Q&A: genealogy??

Don’t know if you are in the U. S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the U.K. as all questions for these 5 fall on the All English Speaking boards.

I will approach it like you are in the U. S.

First, get as much information from your family as possible. Talk to senior members and tape them if they will let you. They might be a little confused on some things but story telling and other ramblings might turn out to be very important. People who do this say that go back a year or so after doing reseach and listen to the tape again and hear things they didn’t hear the first time around.

Go to your public library and find out what they have in the genealogy section. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com which has a lot of records. They have all the censuses through 1930. The 1940 is not available to the public yet.

Call your nearest Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church and find out if they have a Family History Center. If so find out their hours for the general public. They have records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. Their temple in Salt Lake City has the largest genealogical collection in the world. The Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view. They have never sent their missionaries by to ring my doorbell because I utilized their resources.

While you are at your library and the Family History Center, you will be able to talk with people who can give you some great ideas.

Cyndi’s list has a lot of websites.

Now, be very careful about information in family trees on any website, free or paid. Most of the information is not documented or if so, poorly documented. Often times you will see different information (like dates of birth) on the same person and then you will see a whole page on the same person with identical information and no documentation. Too often people are copying and not verifying the information.
You can use the information as clues as to where to get the documentation.

Death certificates and applications for social security numbers have the names and place of birth of both parents including the mother’s maiden name. I feel the application for social security number is more trustworthy as the person applying for social security most likely knew where his/her parents were born. The death certificate required the widow or widower remembering where his/her inlaws were born.

Rootsweb, FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.Com has the Social Security Death Index. You don’t need the Social Security number as long as you put in the name the way the person had it with Social Security. On Rootsweb and Ancestry.Com, after you find a person, there is a place to the left that you can probe and pull up a letter that you just need to put your address on, sign it, attach your check and mail.

Good Luck!

There are over 500,000 free sites devoted to genealogy on the Internet.

Researching your family tree is about as difficult as writing a term paper in a high school History class. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, but it isn’t as easy as looking up the capital of Peru. If your great-aunt has already done it and posted her line on the Internet, you might find a line from your (dead) great grandfather all the way back to Charlemagne tonight, without any work.

If not, you will have to do the work yourself. Most teens don’t want to spend the time. If you are interested, read on.

These are large and free. Many of them, however, have subtle ads for Ancestry.com in them – ads that ask for a name, then offer a trial subscription. Watch out for those advertisements.

http://www.cyndislist.com/
(240,000+ links, all cross-indexed. If you want Welsh or Pennsylvania Dutch or Oregon or any other region, ethnic group or surname, chances are she has links for it.)

The LDS site and the RWWC here would be the places to look for Great Aunt Matilda’s research. Don’t enter everything; just name and approximate birth year.

http://www.familysearch.com
(Mormon’s mega-site. Click on “Search”, to start with, or “Advanced Search”)

Roots Web
http://www.rootsweb.com
and in particular,
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi
(Roots Web World Connect; 500,000,000+ entries, of varying quality)

Ancestry.com
http://www.ancestry.com/
(which has free pages and FEE pages – so watch out)
and, in particular,
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/default.aspx?ln=
Surname meanings and origins

http://www.tedpack.org/begingen.html
My own site: “How to Begin”

United States only:

http://www.usgenweb.net/
(Subdivided into state sites, which all have county sites.)
(The Canadians have Canadian Gen Web, by province)

http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
(Social Security Death index – click on “Advanced”. You may find your grandparents.)

http://find.person.superpages.com/
(US Phone book, for looking up distant cousins)

United Kingdom Only:

http://www.genuki.org.uk/
(Biggest site for United Kingdom & Ireland)

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
(Free Birth, Marriage & Death Records)

In the USA, some public libraries have census image subscriptions. Many Family History Centers do too. FHC’s are small rooms in Mormon churches. They welcome anyone interested in genealogy, not just fellow Mormons. They have resources on CD’s and volunteers who are friendly. They don’t try to convert you; in fact, they don’t mention their religion unless you ask a question about it.

This is a general hint: Even though you go in through YA Canada, YA Australia, YA UK or YA USA, all of the questions go into one big “pot” and get read by everyone in the world who speaks English. Most of the people here are in the UK and USA, but you sometimes get questions and answers from people who worry about kangaroos eating their roses. So – put a nation, or, better yet, if you are asking about a specific individual, a nation and a state / province, in all of your questions. It will help people help you.