Where Do You Start?

Identify what you know about your family. Starting with yourself write down your birthdate, birthplace, marriage date and place, spouse's name, children's names and dates, etc. Do the same with your mother and father, then your grandparents, etc. until you can go no further. Decide what you want to learn about your family. Choose an ancestor from your list that you want to start with. What questions do you want to answer about this ancestor? Select one question to answer as your first goal. Determine what records you need to search to meet this goal. There are two main types of records to search Compiled records-Records of previous research by others, such as a family history or biography. Original records-Records created at or near the time of an event such as birth, marriage, death or census records. Generally start with compiled records then search original records. Obtain and search the record. Some places to obtain records: LDS Family History Centers are great places to order films from and the people are very helpful to researchers. Local Libraries often have films and books that can help you in your search, or can interlibrary loan an item for you. County Courthouses - visiting or writing the county courthouse in the area you are researching is a great place to obtain records for your research. The National Archives - are a great resource for everything from census to military to passenger list records. Record your results and document EVERYTHING. You don't want to do it twice. Write down everything you would need to find the fact again even if you are making a photocopy of the record. Write down the title, author, page number, and publication data for books Write down the census type, year, state, county, township, page number, enumeration district, for census records. Write down the webpage name, address url, contact person, email address, date, etc. for internet obtained info. Go back to #2 and either choose a new question to answer on your ancestor or choose another ancestor to research. Remember this is supposed to be FUN not work. Also, BEWARE genealogy is addicting. :-)

If you need	Look for
Birth data	Birth or death records, christening records, cemetery transcriptions and records, parents church records, family bibles, letters, census, obituaries
Death data	Death certificates, burial records, cemetery transcriptions and records, church records, family bibles, letters, census mortality schedules, Social Security Death Index
Marriage data	County records, family bibles, letters, church records
Naturalization data	Court records for courts (local, county, state, and federal) in the area where they lived (some censuses tell if a person is naturalized)
locations of other relatives	Historical maps, gazetteers, post office lists, other relatives biographies, published indexes, genealogical periodicals, surname files, compendiums, censuses

Below are a few links to pages I found helpful when I first started my research. I'll be adding more info to this page shortly, so I hope you will check back.

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Comments, Corrections, and Suggestions are always welcome.

Copyright © 1999, 2000 Brenda Schnurrer
This page may be freely linked to, but not copied without my consent.