How to Trace Back Your Family History

[Ben Preston]

Some of the things that we do are out of pure curiosity. We may try
skydiving to see if it is as exciting as it is touted to be, or we may
see what happens when we learn a new language or even travel to a new
country. However, some things are tried and forgotten, as the urge to
satisfy that curiosity is gone. Some other things, however, can become
a time consuming but very satisfying endeavor that goes on for years
on end. Genealogy is one of those things.
When you do your family tree, you start out with the people that you
know. You should find some good software that allows you to enter each
name along with all information you have found about them that tells
you they are indeed a part of your family. You should have software
that allows a lot of storage for other data that backs up what you
have and can be clues in other branches of your tree. Once you have
this, fill in what you know and then move on from there.
You can get some great clues about your family through your elders.
You can talk with them before you start to get some names and other
information. What is hard about this is that people tend to forget
some of the things that you need to know like birth and death dates.
However, they can remember things about marriages, where people lived,
and even where they may be buried so you can get more information.
Once you have some leads, you can find more through some great online
sources. Some have a membership fee, but they are great for almost
every type of record out there. Some have free information that you
can get because volunteers have taken the time to put it online. What
you want to find are birth, death, marriage, divorce, cemetery,
immigration, and census records - among others - to get the clues you
need to keep going.
There are going to be times when you become frustrated or feel that
the records you seek are simply not out there. When you want more
family history records than you can find on your own, allow someone
else to do the searching for you. Some sites dig up things you could
not find on your own, or that would take you years to find somewhere
else.