TIPS FOR BEGINNERS
I am always being asked these question " What do I do first?" "I have some information now what do I do?" "I want to make a scrapbook on my genealogy but where do I begin?". No matter how the question is asked it all comes down to the same answer..So I decided to add some tips here, that I have found from working with my genealogy to be of help..
Every one will find each person has a certain way of keeping there records which may not be the same way you do but for them it makes it easy to work with. I will list them and try to explain a little.They may not be in order or the first tips any more important then others, I will add them as I think of them & hope someone will find them helpful.
[1.= Start with yourself. Pick a few good picture's of yourself that you want to , shall we say, go down in history. Use a baby picture & one at certain age's. Write yourself a Bio. List things like the color of you hair, eyes, height, likes, dislikes, schools you went to, jobs you have had & etc. It may not seem exciting to you but 100 years from now it will to someone.
[2.= If you use a computor learn to copy & paste. Make C.D.'s of your work & backup.
[3.= If you choose a web site, find one that is easy to use & make changes to. I personally like Rootsweb freepages, Find A Grave for obits & gravesite information, & Tribalpages for linage. You are in control of them & they will stay there even after you are deceased. Also they are free to use. I have links to them all on here.
[4.= Use acid free pens, paper,pages and NEVER use ball point pen.You want your work to look nice and last.
[5.= Then get a good notebook, taperecorder & camera. Ask ??? of anyone older then you . Take notes & if you record it you can go back & check details later.
[6.= Note your sources. Always write down where you get your information from or who. Some of the first work I did I only noted "in the library" I forgot what the name of the book, author & etc. So if you ask me where it came from I couldn't tell you.
[7.= Some of my first work I put in plastic spiral books. Which you can get the stuff to work with at an office supply. But they don't sit well on a shelf, so I have reworked all of mine. I now keep them in acid free plastic pages & in 3 ring notebooks (like you would use in school) I can remove pages add more & they sit well. I like the ones with a plastic outside cover that you can slip a picture & etc in as a front cover.The best part all can be bought for a good price at Wal- Mart.
[7.= I first added all families together but soon saw how that would not work. So I broke them down in family groups. I also have a separate book for obits & tombstone pictures with dividers between each family.I have the same for wills and such. Makes it quicker to find. I also do a book on the towns, & area where most of my ancesters came from with maps.
[8.= You may want to make copies for the library. Their genealogy dept. will welcome them.
[9.= Making changes. You have the date for someone that doesn't agree with what someone else has. Don't just change it because they think yours is wrong. Check it out, There again sources come into effect. Add it to yours with a note that you got different information from this person and try to get the correct date. Now if someone says you have my mothers date wrong that being in their direct line you can figure they should know and you can change that.
[10.= This one goes hand & hand with #9. You have different dates or spelling of a name on a tombstone, death cert. or from the L.D.S. files. (or obit) Dates & names on all of these have been found to have mistakes. These are only as acurate as the person who gave the information. And some of them once made cannot be changed.
[11.= You find the spelling of your surname has changed in a generation or two. Why?? I have it in my Holliday/Halliday & Dickenson/Dickinson line's. It could be a family feud, it could be someone who couldn't spell good and spelled it like it sounded, also when some immigrants came to America because there name was so different, adapted it to an American version or wanted to make a completly new life for their families.
[12.= You find the census with a really different spelling or other differences. You will find in time the people who took the census are noted for this. If they couldn't spell a name they wrote what they thought was close. In years past census takers were not always welcomed but looked on as the government sticking their noise into your business.
[13.= You can't find a birth certificate for an ancestor. They may not have one. They used to go by bap. records or other forms, birth certificates have only been used the last few generations. Or the records could have been lost, or destroyed during Indian attacks or during war times. They also didn't always record births except in a family bible when born at home.
[14.= You have come onto a brick wall. Say you are looking for someone that you find no record any where of. To give you an example for years I looked for my gr,gr,gr,gr grandfather who I thought to be Alexander Bamford. All the family had him listed as father of Albert Bamford. Then one day I got a letter from a girl who sent me a copy of a will of James Bamford who was listed as Albert's father. So I found the reason I couldn't get any further back. I had another brick wall that turned out the same...
[15.= Names... Always try to get a middle name, maiden name or initial with a date. I myself named my son James Edward Moye and he named his son the same (first & second) my other son wanted to name his son for his brothers so he named his son James Robert Moye. We also found out that when Jimmy's wife Jennifer worked at Disney that another girl by the name of Jennifer Moye worked there in the office and you guessed it she was married to a James Moye..Confusing well in a 100 years it will be, The same thing occurs in my family in three other places.
[16.= Consider doing the web site's I have gotten in touch with so many branches of my family through my web site's. Also any of the message boards, they are good for finding people.
[17.= Don't expect everyone to get as excitded about genealogy as you will, some people just aren't into it. When my fathers mother died my mom went by a few weeks later to see if my aunt needed help in cleaning out the house grandma lived in, & came across all of the diaries my grandma had written & my great aunts diaries in the top of the garbage can. I now have them.
[18.= Picture's...Say you take a picture of one of your children as a baby, of course you know which one it is, or do you. Forty years or so you may not. Write on the back with acid free pen or pencil who & what & where. I asked my mother once about a picture she had of a strange women with my three boys when they were little and found out it was me.. There is nothing worse then haveing a box of family picture's from an older family member and no body knows who they are, except leaving them behind when you move. One day you may find out the names of some from a distant cousin.
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