How To Conduct Genealogical Research
Who is in your family tree and how did they get there?
This is sort of a follow-up to my articles about how to create a coat of arms for your family and how to choose good names.
Genealogical research isn’t straightforward and most people don’t know where to start. Many records are full of contradictions, or are incomplete, if you can find them at all.
Let’s draft up a quick plan of attack.
Begin with the first 5 generations of one line. You can start with your father’s side (patrilineal) or your mother’s side (matrilineal). Then do the other.
Great-great grandfather
Great-grandfather
Grandfather
Father
You
Five generations doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve found that most people don’t know everything even within these recent years. Fill out this small area of your family tree, then you can expand from there.
For each person, you’ll want to find out:
When and where they were born (birth certificate and/or baptismal record)
When and where they became married (marriage license or application, or announcement in the local paper)
When and where they died (obituary and/or gravestone)
Who their parents were (census data)
Who their children were (census data)
Create a folder/document to save all information, plus supporting information (links, pictures, newspaper articles, documents, family photos, etc) for each data point. Save everything and don’t assume it’ll stay on the internet forever. Sometimes websites go down, links break, or information is lost.
The better organized you are when you start out, the fewer headaches you’ll have later.
Now we know what information to look for. Where do you go to find it?
I’d start with FamilySearch.org because it’s pretty comprehensive especially for a free service. You can also build a family tree (some software does this too), cite sources for everything, and the site will auto-suggest information which seems like a close match. Sometimes it links to both paid (ex. Ancestry) and free (ex. FindAGrave) websites. It may even give you a head start by providing partial family trees.
Depending on whether your tree contains any genealogy chads, they may have done a lot of the work already. You’ll usually find this information on FamilySearch, Ancestry, or Geni. Some families may have their own websites or even books. Genealogy varies considerably from family to family. For example, one branch of my family had about 100 years of information, and another branch had almost 1,000 years.
Eventually, you’ll start running out of information or otherwise find gaps in the family tree. The most obvious thing to do is talk to your family members. They may have newspaper clippings, personal stories, or other valuable details.
Save information about people too, not just dates and names. What did they do for a living? What type of home did they keep? What were their hobbies, dreams, and aspirations? This type of information can be difficult to get, especially as you go further back. Future generations will thank you for compiling it, if it exists.
Military/war records can be a figurative gold mine. The National Park Service has a search for Civil War soldiers, and there are organizations like Daughters of the American Revolution for more.
The National Archives are somewhat hit-or-miss.
Also see: SearchForAncestors.com
The next step is to use the Ancestry.com free trial since they have some of the most comprehensive records. The cost isn’t high if you need more time. You can do their DNA test too, but don’t expect it to reveal much.
Remember: keep in mind that many records are contradictory, incomplete, or missing. Typos are common too, as are abbreviations and nicknames. You may find 3-5 different names for the same person, especially if they changed their name after immigrating. This is part of why the data trail is important and you save everything. Finding connections between people may not have obvious answers.
Overall, you shouldn’t have any big problems filling out the first 5 generations of your family tree with the above resources, even if your family has a lot of recent immigrants. It just takes time. Step it up to 10 generations if you can, then 15. If you can get above 15, that’s impressively well-documented.
For more information, you’ll probably have to hit the road: historical societies, libraries, newspapers, and churches/parishes.
Local churches are particularly important because their records often go back further than government organizations. This becomes even more important in turbulent areas, like those formerly controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Churches may be a one-stop-shop too: baptisms, marriages, and burials all performed by the same church for a single family.
This is part of why it’s so important to know where people lived. Mobility was more limited in the past compared to today’s world. If someone got married in one area, they probably stayed there until they died, or nearby. It makes record-finding easier.
Alternatively, you can try to pay someone to do all the research for you. But I don’t know how deep genealogical researchers will go, or where to find them, or how much it’d cost. Personally I recommend letting the autism flow, and diving deep into your family history.
“Who controls the past controls the future.” ― George Orwell
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