Researching Genealogy

[Charles Sloan]

I have been researching my family tree recently, and I have found some great resources and tools to assist in this journey. Finding out your family history can be exciting and fascinating not to mention very educational. I have never done this before so I starting with just googling peoples names with quotations around it and bookmarking the results. I have since (this week) started using http://www.ancestry.com/ and http://www.findagrave.com/ to get more information.

Just wondering if anyone else has researched their genealogy, and if they have tips they would like to share?

[DCR]

Some of my relatives have done fairly extensive research on some of the branches of my family tree.  Old census and marriage records can be helpful.  I've been to our state archives to look at some of the old books and microfilm/microfiche to find some additional information.

Hopefully, more and more of this kind of stuff can be found available on line.  But, some things are still only found in older media.  Some people who are really serious about it travel to other states (even other countries) to look at information that's only available in hard copy in various to archives and libraries.

[Bon Voyage]

Last year, ancestry.com had a week or so where they allowed greater than normal access.  Through census records I found that one of my great-great grandfather's on my paternal side came from Ireland.

[Charles Sloan]

So far from my research on Ancestry.com I have found my great, great, great, great, great grandfather on my fathers side. I assume he is from Belfast Ireland, but I have no dates or places for him. But his son was born in Belfast in 1781, so I am thinking he was either born there or settled there.

[Charles Sloan]

By the way this was another interesting site, I haven't used it much but I plan to more in the future.

http://www.familysearch.org/

[DCR]

One of my ancestors was apparently granted land by the king of England in the 1600s in the area that is now Washington D.C.

I'm mostly English, Irish, and Scottish.

[zoonance]

I have been researching my family tree recently, and I have found some great resources and tools to assist in this journey. Finding out your family history can be exciting and fascinating not to mention very educational. I have never done this before so I starting with just googling peoples names with quotations around it and bookmarking the results. I have since (this week) started using http://www.ancestry.com/ and http://www.findagrave.com/ to get more information.

Just wondering if anyone else has researched their genealogy, and if they have tips they would like to share?

Charles.  I am your father.

[Nevertheless]

I have been researching my family tree recently, and I have found some great resources and tools to assist in this journey. Finding out your family history can be exciting and fascinating not to mention very educational. I have never done this before so I starting with just googling peoples names with quotations around it and bookmarking the results. I have since (this week) started using http://www.ancestry.com/ and http://www.findagrave.com/ to get more information.

Just wondering if anyone else has researched their genealogy, and if they have tips they would like to share?

This can give some "interesting" results.  Our surname is "Bachelor". Googling that name gives you everything from college graduation lists to porn sites.

I do have some tips for you.

1. Don't believe everything you read online!  Especially the "facts" in others' family trees! Some of them contain more imagination than anything else.

2. Check out your public library. Many have genealogy sections with librarians who specialize in that area.  Many also have subscriptions to Ancestry or Heritage Quest.

3. FamilySearch.org is a great place to start census searches. They do have a lot of those fictional family trees, though. Use discernment.

4. Visit RootsWeb.com.  Lots of very useful info there with mailing lists you can subscribe to based on your area of interest.

5. Genealogy.com has a great message board.

6. Cyndislist.com has links to more genealogy related websites than you can imagine. Go there. You will find something useful.

7. Have fun with it! Hubby and I often plan our vacations around genealogy trips. We go to courthouses, historical societies, and cemeteries. I didn't know that one of my 3rd great-grandfathers had been married more than once until I visited the cemetery he's buried in and found headstones for 3 wives! We look up land records and then visit the places our ancestors have lived, sometimes finding that the houses are still there and lived in after more than 100 years. Tomorrow we're leaving on a vacation and on the way we'll make a slight detour to take a picture of the headstone of Meshack Holman, my great-great-grandfather. It is no longer in a cemetery. Years ago the farmer who owned the land it was on drug it off and left it by the side of the road. I'm hoping to get a picture before someone decides that it needs to be moved off somewhere else.

[Charles Sloan]

I have been researching my family tree recently, and I have found some great resources and tools to assist in this journey. Finding out your family history can be exciting and fascinating not to mention very educational. I have never done this before so I starting with just googling peoples names with quotations around it and bookmarking the results. I have since (this week) started using http://www.ancestry.com/ and http://www.findagrave.com/ to get more information.

Just wondering if anyone else has researched their genealogy, and if they have tips they would like to share?

Charles.  I am your father.

[kensington]

I've done some too Charles...  I don't know if you saw the book I made or not... I posted some of it here.  Somewhere....   

Anyway, there was some dispute to "facts" when my niece and I were doing the family books last year...  and "ancestry.com" cleared it up in a matter of moments for me! 

Good luck with your project, it's well worth the time and effort you will put into finding it all.  When we started our books, we didn't think we'd have enough pictures of the past to make anything substantial... when it was all said and done, I ended up with 5 cd's of pics and too much stuff to put in one book. I'm contemplating making another.  Of course, those who see it, think I would do good to make them each one. But, the chances of that are slim to NONE...  They are welcome to the info... but they can make their own books!

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Just wondering if anyone else has researched their genealogy, and if they have tips they would like to share?

Take the time to talk to your 17th cousins who are researching the same lines.  They will have lots of information.

And if you don't already have it, get software for tracking and storing all the info.

[Imabear]

My dad's side of the family goes back a few hundred years in this country. 

My mom's side is a little harder.  All 4 of her grandparents came over from Sweden back around 1890.  Some of them could be traced back several generations. Some could not.  In Sweden all of the births, baptismal records, and marriage records were kept in the churches, and apparently much of that information was lost in church fires. 

My husband's mother's family can trace it's roots back to one of Daniel Boone's brothers, who incidentally was born just a couple of miles from where we live.  They were Quakers at the time, but the family was excommunicated, because 2 of Daniels siblings married outside of the Quaker faith.  It was at that time the Boone family decided to move south.

Like WS said get some software to keep track of what you find.  My sister has some, I'm not sure which program she uses. I can find out if you'd like.

[Just As I Am]

Charles,

I've done genealogy for years. Rootsweb was the source of my searches at first. I connected with people overseas who did work for me as I did some for them on this side of the pond.

How can I be of help? Feel free to PM me. 

[DCR]

JAIA,

What sites have you been to other than Rootsweb?  I have thought about looking into Ancestory.com.  I was just curious how they compare and what the best out there is, in the experience of others.

[Arkstfan]

My parents are big genealogy nuts. Their idea of fun is sitting in the basement of a court house reading old records or check grave markers at a cemetary.

For some reason my mother found absolutely no humor in my asking how many dead relatives she was getting baptized for.

[Lee Freeman]

I have been researching my family tree recently, and I have found some great resources and tools to assist in this journey. Finding out your family history can be exciting and fascinating not to mention very educational. I have never done this before so I starting with just googling peoples names with quotations around it and bookmarking the results. I have since (this week) started using http://www.ancestry.com/ and http://www.findagrave.com/ to get more information.

Just wondering if anyone else has researched their genealogy, and if they have tips they would like to share?

Its what I do for a living. I'm a genealogist and historian.

Ancestry is a great site, but be cautious in using even primary records like US federal population censuses, because they often contain errors, such as misspelled names, incorrect ages, places of birth, etc.

Rootsweb (now owned by Proquest, who owns Ancestry) is another great on-line resource which is free. Every county of every state in the Union has a county site by Rootsweb and the USGenweb. These vary as to what types of information they contain-good ones like the one for my county will contain transcriptions of all kinds of different records, from US federal population censuses, to agricultural censuses (enemerating your ancestors' farm and recording how man acres, what crops they grew, etc.), to county court house records, to cemetery records, to Civil War records, to county histories, to biopgraphies, to old photographs of early residents.

The LDS site Familysearch.org is another great free site that, when they'rte done with the beta testing, will be one of the best sites out there.

Of course not all the records are online yet. You still have to consult county court house records as well as records in libraries and archives.

And always document your research with copies of all the actual records. I drill this into my basic genealogy students.

Pax.