How Can I Figure Out My Heritage?
Genealogy, or the study of family heritage, is a fascinating hobby and a source of inspiration and pride for many. Finding out where you come from is a form of finding out who you are and may give you a sense of perspective about yourself that you never had before. Even up to the late 1990s and early 2000s, conducting a thorough search was time consuming and required travel to search local records. Today, however, most searching can be done from home, since vast numbers of even old historical records are now available online. While your search will eventually take you on its own path, there are several steps you can take to get started.
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Instructions
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Jot down as much information as you know about your own family tree. You may be surprised what you remember or have overheard in conversation.
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Talk with family members, especially older relatives or ones you don’t see often. They will be a source of a great deal of information in the beginning of your search. You will find one or two who know a lot, but that may never have discussed it with you or the family before.
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Ask if there are family members who are willing to search with you and coordinate your search targets with them to prevent overlap. The more people who can look with you, the more thorough the project results will be.
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Go to a site such as Genealogy Today, Ancestry.com, My Heritage or the LDS Church's FamilySearch.org and enter your father's and mother’s last names. Those websites will connect you with other family trees with the same name. Someone else from a branch of your family may be conducting a search as well.
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Use a DNA test to get started if you cannot get information from family. DNA from a cheek sample will be compared with other available samples and you will be told where similar DNA has been found geographically, among other things. Companies that do this testing are DNA Ancestry Project, DNA Heritage, Family Tree DNA and Genealogy by DNA.
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Search records that provide genealogical information such as birth records, death records, marriage records, census information and military records. Sites like Ancestry.com, Ancestor Hunt and FamilySearch.org have vast online records that contain these types of documents.
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Go to more local online sources after you pinpoint places where your ancestors lived. The local newspaper of record, state archives, library, tax office and historical society websites are good places to search for specific information you will not be able to find on the larger sites. You may be able to have documents emailed or faxed to you.
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Visit the locations from your heritage. While more and more records are found online, some of the oldest, rarer or more specific information may not have been scanned or entered into a computer, or may not be accessible from a website. Church records and announcements, photographs, deeds and personal letters and anecdotes are examples of things you will only find by searching in person.
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Tips & Warnings
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) offers free software, Personal Ancestral File software, that you can download and begin loading your family information into to begin building your tree.
Be skeptical of information found online, especially in another person's family tree, that does not note a source. Just because someone's family tree shows them going back to Charlemagne doesn't mean research backs it up. Many amateur genealogists make invalid assumptions that find their way into online family trees.
References
Resources
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