A Genealogy Beginner's Guide

HOW-TO BEGINNER'S GUIDE FOR GENEALOGISTS

START WITH YOURSELF

You are the beginning "twig" on a vast family tree. Start with yourself and the known and work backwards toward the unknown. After yourself, find out about your parents and then your grandparents and so on. Starting with some illustrious distant relative seldom works. You might end up spending years searching the wrong family!

NAMES, DATES, PLACES, RELATIONSHIPS

You will be concerned with finding four key items in a variety of sources: names, dates, places, and relationships. These are the tools of the family researcher. People can be identified in records by their names, dates of events in their live (birth, marriage, death), the places they lived, their occupations, and by relationships to others, either stated or implied in the records.

THE STORIES WE TELL – HISTORY IS PEOPLE

While filling in the who, what, when, and where helps you follow the trail your family left behind, you should .not neglect the stories that accompany the facts. What can family members or printed records tell you about the character, the beliefs, the dreams, the life stories of your relatives? Where such stories don't exist, study the history of the times and places where your relatives lived to understand the world they lived in.

HOME SOURCES

The place to begin is at home. Here you may find much information in the family Bible, newspaper clippings, military certificates, birth and death certificates, funeral cards, marriage licenses, diaries, letters, scrapbooks, old address books, Christmas cards, backs of pictures, etc.

RELATIVES AS SOURCES

Visit or write to those in your family who may have information, particularly older relatives. More often than not others have gathered data about families in which you are interested. Family "traditions," stories about earlier generations, are interesting clues to get you started. But remember that all these stories are just clues that help lead you to the actual facts which you must prove. Always share some of what you have found and offer to share more later.

RECORDS

Birth, death, and marriage records have been kept at the state level since around the turn of the century, 1880-1915 in most states. A book called the International Vital Records Handbook and a web site called www.vitalrec.com give the addresses for state agencies along with the years available and the cost of copies. Vitalrec.com also gives information on ordering records at the county level and even links to county level web sites including the valuable USGenWeb.com county sites maintained by volunteers across the country. When civil records are not available church records might be found.

Wills and probate records and land records also contain a wealth of family information. These documents are usually kept at the county level. See the Handy Book for Genealogists to find where records are kept or the Mormon Family History Library catalog at www.familysearch.org/#form=catalog for microfilm records that you can borrow. Federal land records may be located at www.glorecords.blm.gov

U.S. history has involved almost constant war. Most of your male relatives probably served in the military. Actual military records have little family information, but pension files for veterans and their widows can be very valuable. Many books list military personnel and pensioners. Once you find out the basic facts about your relative's military service you may be able to purchase photocopies of his military or pension records from the National Archives. Information on obtaining forms is available at www.archives.gov/research but first check Fold3.com and Ancestry.com for online images of these records. New records are being added at these sites daily.

The U.S. government has taken a census of population every ten years since 1790. Early censuses only listed the name of the head of the household and a head count for the rest of the family, but starting in 1850 every member of the family was listed along with much other pertinent data. Most of these censuses are indexed and available online. Some can be found for free; others require a subscription to Ancestry.com or a trip to the public library to use its subscription for free. Unfortunately, most of the 1890 census was destroyed by fire, and records after 1940 are unavailable for general viewing because of a 72 year privacy law. The 1940 census became available April 2, 2012. Many state censuses exist as well.

At the end of the 19th century some publishing companies specialized in writing local histories of counties throughout the country and charging local citizens to have their biographies included. Your local library may have some of these books or can borrow others for you from the Sutro branch of the California State Library. Books in the Sutro collection can be found at catalog.library.ca.gov Also try www.archive.org or books.google.com to see if the book you want is available to view for free online.

If you are very lucky, someone else may have printed a history of one of your family lines, and today, many people have posted their family trees online. Check library catalogs for books under the subject heading SMITH FAMILY for example. Check Rootsweb, Ancestry, FamilySearch, and the many other genealogy sites that share family history. Just be warned that there are many errors in these records. You will still need to verify the information you find in original records. Check Archive.org and Google Books too.

RECORDING INFORMATION

Document everything you do. Let the people who follow you know where you got your information. List authors, titles, call numbers, and the names of the institutions or people who own the books or records. List web sites and the dates you viewed them. Include the name of the database viewed, not just the website name. Don't wait until later to add these details. Do it immediately. Without documentation your records are nearly useless to you or anyone else.

ANCESTRY CHARTS

Ancestry charts, sometimes called pedigree charts, list your direct lines from parent to grandparent to great-grandparent. Other relations like brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins will appear on Family Group Sheets. It is the road map that tells you what you know, what you need to know, and where to look for information.

On Ancestry Charts:

Start with yourself as #1	Your father as #2	Your father's father as #4
		Your father's mother as #5
	Your mother as #3	Your mother's father as #6
		Your mother's mother as #7

Except for #1 which can be anyone, men are even numbers, women odd. Each generation is a number double the previous one (you #1, your father #2, his father #4, his father #8, etc. Each mother is the father's number plus 1.)

Record names, dates and places as shown:

Given Names SURNAME	Day, Month, Year	Day first!
John Payne BAKER	7 Apr 1973 (not '73)	Use the word for the month.
		Use all four digits of the year.

Town, County, State or Country	Use only standard abbreviations.
Stockton, San Joaquin, CA	Include the county.

Do not change the spelling of a name; record it just as you find it in the records. You may even find different spellings in the same document! For women always use the maiden name on Ancestry Charts and Family Group Sheets. To locate places and to verify their county locations, go to geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic the Geographic Name Information System or the simpler County/Town Finder at resources.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/townco.cgi

FAMILY GROUP SHEETS

On family group sheets, list all children in order born. Include stillbirths. Each individual on your Ancestry Chart will appear on two family group sheets, once as a child and one as a parent. Family group sheets can be used to record the families of siblings, cousins, etc. When a parent was married more than once, fill out a separate Family Groups Sheet for each set of parents with their natural children.

ONLINE RESEARCH

There are so many wonderful Internet sites for family research that there is no way to list them all here. Luckily, there is a web site that attempts to list them all by topic. Go to www.cyndislist.com and browse the resources listed there. Cyndi even has a section of Beginner's Guide sites for you.

KRR 02/2012