How Do I Backtrack My Ancestors?
Researching your family history can be rewarding on many levels. You may be able to prove or disprove family legends; you may discover long lost cousins; you may find inspiration in the life story of an ancestor you never knew; you may even discover something new about yourself as a result of your investigation.
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Instructions
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Start with what you know. At the top of a page write "Generation One." List the names of yourself and all your blood relatives on your mother or father's side of the family in your generation. In black ink, write each person's full name, their relationship to you, and the name of their parent with a blood connection to you. In red ink write the name of any relative's parent who is connected to you through marriage. At the top of another page write "Generation Two." In black ink, write the names of the parents listed in black from your Generation One page. Next to their names write their relationship to you and the name of their parent with a blood connection to you. You can write the name of any relative's parent connected to you through marriage in red. Keep following this pattern -- go back as many generations as you can recall. As you move back through the generations you'll eventually come to certain points in your list where you'll run into obstacles (you won't be able to name a parent who comes from the preceding generation).
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Interview to your relatives. Information you don't know, other family members may be able to fill in.
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Gather whatever information you can about any person in your list for which you still cannot name a parent with a blood connection to you. Make a note of the important dates in this ancestor's life (birth date, marriage date, immigration date, and so on). Make a note of their occupation, where they immigrated from (if applicable), the places they lived, if they were ever in the military, any religious or group affiliations, and any other details that could help you find more information about this person in public records.
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Search public records to verify the information you gathered about your ancestors in Step 3. Some good sources to check are: census, nationalization, birth, death, marriage, court, prison, church, and town property records; old ship passenger lists; and the old local newspapers of the towns your ancestors lived in. If you live in an area where a National Archives facility is located, you can search through U.S. Census, nationalization, military and land records free of charge. For access to a wider variety of public records and historical documents in one place, family research websites like Ancestry.com offer very comprehensive collections of records for a fee.
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Use the information you find in public records to learn more about your ancestors' lives, and to trace your roots through the paper trail of historical documents. For example, if you don't know the name of your great grandmother's parents, but through your research you discover that your great grandmother was born on Sept. 15, 1909, in Rochester, New York, you could use this information to track down your great grandmother's birth certificate to learn the names of your second-great grandparents.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit family tree image by Judy Ben Joud from Fotolia.com
