Start with yourself and your immediate family, and find birth
certificates, baptismal or other church records, marriage certificates,
death certificates, and obituaries for your parents, grandparents, and great
grandparents. If some of these documents are unavailable, start with what
you and your surviving family members know.
On a sheet of paper
write your parents' complete names, including your mother's maiden name.
(For the sheet of paper, try a Family Group Record printed out from your
browser file print.) Record the middle names, but try not to use initials.
Include any nicknames they may have used. List dates and locations of
births, marriages, deaths, and burials. Stop and ask yourself, "Did I check
those dates for accuracy?" And, record the truth. An illegitimate birth or a
birth occurring six months after a marriage is a fact in family history
research and should be recorded truthfully and accurately.
When
listing locations, include the city, county, state and country.
List
dates as 3 Feb 1884 or February 3, 1884, not 2-3-1884 which could be
interpreted as February 3, 1884 or March 2, 1884. For your brothers,
sisters, and yourself, list complete names in order of birth, including
dates and locations of events as you did for your parents.
For
your mother, list her parents and repeat step #2 for her family. Then do the
same for your father's family.
Try to do the same for your
grandparents and great grandparents, and so on for as many generations as
you can.
Contact family members who may be able to help with
missing information. Call ahead and tell your relative the reason for your
visit. This will give the person time to search the attic for old pictures
and other family treasures. Be prepared with questions to ask. Besides the
missing dates and locations, ask them about their parents, grandparents,
favorite vacations, earliest memories, childhood, etc.
To help in the
recording of information, bring pencils, camera, and a tape recorder. Tape
recorder? Caution! When you call for that visit, ask if you can use the tape
recorder. Don't offend the person and cause him or her to "clam up." If you
are able to use a tape recorder, you will not have to stop in the middle of
a story to take notes. PLEASE make sure the recorder works and is loaded
with fresh batteries and a blank tape.
Ask if you can photocopy
documents, letters, family Bibles, obituaries, pictures, etc. Copy
everything. That old letter might not seem important but could hold the clue
you need in the future.
Be patient! It might take several trips to
the same home before you really get all the information.
Note: Some
people, especially elderly ones, are very very protective of their old and
treasured documents. They may not let you out of the house with their papers
to make xerox copies. It is nice if you own a portable copier, but if you
don't, find out beforehand where you can make copies if you're too far away
from your home base. If you have a spouse, other relative, or friend with
you, offer to leave that person at the house to guarantee the safe return of
papers.
Begin to identify photos. Use a soft lead pencil, never
harder than a #2 lead. In the margins on the back of pictures, write
complete names, location, date, and occasion. Never use a pen or write in
the center of the photo. Bring your pencil when visiting relatives and ask
them to label their photographs. With luck you might inherit their
photographs.
When requesting information by mail, always include a
LARGE self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and offer to pay copying and
mailing costs. Quoting a researcher about requests by mail, "You would be
surprised how many times I have received a small envelope for me to return
pages of material." If someone sends you information, even if it is
not your family, send them a thank you note along with stamps to cover their
postage.
The most common mistake beginners make is not documenting
where they found information. PLEASE, document your sources. Ten years from
now you will wonder, "Where did I find Aunt Rita’s birth date?"
Visit the genealogy section of your public library. Ask the reference
librarian where the genealogy section is located.
Join a
genealogical or historical society in your area. Even if you have no
ancestors from the area, you will find others interested in the same hobby,
and you can learn from them. If you need assistance in locating a society,
please contact Kathleen Mirabella.
