birth notices or obituaries. There are online sites that may have these different types of historical documents from across the United States in one place. For a small monthly fee you can sign up for membership privileges to search their databases. If you live near an area where a National Archives facility is located (check the National Archives Locations resource link), you can search through census, military, immigration, nationalization, and land records free of charge.
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Use the leads you initially generated to generate more leads. For example, if you can use the information you gained through family interviews to track down your great-grandmother's birth certificate you may then discover the names of your great-great grandparents. And now that you know the names of your great-great grandparents, and possibly where they lived during the year of your great grandmother's birth, you can use this information to see if you can find your great-great grandparents in the census records to learn more detailed information about them so that you can trace your family back yet another generation.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit family tree image by Judy Ben Joud from Fotolia.com
