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Are you interested in investigating your roots? Genealogical research allows you to find out the history of your family.
If you want to research your family, your first step should be to decide what you’re looking for, compile a list of what you want to know. It is usually easier to research a male line of descent. Start with what you know and then try and fill in the blanks. Consult older relatives as they will probably have information that can start you off.
Common records are a good way to dip your feet in and start the search and they will show you how to work backwards, starting from you. Your birth certificate will give you information about your parents, and their marriage records will give information about their parents and so forth.
Check local libraries to see if they have a genealogy section that contains guides on how to do it yourself. Some libraries will subscribe to genealogy magazines and may even have a link to a local genealogy society. There are over 3,000 local genealogy societies in the United States, mostly containing marriage and cemetery records. Your local society is a good place to go for advice and also to contact other people who are conducting research. You may even find someone who is researching into your family. You can find listings of societies across the country in libraries in the Genealogical Periodical Annual Index (GPAI).
You will come across familiar names, historical facts and locations during your search. Use the encyclopaedias, books and old maps in the reference section of your local library to check facts and follow the trail. Also be sure to inquire at your library about other invaluable resources like newspaper archives and telephone directories.
As you start to identify people, separate them out onto individual cards and note down any vital information you have on them, such as birth and death records, parents’ names and marriage records. Start to map the relatives you uncover onto a rough family tree, tentatively working out the links between everyone. You can also use pedigree charts or family group sheets. (Requires Adobe Acrobat)
You can contact a number of sources to find more records, notably national, regional or local offices. You can use them to find birth, death or marriage dates. Before visiting the offices, make sure you’ve done as much background research as you can to optimise your time. Some archive offices will have information about their records online and you can confirm what you need in advance. If you are investigating family members before 1920 you can find information in census records. Find out more about investigating census records here.
During your search you may come across obstacles that inhibit your progress, for example if you’re investigating African-American lineage an obstacle you will encounter is slavery, an institution that broke family bonds and made record keeping nearly impossible. There are often ways around these obstacles, in the case of African-American genealogy we have a section here that you can visit for pointers.
Make sure you record your steps as your investigation will expose other branches of the family you may want to research in future. Also try and use primary sources as much as possible. Make sure that you assess secondary sources thoroughly and always approach them with a degree of scepticism. Where does the document come from and what are the motivations of the author? Most importantly verify all of your research.
Have you found out any information about your family history? What did you discover? Do you have any tips? We would like to know. Let us know in the form below.
You can also join our Facebook group where you can meet other fans and share information.
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Take a Closer Look
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Digging Deep: How to find what you're looking for
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hello,
I am currently doing my family tree. My family stayed in Sandy Ridge, Lowndes, Alabama.
My Great Granddaddy named Green Gray had a son named Charles, Charles had a son named leonard who went to Pearl Harbor after it was bombed. No one ever heard from him again. How can I find out what happened to him?
I am trying to trace my biological father's family tree. I have found out that his mother was half Cherokee Indian. But she died in 1950, so I can't find anyone now to help me trace that link. Where should I begin looking to trace this side of my family?
How do I go about finding the name of a school teacher I had in the late 1958 in a one room school house. I also want history on the school house as well.
Bertruce,
There's a good chance you'll find some of the information you seek at your college library. Many colleges offer their students access to digital resources like Ancestry, LexisNexis and extensive historical newspaper databases such as Proquest. Likewise, you may be able to borrow New York records on microfilm through an inter-library loan. Finally, you should contact the historical society in your ancestors hometown or region. Best of luck with your search.
Hello. I am a college student researching my own family history in Michigan. SInce I cannot physically go look at records-my family was so reclusive-I was wondering how I would find my family in the middle 1800's in New York State? I don't have any money for Ancestry.com.
Julia, check out our Fighting Forebears post for a list of tips. And let us know how it goes!
I'm trying to find out how to get a copy of my father and my grandfather's military records. I know they were both in the army. And I am in the army now. I have asked my dad, but he claims to only have his DD242. Does anyone have any hint's or tips for me?
In seeking an ancestor I ran into a person with the same name and age but disregarded it because I thought that the occupation was listed as a "Lawyer". Since it was a family known fact and also put in almost every census that he could not read or write, we thought that it was not him. I came acrossed this person again after transcribing other censuses that it said "Sawyer". It was our person.
I have been doing genealogy work for many years. I have come across a brickwall that I cannot seem to get over. Do you have any suggestions about researching "orpan train" riders? My great grandfather was born arouund 1874. In 1878 he found his way from New York City to the rural area of St. Mary's Co. Maryland. He appears in the 1880 census records living in Maryland. A cousin found information that he was placed at the New York Foundling Hospital at the age of 3 weeks.
Tracing his journey has been difficult. We are anxious to locate any extended family who also descended from Peter Cameron. Thank you.
Don't get locked into a specific spelling for first and last names, especially if your ancestor came from a country that does not use the Latin-based alphabet. My husband's family came from Russia and Moskovitz was transliterated in many humorous and nearly unrecognizable ways until the family settled on a single spelling. (My favorite: Mushoitz) Also, many people Americanized their first names (Rachel to Rose, Golda to Gertrude). You have to look for family patterns, not just your individual ancestor.
Take time to record information on neighbors and other people with the your distinctive surname. They may turn out to be cousins or married-in relatives. You'll save yourself a second trip to the archives if you collect the information into a pending file and review it periodically against newly discovered family data.
I have been told throughout my life that my father Vincent Aster Woodson was a decedent of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Henning. The Woodson lineage has been documented already through DNA testing. However my siblings and I would like to know if we are a part of that lineage.
Thank you
Robin Michelle Woodson Robinson
The History Detectives is a great show I enjoy watching.
Some of the tips I have learned over the past 30 years of researching my family
history are as follows:
1. Talk to and record information from family members while they are still living.
This is how I obtained some of the family history from my grandparents. I am still at a
few 'brick walls' from not asking questions, though.
2. As mentioned in this article, go to your local library. While there, ask if they have
newspaper obituaries on microfilm. I have found many family members from the
late 1800's to the present on microfilms.
3. Every state has a GenWeb project site. From these states, individual counties may
have their own information also. Log on to http://www.usgenweb.org/
This is by far the best show on TV -- cable or not! Thank you for all your insights over the years. You are definitely the best thing about Summer.
To Rachel -- thank you for the family tree tips. I started doing mine in May right before a family reunion and was completely struck with how easy it was to go further than anyone alive even knew. I am on ancestry.com. I especially love your tip about two people with the same name in the same immediate family. I have a Thomas Campbell (1799-1880) and seemingly his brother Thomas Edward Campbell (1807-1887). So I am stumped on that one right now.
I wanted to add one thing I learned from another who intersected my family tree. Sometimes a date they signed their will will be misreported as the death date. I had this happen with Archibald Campbell (father of both Thomases). I found his dates to be 1763-1857 and then I found a 108 year-old Archibald in the 1870 census and found another death date of 1871. That can be tricky and puzzling. But I figure the census was more right than that family tree that recorded 1857.
You mention in your link on Census Records that Ancestry.com has online records through the year 1920. They actually have records through 1930. I prefer the Census Records because they are more "factual", but there are some things to keep in mind. Here are a few tips:
1. For better accuracy, cross reference the Census Records with one another before making a hard assumption. There are often multiple people with the same name in the same area... just like today.
2. Check for "little" things... does it say in one census that he/she can read/write and then in another census state that he/she cannot? Don't automatically discard it, because information can be different depending on who answered the Census Taker's questions. But take the time to double-check before assuming one way or another.
3. If a child died young, parents would often re-use the name, I presume in honor of the first child. My Great-Great-Grandfather was the second child in his family named Samuel. I have found other instances, as well. So watch your Date of Birth! You could be looking at the right family, just sooner than you thought!
4. Keep historical facts in mind. Remember what you KNOW is true, and base your investigation on how the "facts" you're seeing compare to what you KNOW. An example from my own research... in the 1850 US Federal Census in Morgan County, Indiana, the Census Taker abbreviated Indiana as IA, not IN. Iowa had been a state for only three years at that point and there was no standard for abbreviations. I figured it out when I realized that no one from that county was listed as having been born in Indiana, but there was name after name after name of people listed as being born in Iowa. The only explanations would be a mass migration from Iowa to Indiana in the 1840's (which we know didn't happen), or there was something wrong with how I was reading the Census.
5. Don't forget to think outside the box. I had a major breakthrough simply by realizing that a particular family was "blended"... each spouse had been married before and each had come to the marriage with a child. To make it worse, both children had the same name!!
6. Check your resources. It's good to get information from other people's trees, but do not add it blindly without checking where they got the information. If one person makes a mistake and 20 people blindly add it (which happens all the time), then you have a pretty messed up family tree! ("I'm my own Grandpa" sort of thing!)
Hope that's helpful!
In tonight's story about the location of the bridge in Columbia, SC, in the wrap up comments afterwards you stated that Appomatox Court House where Lee surrended was in "Northern Virginia." In fact it is in Southside Virginia, hundreds of miles from "Northern Virginia." Otherwise the whole program tonight was one of best ever. We really enjoy History Detectives and have told many friends about it.