How to Uncover Your Ancestry
Researching family history requires persistence, organization and training. Starting your research by using the standard recording forms (the family group sheet, the pedigree chart and the research log ) will make research more productive and interesting. Storing and organizing those papers into a three-ring binder will mean that any time allocated for researching will be immediately productive instead of leafing through piles of paper to find the right information.
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Things You'll Need
- Family group sheets
- Pedigree charts
- Research logs
- Computer with access to Internet
- Family History Software program (optional but highly recommended)
Instructions
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Organizing and Searching for Ancestry
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Set up a three-ring binder with the pedigree chart as the first page and table of contents and the researcher as the initial person. Purchase a box of acid free archival page protectors and slip pages into them rather than punch holes into pedigree charts and family group sheet pages. The family group sheet records all the information for a single family. The mother and father are recorded at the top and then a list of all children with their details.
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Organize that binder into four divisions: 1) the researcher's pedigree and family group sheet, 2) the parent's family group sheet including all siblings and if siblings have married their family group sheets, 3) paternal grandfather's family group sheet including family group sheets for all uncles and aunts, and 4) maternal grandfather's family group sheet and group sheets for all uncles and aunts. Eventually research papers will likely become too extensive and four binders will be needed for grandparents, one binder for each grandparent so it covers all of the ancestral lines.
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Get family group sheets completed for all living members of the family. Write letters, conduct interviews, organize family reunions anything that it takes to record the living family as accurately as possible.
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Buy a family history software program and learn how to use it (there are free versions available like Personal Ancestral File (PAF) which will work just as well). Creating a computerized version of family research means that information only has to be entered once and can then be reprinted or shared readily as a file.
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Collect family letters, journal entries, photographs, newspaper stories, obituaries and if you are luck the Family Bible. Store them in archival page protectors in the same section of the binders where the relevant person's family group sheet is stored. Family history programs will also allow photographs and scanned documents to be attached to specific people.
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Research government vital record sources to document already known family facts and find information that was not known. Many records of birth, marriage and death are available online. FamilySearch.org provides access to many of these records and check out the extensive list of sources for records at Cyndi's List, which are generally accessed by state.
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Search the census records to extend the ancestry back to the early 1800s. U.S. census records are available starting in 1930 and many other countries starting around 1910. Pursue this research step by step and decade by decade for each grandparent's ancestral line.
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Write the initial draft of the ancestral story if it hasn't already been started. Census data can provide documented ancestry back to approximately 1820 to 1840. Before starting the more complex and difficult search through parish records and other original documents get an initial version of the family story on paper.
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Tips & Warnings
Use a digital recorder for interviews, ask permission.
Make sure to store documents about your personal and family life.
Join the local Genealogical Society, it can offer a great deal of help.
Find out if there is a FamilySearch Center close by, they offer free help and lots of resources.
Watch some of the many informative videos on family history at FamilySearch.org.
Your research will contain private information about living individuals it must be carefully protected.
Only share your research on living individuals with close family members.
References
Resources
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