[Editor's Note: Tami Osmer Glatz is WikiTree?s Cousin Connector & Community Assistant, and has lectured around the United States on utilizing the Internet for quality, free, genealogical research. She is also the creator of the Relatively Curious Internet Genealogy toolbar, a free browser add-on that organizes hundreds of great, free genealogy websites.]
So you?ve decided to research your family history. Great! But where to begin? Why, with yourself, of course. And though you are just one person, as you start to add parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, the information can quickly get out of hand. It can become a confusing mass of names, dates and places, and it all starts to feel a bit overwhelming.
Here is a simple 5-step plan for organizing, acquiring and using information to grow your family tree, for free.
Step One: Identify & Organize Known Family Information
Determine how you plan to organize your information. WikiTree.com is an excellent place to build your family tree, because it is so easy to share with other family members who may have stories and information to add.
Another option is to keep your family data in a genealogy program on your own computer. (You can always export data files from your genealogy program and upload them to WikiTree too). Genealogy programs help you organize and sort your information, as well as give you a place to keep research notes and other interesting facts and stories you might learn along the way. There are several genealogy programs you can download for free to get started. Personal Ancestral File (PAF) from FamilySearch.org is one of the simplest to start with. RootsMagic and Legacy Family Tree are some others for PC, and both offer a free basic/trial version.
Enter yourself as the first person in your family file, and move backwards and into the past from there. Gather together all the family papers in your own possession: birth, death & marriage certificates; obituaries; newspaper clippings; family scrapbooks; journals; the family bible, etc. Carefully extract names and dates from each item, adding the information into your family.
It really is important to cite the source information for every piece of information that you add to your file which means stating exactly where you found the information. As you continue with your research, at some point you will probably find conflicting data, and knowing the source of each tidbit of information can help you determine which data point is more accurate. At the very least, a citation should include the record type, the author or creator, the name or title of the record, and the location of the record. You want to be able to return to that source easily, and also make it easy for others to find too.
Tips: Enter women using their maiden or birth surnames. Avoid using descriptive words in the ?name? field such as ?twin? or ?baby boy;? keep it to either a name or use ?Unknown.? Enter dates as using the ?day month year? format; e.g., 01 Jan 1913. Place names should include the county, but not the word county; e.g., Houston, Harris, Texas.
Step Two: Identify Missing Information
Identify an unknown individual, or one that you would like to learn more about. Make a ?to-do? list of specific missing or unverified information based on the blanks in your pedigree chart, such as ?Find Grandpa Joe?s parents?, ?Aunt June?s marriage date?, etc.
This is another place where WikiTree makes it easy. Missing and uncertain information is highlighted on profile pages, and you can keep a to-do list on your Navigation Home Page. Some desktop genealogy programs do similar things.
Step Three: Plan Your Research Strategy
Think about what kind of document might have the information you want, and where you might look for them. Uncle Joe might be listed in a census with his parents. Where was Aunt June living about the time she got married? Learn about the area that your ancestors came from. What records are available? When did they start keeping records? Where are those records kept? FamilySearch has free research help available for every state in the United States and for every country in the world, at their free Research Wiki.
It?s also a good idea to set up a research log for each surname to keep track of the places you want to look, places you have looked, and what you found, or didn?t find there. This way you won?t waste time repeating the same search over and over. You can set up a research log in a variety of formats including a handwritten form, an Excel spreadsheet, a free-space page on WikiTree, a Google document; use whatever application or program works best for you.
Step Four: Obtain and Search the Records
Records are usually available at their original source locations, but that doesn?t always make it convenient for you to obtain them, especially if your ancestors lived on the other side of the country, or even the other side of an ocean.
Don?t despair! Records are available from all over the world, both on microfilm (rent them from your local Family History Center) and in rapidly increasing numbers, online. Most folks are familiar with the subscription sites including Ancestry.com?that?boast a huge selection of genealogical information, but at a price.
However, there are many websites that offer excellent resources ? even original document images ? for free. FamilySearch has been digitizing and indexing the LDS church?s collection of over 2.5 million microfilms from all over the world, and making those records available for free online. It?s definitely the place to start.
Other free sites offer US census records, digitized books, family histories and biographies. Search engines can help locate family information on the Internet as well. Google a family name, but include the word ?genealogy? to narrow down the search results. Another search engine, Mocavo, boasts being a genealogy-specific search engine.
Step Five: Evaluate and Use the Results of Your Research
Transfer your new-found information into your computer file, if you?re not entering it on WikiTree as you go. Be sure to record where you found each piece of information (meaning, cite your sources!). Evaluate the new data. Does it conflict with other information you?ve collected? Keep track of conflicts in your notes. Then, choose a new research goal, and start again!
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Be sure to follow the WikiTree blog for future posts. Next month I?ll share my favorite free online websites for genealogical research. Now go dig up some dirt, and plant your family tree!
Source: http://www.wikitree.com/blog/getting-started-family-tree-free/
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