13Mar/108
Genealogy help?
So I've been working on family trees for a while, mostly collecting names from family and to date I've gotten pretty far on a few of them. Problem is, I want to start getting more information about these people and not necessarily proof, but definite birth and death dates.
Anyone know where/how to get started without having to pay a crapload of money to one of these sites? I watched the Ancestry.com special on Sarah Jessica Parker and it rekindled my interest in my trees. Looking for any advice.
March 13th, 2010 - 09:14
My mother has done a lot of this, so I just sent her an email asking for some tips. I’ll let you know what she says.
.-= secret agent woman´s last blog ..It’s not just the squirrels and birds… =-.
March 13th, 2010 - 16:55
From my mother:
“There are several free genealogy boards. I think googling “genealogy board” would turn them up. I used to have a lot of them bookmarked on the hard drive I’ve lost. There’s ancestry.com, genforum.com and rootsweb.com that I can think of. And often, just googling what you know about your ancestor will turn up family trees online. (Like full name and birth or death date.)
Those sites are free–there are probably links to for-pay ones on them, but you don’t have to do that.
You can go to the surname boards on those websites and leave queries. Like say I was looking for William Marion Black, I could go to the Black board (inadvertent joke) and search for “William Marion” and see what turned up. Or “Savannah,” since I know he was from there. And if I found nothing, I could leave a post asking if anyone knew anything about him.”
.-= secret agent woman´s last blog ..It’s not just the squirrels and birds… =-.
March 14th, 2010 - 11:36
Talk to Jeni at “Down River Drivel.” (http://oldavonladysorders.blogspot.com/) She’s done extensive family tree research and has been able to delve way, way back into her family history. She’ll be able to tell you where to go for good information.
.-= terri´s last blog ..Life is Good – March 12, 2010 =-.
March 14th, 2010 - 13:25
Cool, thanks!
.-= M@´s last blog ..Genealogy help? =-.
March 14th, 2010 - 19:31
Thanks for coming by my blog -and remind me to thank Terri for sending you to!
First off, yes there are some free sites -but Ancestry.com is definitely NOT one that is free! Although, some of the information on Ancestry.com can be found in places where it IS free -things like the US Census information and the Social Security Death Index -but most everything else on Ancestry is information that you have to have a membership to access.
First off, do you have a geneology program -like Family Tree Maker or some other software that you can build a tree with? I use Family Tree Maker myself and I’ve had their software since about 1999 or 2000 and I upgraded it once but there have been several upgrades since my last one and I just don’t have the funds to keep upgrading plus keeping up my Ancestry.com membership too.
If you don’t have any family tree type of software, I’d recommend you get one of those units and start with it. There are some that are free but right now, I can’t recall which ones they are. I think the Church of the Latter Day Saints has -or had -a free program people could use, but I won’t swear to that right now as I’m getting a bit senile it seems.
Anyway, start gathering any and all information you can from family members. Get names, dates of birth/death, marriage, baptism, confirmation, school graduation dates, higher education, employment and hobbies -along with any pertinent medical data too. You won’t necessarily use every bit of that information but -depending on how in depth you want your tree to be -you might! Oh, and get addresses too -current addresses, e-mail addresses for every family member you can track! THAT will definitely come in handy as well as telephone numbers!
What you want to get from each ancestor is a listing of the names of ALL children born in each family unit. For example, start with your parents -get all their vital statistics as well as any siblings you may have. (And, if you have siblings, get the same information on their partner’s family members as well -as far back as you can go.) When you begin to enter this data into your tree, you will want to list your family coming forward in time -which keeps it a living, growing thing -and also you will list your ancestry as far back as you can get records. (You are supposed to get and copy documentation for all data -birth/marriage/death certificates, etc. -something I have not done in my trees (and I have four trees I work on, from time to time -two going back on my Mom’s side and two going back on my Dad’s side.)
Once you get that data entered and are sure each person you have listed there is really your true ancestor -then you can start researching back further than you already have shown. Just be careful though because it is quite easy to find data on a person who appears to be an ancestor yet really isn’t -especially if you are dealing with very common surnames like Brown or Smith or some such like that.
My ancestry, beyond immediate family and my grandparents/great-grandparents extends then back in time to Sweden and Scotland. I have one side of my Swedish ancestry traced back to the early 1600s; the other side of the Swedish roots only goes back to about 1840 or so. On the Scottish side, I have it traced fairly well back to the early 1800s in Scotland. I was very lucky with my own research though in that I was given the name of a lady in Sweden who was just beginning to branch out and do family tree research there and so, she sent me copies of church records in Sweden that I was able to use to track the one branch back as far as I did -that plus a cousin of my Mom’s had done the first research of my grandparents and great-grandparents there -their children, grandchildren, and on to the current time. I found a cousin on my Mom’s mother’s side (Swedish) who had done family tree research on that side and she sent me all the data she had. On my Dad’s side -the Scottish line -I lucked out again there too in that I found a cousin of my dad’s in Arizona -have never met the lady but found her online via I think it was Rootsweb (a free site anyway) and by reading oodles and oodles of queries posted there, I found this lady whose ancestry’s movements seemed to match up with what I knew about my paternal grandfather’s family so I responded to her query and hit the mother lode! She had been doing family tree stuff for 13 years then and had records of all my Great-grandfather’s children, grands, great-grands and on down the line except for the information pertaining to my own Grandfather -the only one of 13 children who did NOT live in either Montana or Wyoming but rather he lived in Pennsylvania so I sent her information on my Grandfather’s children, grandchildren etc., in exchange for all the data she had. On my Dad’s Mother’s side, again I lucked out in finding yet another cousin researching the same line as mine and we traded data then.
If you get started with the information I recommend you get, get some family tree type software and begin entering your information, when you are ready to begin searching beyond that information, e-mail me and I’ll try to give you other resources but I really wouldn’t recommend getting engrossed a lot in those sites until you have gone as far as you can with the information and knowledge you already have.
It’s not ultra difficult -usually -but it can be if you hit a brick wall. It can and often is confusing though when you first get started but once you get the hang of it, then it’s fairly smooth. Ancestry.com -the service I use -run around $150-160 a year for the records that involve strictly those in the United States. For records from overseas -you have to have the deluxe version which costs around $300-$350 a year -not sure exactly of the price there as I have never purchased that membership.
There are some query boards that you can use that are free and which pertain to various other countries. Sometimes they can be very helpful but often most research -if you get into going back to the “motherland” then you often have to pay to have records sent to you for you to read and study to ascertain if they pertain to your particular branch.
If you have any questions whatsoever -about what I wrote here, or anything else -feel free to e-mail me and I’ll try to help you any way I can. My e-mail address is -avonlady (at) gotmc (dot) net.
Or you can reach me by using the e-mail feature on my profile from my blog too. (Or in comments on my blog as well and I’ll get back to you.
Good luck and have fun doing this! But be prepared too if you really get a big bite of the ancestry research bug to turn into a mega nerd at times as you try to get information, documentation and such! (Sometimes, that aspect that hits many of us tends to drive other family members a tad bonkers!)
Jeni Hill Ertmer
Grassflat, PA 16839
.-= Jeni Hill Ertmer´s last blog ..Scardy. Scardy. =-.
March 14th, 2010 - 19:49
I’m already well on my way, in fact this past weekend I got everything my aunt kept as far as my mom’s side of the family. I’d really like to get back farther on my Dad’s side, so I can get back to Ireland. What I am truly after is to get definitive information about my family crest because a good friend of the family had a family crest ring and that just seemed really cool. That and I want to find out where in Ireland I’m from.
Thanks for the advice, I’ll keep you posted:)
March 14th, 2010 - 19:50
oh yeah, I am using myheritage family tree program, tho I’m thinking of springing for family Tree Maker. MyHeritage is free for the most part.
March 15th, 2010 - 16:18
I wish I knew as well. It is such a wonderful gift to have this info for your children. I also watched the episode with Sarah Jessica Parker. How neat would that be to be able to retrace your ancester’s steps!
.-= Momisodes´s last blog ..Hip to be a dude =-.