Beginning Genealogy: Ask the Still Living Before Researching the Dead

Congratulations on deciding to research your family history! Perhaps you've decided to do it for your children or you've decide to confirm whether great grandmother really was related to Jesse James. Whatever your reasons, family history is a rewarding, fun, and consuming hobby that has an endless capacity to fascinate.

First you need to get started...but how?

The very first thing to do is to right down everything you know. You need to write the details for your children (date of birth, marriages, etc.), then yourself, and then your parents. Write down anything you know about your grandparents and if they're still alive, ask them for details about family stories, their own parents and grandparents, and anything else that will flesh out your family history.

Details, details, details will be the order of the day. Keep detailed notes and organize them. Once you've decided to go further in your research, then you can look into various family history computer programs, but for now a notebook will do.

Any siblings of your direct ancestors can help as well. Write down dates, stories, and names. You can confirm a great deal of this later once you start your research. Through your research, you may discredit a family story or two. I was told a great-grandmother of mine died in a tornado in Butler County Missouri, when she died at least a decade later in a completely different county from pneumonia! However, many of these stories are true and you may find even more by finding cousins you never knew you had that can confirm the same stories you've been told by your direct relatives.

In short:

1. Birth date, death date, marriage date, and burial location are all important in regards to find documents to confirm these details.

2. Remember that elderly relatives' memories might not be as clear as they used to be. Take family details and stories with a grain of salt until you can prove it with evidence of one sort or the other.

3. Find family group sheets online to fill out to begin with. A beginner does not need to rush out and buy an expensive computer program until you're sure this will be a regular hobby.

4. Make copies of birth certificates and marriage licenses for everyone to add to your evidence pile. This will prove important later, particularly if you wish to join a lineage dependent organization like the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Keep detailed notes and you might just find yourself with a very rich and detailed story about your family!