Advice from Genealogists / Historians

[longhuntr74]

I know that there are a bunch of people on this forum interested in genealogy and the like. Many of you have referenced connections to distant relatives. My father...somewhere in his mess...has a bunch of research that goes back to the mid 1800s for my family...but I don't know that he has much dating back to my European connections.

I'm looking for advice from anybody that has done research into their family names and family trees. Have you used sites such as ancestry.com? How does one go about compiling a complete and lengthy family history?

[Steve Barclay]

http://genealogy.about.com/cs/beginn...amily_tree.htm

This should start you off!

[jkane]

Google! You'd be amazed at what you will find.

Since you like forums (like this one), check out:
http://genforum.genealogy.com/

Other places to go:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

Good Luck!

[KFCarter]

By all means pursue the info your father has. If you can find primary data like family bibles and records kept by earlier generations in your family, it can give you a huge leg up in doing online searches.

Also, if the LDS church has a genealogical library within driving distance of you, it will be worth the trip. They have exhaustive records gleaned from primary sources all over the country. They often participate in "loose records" projects, scanning and recording old paper records in churches, courthouses, etc. Just tons and tons of genealogical info in microfilm... and, if there's something in their index that isn't physically in their local library they will often send to Salt Lake to have a dupe made and sent at no charge... a way to build up each local library.

Happy hunting!

[davidlpope]

My best advice is to be very methodical, work back generation by generation, and focus on compiling documents which verify your genealogy.

Start with yourself, spouse, and any children you have- get birth, christening, marriage documents, etc. Then move back to your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents. It is tempting to just focus on "how far back" you can go, without doing the hard work of compiling the actual records, but many of the clues you will need about your own history are dependant on info about those collateral relatives. I'd encourage you to start with one specific line, perhaps your surname line, and systematically work it back as far as you can go.

I find that Ancestry.com is a great resource to get digital images of original documents (census, birth certificates, etc.), but be wary of their member-contributed family trees.

Best of luck!

Cordially,

David

[ForresterModern]

I traced my paternal line backwards as far as I could go with family remembrances, family bibles and other birth and death records. Through all the trees and a lot of dead ends I finally came upon one particular relative (my 5great grandfather I believe) who had a very unique name-Bedford Addison Foster-, but could get no further. So I googled, and Binged, and Yahooed his name with and without quotations marks around it (without separates each individual name while with quotations marks makes the search look for those three names in that specific order together) and lo and behold found not just one, but three, BAF the first, second and third, and very flush trees for each of them going both ways. Turns out my tree connected to BAF the first and I could follow that several more generations backward from there through someone else's work. If you have a family name clan website try to see if they have a geneology search function there. Once you find out information, try county records for birth, death, marriage, taxes, land ownership, etc., documentation that may help you. The further back you go the sketchier and more colloquial some of the "official" documentation actually becomes, but just using these tools I have traced my line back to my 11th great grandfather who supposedly is the one who came across the pond and settled with a land grant in Virginia back in the late 1600s. I am still tracing grave and birth and marriage records, as well as a listing of ships manifests, to find what ship he arrived on and exactly when, and from where, to try to make the definitive link up to "the old country", but feel confident that with these resources I will eventually succeed. If I run into road blocks then ancestry.com and geneology.com will become additional references, along with Y-chromosome DNA analysis and comparison to an ongoing project of my surname that is already in place on both sides of the ocean. There is no end to the amount of potential information available out there, if you just start looking. Dive in.

Good luck

jeff

[davidlpope]

...along with Y-chromosome DNA analysis and comparison to an ongoing project of my surname that is already in place on both sides of the ocean.

Has anyone else had experience with this Y-chromosome mapping stuff? I'm intrigued by it, but just don't know enough yet to justify the expense. I'm all ears.

David

[macwilkin]

By all means pursue the info your father has. If you can find primary data like family bibles and records kept by earlier generations in your family, it can give you a huge leg up in doing online searches.

Also, if the LDS church has a genealogical library within driving distance of you, it will be worth the trip. They have exhaustive records gleaned from primary sources all over the country. They often participate in "loose records" projects, scanning and recording old paper records in churches, courthouses, etc. Just tons and tons of genealogical info in microfilm... and, if there's something in their index that isn't physically in their local library they will often send to Salt Lake to have a dupe made and sent at no charge... a way to build up each local library.

Happy hunting!

I would echo this, and also suggest you contact your local public library. Most libraries maintain some sort of genealogical department, and many offer free classes and seminars on all sorts of topics, including genealogy for beginners. You might also see if a local historical society maintains a library as well.

I worked for two years as a genealogical librarian with our local library; here is the basic genealogy handout we gave beginners. Hopefully it will help:

http://thelibrary.org/research/res_g...aid=676&lid=50

Just remember, work your way back from yourself, and document, document, document.

T.

[Lyle1]

I agree that you should start by getting as much information from relatives as you can. However, be prepared to find that sometime of what they remember isn't exactly correct, though it can still lead you to the correct information. Also check out any bibles that your family members might have; a lot of people record family events in bibles.

I think Ancestry.com is a great tool. You can access a lot of official records, and you might find that someone else has included some of your ancestors in their tree. Always look for documentation of facts on other trees. I found one of my great grandfathers on another tree, and, as well, I thought, a missing daughter; on that tree unfortunately, the supposed daughter was born in Pennsylvania before my great grandfather came to the USA. On the other hand, I traced one of my German lines back to the 1500's in about three hours. I contacted one of the owners of a tree to which I kept being led, and found a 3rd cousin living in the ancestral town in Germany. She has given me a lot of documentation, and I have found data on an American line of her family. Ancestry.com also has message boards where you can make inquiries of anyone who might have information on your family.

The second the advice to use Google. I searched on a decidedly Italian name in my German line from the 1600's and found a few history books (on Google Books) that confirmed that he was an Italian living in Germany, and I found a very good website containing a very large and well documented family tree of a noted German industrialist who lived in the same area as my ancestors. I've found information for about a dozen of my ancestors in that tree.

[macwilkin]

I should have mentioned that many public libraries have subscriptions to Ancestry and Heritage Quest, which means that their patrons may use them for free.

T.