I am a complete and total novice at this genealogy stuff. If you're in the same boat, keep reading!

This whole project started when I was waddling around the World Wide Web and stumbled upon a fragment of a family tree which contained my father's name. I poked around some more, and found that there's an incredible amount of genealogical information on the Web. There's also a bewildering amount of genealogy software available. I figured that, if visitors to this site felt like digging around a bit for themselves, maybe I could help out by sharing some of what I've discovered. So here goes.

    Web Sites

Go to Yahoo! and do a search on "genealogy". You'll end up with long lists of Web sites to visit. In fact, the lists are so long that you might give up in disgust. Try visiting a few of these places instead.

RootsWeb may be the best of the "all-purpose" genealogy Web sites. Plenty of resources and lots of information. They're also playing host to this site.

This site is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church). Because of their beliefs, the Mormons have invested millions of hours and dollars in genealogical research, and they're great about sharing the results. They have several huge data bases which you can search on-line.

  

Two more really good, general-purpose sites. These are perhaps a little more "beginner-friendly" than RootsWeb. Well worth visiting.

  

These two are directory sites, to help you find other genealogy resources on the Web. Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet has over 60,000 links for you to explore. They're all nicely categorized. (The categorizing is much better than you find at Yahoo. Yahoo is a great resource, but the organization of their directory is often very poor.) The Genealogy Hotline at GoHotline has a much smaller list, but each entry is very well annotated, making it easy to find what interests you.

Here are a few more resources worth checking:

    

    Software

Before you start climbing around in your family tree, get yourself a nice piece of genealogy software. Trust me on this. If you use a good genealogy program -- and do it right from the start -- it will make things a whole lot easier for you. A genealogy program helps you keep your data organized and your research on track.

What's the best genealogy software to use? Beats me. There are dozens to choose from. A friend who's an expert genealogist recommended Brother's Keeper. Which is the best program for you to use depends on a whole lot of factors: your computer and its capabilities, your expertise in genealogy, your computing savvy, and how deeply you want to get into this stuff. You might want to check around the Web a bit before you make a final choice, to see what seems to fit your needs the best.

Is there anything special to look for? Yep. A couple of things.... First, make sure the software inputs and outputs data in a format called GEDCOM. That's the standard format for sharing genealogical data on computers. Make sure it handles the latest version of the GEDCOM format (Version 5.5, as of now). If you can look at sample screens from the program, see if they look like they'd be comfortable to work with. And if you can check sample printouts, do that too. See if they look neat and nicely formatted. (Print output is often a weak spot in data-handling programs, and can be a signal of sloppy or amateurish programming.)

So what do I use? I found a program that fits all of my specifications and has one major advantage: it's free! It's a fully-capable, high-end genealogy package called Personal Ancestry File, which is distributed free of charge by the Mormon Church. I've found it very easy to use -- even for a real beginner like me -- and it has lots of nice features. You can download it from the FamilySearch site. (Click the banner up above.)

Another little program you'll want to get is something called GedView. This is a small, free, no-frills program by Mark James that lets people browse through GEDCOM files. Why get this? So you can share your results with people who don't have genealogy software of their own. Just plop your GEDCOM file and GedView on a diskette and send it to 'em. Or send the files by e-mail. Anyone with Windows 95 or above can look through the GEDCOM and see what you've come up with. You can download GedView from the author's Web site at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~tmark/GedView.html

    A Couple of Tips

Like I said before, I'm a real novice at this genealogy stuff. But I've already learned a couple of things that might be worth sharing. Who knows?

The first thing I'd do if I were you is get your genealogy program up and running and enter all the information you know for sure about your family -- ancestors' names, dates and places of births and deaths, spouses and children's names, burial sites, etc. As you search the Internet for names, having as much information available as you can will be a big help in picking out the people who belong in your family tree.

When you're searching the dozens of databases available on the Web, try looking for the person with the oddest name first. Huh? Let's say I'm looking for information on two sisters: Mary Jones and Melliflua Jones. Search for "Mary Jones" and you'll be swamped with results -- way too many to handle. Search for "Melliflua Jones" and if you get a hit, it's likely to be the person you're looking for. Then you can check her siblings for Mary.

I'll try to add some more hints and tips as I do more digging.