Seek ye out of the best genealogy sources accurate information

D&C 88:118 ... seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom...

Recently I came across an article called "The Huge Genealogy Mistake We All Need to Stop Making Now". Those kind of leading titles always get me and I'm usually disappointed but this one was good.

What's the huge mistake? Copying someone else's genealogy research, particularly public online family trees. I still highly recommend the article (even though I ruined the surprise) because it explains four very important reasons to stop copying other people's research. Instead of repeating them (and thereby plagiarizing an article on plagiarism) I'm going to focus on what to do instead.

It's an easy mistake to make. Genealogy sites are begging you to do it. Family Search literally creates your tree by copying it from someone else. Other genealogy sites find matches between your tree and other trees automatically and allow you to connect those people and share research. They encourage you to use other people's family trees as proof that your family tree is correct. But other people's family trees don't prove that your tree is correct.

There are two types of sources. Primary sources come from the time your ancestors lived. Birth, marriage and death records, military records, censuses, personal journals, memories - anything created in real time. Primary sources are usually accurate.

Gravestones are another example of a primary source

Secondary sources are created later, using the primary sources. Family trees, genealogies, books, blogs and websites, binders of research passed down by your great aunt. Secondary sources can be accurate if the person who created them was right, but they could be totally wrong if the person who created them made a mistake.

So are secondary sources completely useless? No. They're a great jumping off point. It's much easier to verify something you think might be true than it is to start from scratch.

Here's an example. You are looking for Eliza's parents. You've searched her name on several genealogy sites and she shows up on a few public family trees. The family trees look right because they've got her husband and children on there too. Most of the family trees say that her parents are William and Catherine in a small town in Wales. How does this help you? It changes your research question. 

You were asking "Who are Eliza's parents?" but after seeing those family trees you can ask "Are Eliza's parents William and Catherine?". The second question is much easier to answer. With three people to look for and a specific place you are much more likely to find good primary sources for Eliza.

You have to be careful, though. Proving that there were a William and Catherine who had a daughter named Eliza isn't enough. You have to prove (or disprove) that it's the right Eliza - the one who grew up to be your ancestor. Look for primary sources that link adult Eliza to her parents, or that link William and Catherine's Eliza to a different grown-up family. Marriage and death records sometimes list the parents. Sometimes adult Eliza will show up in the census living with her parents or one of her siblings. Sometimes young Eliza's sister will list adult Eliza as a witness on her marriage record. It may take a while, but you will have lots to look for.

When you do find some good primary sources attach them to your family tree! You're a secondary source too and you can make it easy for other people to verify your research. Be the tree you'd like to see in the world. :)

Photocredit: Marc Aert. Published on 18 October 2008 Stock photo - Image ID: 1001206

How indexing can make you a better genealogist

Technically, indexing doesn't really count as genealogy or family history work. It gets lumped in there, for obvious reasons, but it's basically just a service project that helps genealogists. That said, participating in indexing can take your research to the next level pretty fast, if you're paying attention.

Inexperienced genealogists skip over great records all the time. The death place is wrong, the birth year is off, that's not how they spell their name. Indexers know better. They know what's going on behind the curtain.

For example, when you're searching through records it's easy to pass over a census record where the birth year is three years off. If you're born in 1996 you're not going to write 1993. Doesn't make sense. If you're an indexer, though, you know that a 5 and an 8 can look pretty much the same. You also know that when it says that's the birth year, the category could really be "close enough to the birth year". And, after seeing how many people can't sign their own name, it's a little easier to believe that these people might not be keeping track of their age very carefully, much less how they spell their name!

Indexing is a fast and fun way to learn about genealogical records. The little things you learn while you're indexing can be worth years of experience. Here's how to make the most out of it.

1. Choose projects that are relevant to your ancestors if you can
If you can find a project (in a language that you speak) for a country or region where your ancestors lived, choose that one! You'll learn common names, abbreviations, and all kinds of other information that can help you with your family history research.

2. Read (or at the very least skim) the project instructions before you start
Not only is this important if you're going to do a high quality indexing job, but the project instructions can also tell you important information about the types of records you're indexing. For example, one of the projects I recently indexed included "marriage banns", which the project instructions said are basically engagement announcements. There wasn't an indexing category for engagements, so the instructions said to put it down as a marriage. Yikes! Next time I see conflicting marriage dates, I'll know what to look for.

But can youth index? YES! Like family history work, there is no age requirement for indexing. Or skill-level requirement. You don't have to worry about messing up someone's genealogy if you index something incorrectly because someone checks your work. It's set up so that anyone can do it, so there's no reason not to!

Get started here!

Descendancy research for when your family tree is "done"

My husband's family tree has been loved. His great uncle was a professional genealogist, his grandmother served a family history mission, almost all of his lines include Mormon pioneers who started doing genealogy in the 1800s. His closest unknown ancestor would have been born in the early 1700s. His genealogy is "done".

My husband and his parents

But it's not. Even if all of your direct ancestors have already been recorded (which is certainly not the case; there's always more to find), genealogy is the business of families - whole families. Your ancestors cared about their siblings, their aunts and uncles, and their second wives (or first wives!). They cared about all of their children - not just the one who happens to be your great-grandfather. Those children deserve to be researched.

I've posted before about how each of our ancestors could have hundreds of descendants. You can find them! It's called descendancy research.

The basic idea here is that you're trying to move forward in time instead of backwards. You pick one of your ancestor's siblings and try to find their spouse and children. Then you try to find all of their grandchildren and so forth.

If you want to see which descendants are already found, Puzzilla is a great resource. Puzzilla shows a simplified version of FamilySearch family tree. You can then choose an ancestor and view all of their descendants that are listed in family tree. By looking for gaps in your ancestors' descendant trees you can easily identify research opportunities.

Jessica used Puzzilla to find new research opportunities and bring names to the temple. You can read about her experience on her blog.

Is your family tree done? Have you researched any of your ancestor's descendants?

Link: 5 ways to tell if your genealogy research is accurate

Have you ever had that moment when you realize that all of your family history research might be wrong? 

I certainly have. 

Census records contradict death records, other researchers have different information on their family trees, your mom remembers that her grandpa was from Ireland, but there's a birth record from Ontario. 

Many beginner researchers are surprised at the amount of uncertainty in genealogical research. Honestly, most of my genealogy is just a best guess based on the records I have been able to find. How do you make that best guess?

This article has some tips. Enjoy!

Googling your ancestors the smart way

It's always a good idea to google your ancestors. There are family history websites out there that are specific to certain surnames. People write blogs about their ancestors. There are government websites that allow you to search records that you can't find anywhere else.

But you need to be smart about it. Focus on one of the places that your ancestors lived.

For example, I've been trying to find records on the family of James and Rebecca McDonald. They emigrated from Ireland to New Brunswick in the 1830s or 40s, but I can't find them before the 1851 census and I don't know where in Ireland to look for them. I don't even know her maiden name. I've searched my family history sites with some success, but it never hurts to google, so I did.

I typed in "Alma, New Brunswick McDonalds"

Not the smartest search ever. But if I ever want some fries in Alma, I'll know where to go.

So I changed it to "Alma, New Brunswick genealogy" and eventually got a list of New Brunswick cemeteries. Here's Rebecca in the United cemetery in Alma, with a death date and a maiden name I didn't know before. Gone but not forgotten. 

I'm still a long way from tracing them back to Ireland, but a maiden name sure isn't going to hurt!

Photocredit: tiverylucky

I bet someone wrote a book about your ancestors

If you can track all of your ancestral lines back eight generations, to roughly the late 1700s, you will have almost 300 ancestors to keep track of (not including your ancestors siblings). It's a lot of people.

Have you ever thought about how many descendants your ancestors have? 

Members of the Church often tell me that, since they are the only member of the Church in their family, they don't expect any of their ancestors to have been baptized for the dead. Then, three or four generations back, they find someone that has. Who did that? One of the other descendants, who you probably don't know.

The number of ancestors you have doubles with each generation. So you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents etc. But the number of descendants is multiplied by the number of children each of the ancestors had. So even though you only have 8 great-grandparents, if your great-grandparents had 10 kids, and each of their 10 kids had 10 kids, those great-grandparents could have hundreds of descendants.

And that's why...

There's absolutely, positively, most definitely no way you are the only genealogist in your family. Your family is massive. Bigger than you can imagine. Sands of the earth, stars in the sky big. Someone else out there cares about the same ancestors you care about. And I bet they wrote a book.

Here are some ideas for finding it:

1. Search a surname and place on FamilySearch books.

2. Read this amazing article about finding family history books using Google Books. 

3. Search the catalog at a local library near a place where your ancestors lived.

Books are great genealogy resources. They can jump-start or rejuvenate your research instantly. The people who write them are often part of local genealogical societies and have accessed records you don't even know that you don't even know about. These books don't show up on regular records searches, though, so you have to go looking for them.

Go on!

Photocredit: adamr

Uploading photos onto FamilySearch to protect and share them

I finally got some pictures of my Grandparents on FamilySearch. Here they are at Niagara Falls. Cute, right?

Sometimes members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints make the focus of their genealogical research finding names to take to the temple. That's great, but getting to know your ancestors that are already found is also a worthy goal. And if you're a beginner, it's the easiest place to start.

Ask your family members for pictures of their ancestors and then offer to scan them into the computer. Scanning a photo is something that a lot of people think is really hard. Honestly, it is; but you can figure it out! And once you do it'll seem really easy.

Getting the photos from your computer onto FamilySearch is the easy part. Just find them on your computer, drag them onto the screen, and upload them. Once they're uploaded you'll want to attach them to someone in your tree. If you have a group photo you can attach it to more than one person and tag each person.

Uploading photos on to FamilySearch is a good way to make sure they don't get lost. If your computer crashes or the photo is destroyed FamilySearch will still have it on their website. It's a good way to share them too. You may have 1st cousins or other extended family who are interested in those photos and don't have access to them. By posting them on FamilySearch you are making them available to family members you may not even know about.

Along with photos, you can add stories, documents, and audio files about your ancestors. They just recently started allowing audio files and I think that's great! My mom has several recorded interviews with her dad that I'm really happy that I don't have to transcribe!

Make sure you have the permission and legal rights to anything you upload onto FamilySearch. For example, you have the rights to your own photos and stories and you have permission for any photos or stories that your relatives give you to put on the website. If you take a picture of document that you own (like your birth certificate), you have the right to that picture, however, you don't have the rights to images that you've saved from ancestry.com or another (free or paid) website that has a copyright.

Other websites that allow you to build a family tree usually allow you to add photos and documents about your ancestors in a similar way. It may seem redundant to have your photos on several websites, but it allows you to share them with more people and (extra) ensures they'll never get lost.

Whether you're just getting in to family history or you're already an expert, protecting and sharing family photos and memories is an easy and rewarding way to serve your family. 

Have you ever found any photos or memories about your ancestors uploaded by someone else? Did it help with your research or make you feel more connected to that ancestor? Share your experiences in the comments!

Update March 2015: Check out Family.me if you want to share memories about living relatives.

One easy way to get more hints on family history websites

Have you seen those little leaves on Ancestry? They kind of wiggle when you mouse over them. They're just asking for you to click on them.

On Family Search there's a section at the top right of each person's page for "Record Hints". It's the same kind of thing.

Want more hints? 

There's one simple thing that you can do:

Make sure that the information on your tree is computer-friendly!

The website is using the name, dates, places, and family members you have listed on your family tree to look for records. You can get more hints by making sure that those things are in standardized formats that computers can understand.

For example, most of my tree comes from a tree that my mom made in the 90's. I've uploaded it to FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, and Find my Past. But when my mom made the tree in the 90's, the standard formats were different. Some of the places are "Guelph, , Ontario, ". Those extra commas leave a place to add a county and country, but they confuse the computer. I know (or I can find out) which county and country should be listed between those commas and I can get more hints by adding the extra information to my tree.

Whenever you see something weird on your family tree, fix it! Correct misspelled words, make places more specific, add all of the family members that you know about. When the information on your family tree is easy for a computer to input into a search, the websites will send the search results to you. Then all you have to do is evaluate them and add those sources to your family tree. Easy, right?

Have you had any luck with hints on any of the family history sites that you use?

Find old newspapers (for free!)

Click on the image to go to the original source

I saw this pin on pinterest and I was so excited! Newspapers are a great resource for family history because they can give you a glimpse into your ancestor's life in a way that a government or church document just can't. 

For example, I recently found a newspaper clipping about my grandma. It listed "the out-of-town guests" that came to her wedding! But, along with the article about my grandma, there were articles about that year's fall fashions, ads for local businesses (a bedroom suite for $229!), and other news that she probably would have been interested in. The newspaper gave me a better idea of what life was like for her and what kinds of things may have been important to her when she got married.

So I looked her up on the Google news site and there were no matches! I looked up a couple of other ancestors as well with no luck. In fact, I couldn't find any articles from before a few months ago. I started to doubt the pin...

But I wasn't ready to give up, so I googled "google news historical newspapers" and the first result was http://news.google.com/newspapers. This is different than the main Google News site and there are some great (totally free) resources there. I haven't found any of my ancestors using this site yet (the search function could be better); but I have read some newpapers from the place where I know my ancestors lived at the time they lived there and I've really enjoyed it.

I highly recommend learning about the places where your ancestors lived and the major (and minor) events that happened during their life. Even if learning about these things doesn't give you specific information about your ancestors, it can help you to better understand what their lives were like. Isn't getting to know them the point of your research anyway?

Have you found any news stories about your ancestors? Do you find that reading about the place and time where your ancestors lived brings you closer to them?

Getting valuable family history information out of your relatives

Many people start their family history work on the computer. I did. But that's not really where it should start, and it's definitely not where it should end. Talking to relatives is so key. Even if they are not involved in genealogy, they usually have information that is very relevant to your research. 

If you're lucky they will naturally volunteer some of this information. All you have to do is pay attention and find some way to record their memories. For example, last time we visited my husband's grandma she shared a story about how particular her great-grandmother was about her tea. My brother-in-law was listening. He quickly realized that the person she was talking about must have been born in the 1800s. He was excited to know personal information about someone born in 1863. When he got home he blogged about his experience, recording it so that he won't forget.

Some of your relatives won't be as forthcoming. Maybe your whole family won't be as forthcoming. Some families just don't talk about the past. You may have be sensitive about bringing it up.

Photos are a great place to start, if you can. My grandma has a few photos of her parents and other relatives on display at her house. One day I asked to see them. As she showed me the pictures she explained who each person was. Then, naturally, she shared personal stories about them. I made one crucial mistake, though! I didn't write any of it down and I've forgotten everything she told me. Recording memories is more important than any other family history work you can do. My grandma is still alive, but if she doesn't feel like sharing those memories again, they are lost. 

My daughter "interviewing" my grandma

You can also grab the opportunities that come. What I mean is, someone in your family may say something like, "Grandpa used to love this kind of cake." Grab it! That information is worth recording, but think of how much more information you could have if you asked a follow-up question. "What else did Grandpa like?" "Did you ever make this cake for him? Who did?" "When was the last (or most memorable) time you saw Grandpa eat this kind of cake?" Those kinds of questions can start a natural conversation that will lead you to information that you can't get anywhere else. But don't forget to record those memories as soon as you can!

Lastly, don't forget that your living relatives are part of your family history too. Their memories about themselves and your memories about them matter. Record them!

What kind of family history gems has your family shared? Does your family talk about their memories or do you have to encourage them to share? Where do you like to record their memories and yours?

Link: How to find the father of an illegitimate child

I don't know how to find the father of an illegitimate child. I do know it's tough. 

This Dutch genealogy blog has a great article about finding the fathers of illegitimate children. The examples and links are specific to the Netherlands (which may or may not be relevant to you), but the research strategies should work for anyone.

Here's the link:

How to find the father of an illegitimate child

Which search results are about your ancestors?

Looking at search results can be daunting and exciting. It's easy to get overwhelmed. I sometimes forget who I'm even searching for! Whenever you look at a search results there are four things you can check to see if the record is about the right person.

Is the name similar to the information you have? The name doesn't have to be an exact match. Don't get hung up on spelling. Sometimes names are illegible and the index doesn't represent what the name really is. But there should be something recognizable about the name that can tell you if it really could be your ancestor.

Does the date match up with a time when your ancestor was actually alive? It's a good idea to figure out how old your ancestor would have been at the time to see if their age makes sense. They couldn't have had a child when they were three years old. Keep in mind that the birth year you have may be a little off and some records could have them listed after they died, so keep an open mind.

Is the record from a place where you think your ancestor lived? People didn't usually move without a very good reason. Some of your ancestors probably lived in the same town - maybe even the same house - all their lives. You can also use place and date to rule out records that couldn't both be right. For example, if you have Thomas Epplett in the 1871 census in England and in the 1871 census in Ireland, one of them is not the person you are looking for.

Do any of the family members on the record match the ones you know about? Are the spouse and children right? Maybe they are living with a sibling or one of their children on the census. Their neighbours on the census will probably include some family members too. Other records should have family members listed too. They might have their sibling as a witness for their marriage or maybe their daughter is the one who reported their death. Families usually stick together.

Simple, right? But easy to overlook. Don't forget to check the basics.

Pinterest for family history

I stumbled across this post today about creating an ancestor timeline on Pinterest and it hit me. Pinterest a great place to save sources!

I know I should keep a research log, but it's so boring. A research log is basically taking notes while you're researching so that you can go back and figure out what you found out and where you found it. It makes total sense because as soon as you find one thing about someone it opens up all kinds of other possibilities. But it also kills momentum. You find something exciting and the first thing you have to do is write it down? Buzz kill. That's where Pinterest comes in. Pinning something never kills momentum.

It's like an online research log with links to what you've found. It only takes a second to hit the pin it button (you can add the pin it button to your browser here) and add a quick description and then you have a saved link back to the source you found. The description could be as simple as the ancestor's name or it could include more details.

You could have a board for each person, one board for all of your genealogy stuff, or - and this is what I'm going to do - a board for each great-grandparent and just put stuff for that whole family line all jumbled together in there. It could be private or public and you can send the whole board or individual pins to your other family members. You could even have a shared board so that you can collaborate with the other family genealogists whether they live 10 minutes away or in another country.

Several of the genealogy sites I use have a "save source" option, but I use more than one genealogy site and sometimes I just use Google. Pinterest is a great place to save records from a variety of sites.

Well, it's been nice chatting, but I think I'll get started.

Update: Sometimes genealogy pages don't have images to pin to Pinterest. Try looking for another extension for your browser to solve this problem. The one I found for Chrome is called "Pin my Screen" and it just takes a screen shot of the page for Pinterest to pin. Here's the link.

Filling in the blanks in your family tree

The number one question at the youth family history night I attended was this: 

"How do I look for this person?"

This is a great question! And the answer is easy.

Search for records about the child of the person you're looking for. So if I wanted to fill in the Add Husband person in the above picture I would search for John Little. All I know about him is that he was born about 1820 in Ireland, was married to Mary McKeever, and had a child named John Little who was born in Ontario. 

Here are some of the types of records I would hope to find to help me identify his parents:

• A marriage record for John Little and Mary McKeever that lists their parents. I would expect this record to be from Ireland or maybe Canada.

• A death record for John Little that lists his parents.This record would probably be from Ontario because his son was born in Ontario and he likely stayed in the same place after having his children.

• A census record with John Little as the head of the family that has someone listed as father, mother, sister, or brother of the head of the family.This could be from Ireland or Canada. Even if I could find a sibling or a cousin for John Little I would be closer to finding his parents.

• An immigration record for John Little and Mary McKeever that lists where they lived in Ireland. Searching for his parents would be much easier if I didn't have to search a whole country. A city or a county would really help me.

Birth records for John Little are probably not going to help me much because there are lots of John Littles born in Ireland and I won't be able to tell which one is about my John Little. 

Although I would be hoping and praying for a record like the ones I have listed above, I would really just try to find out as much about John Little and his family that I could and hope it leads me somewhere. I hope it leads you somewhere!

Searching for female ancestors

Women are the trickier sex when it comes to genealogy. It's the maiden name/married name change that always gets me. You never know which last name they're going to use and if they get married a couple of times it can be very confusing. Here's a few things to keep in mind when searching for women.

1. We almost always refer to women by their maiden name in a family history setting. Don't forget to search by married names too! Many women spend most of their life with their married name. In fact, always search both names if you know them. And try it a couple different ways. For example, in the last name field you could try searching "maiden married", "maiden", and "married". And then it's a good idea to go through some alternative spellings of both names if you can.

2. If you only have a married name for her, look at the other people listed in the house on census records. If there is anyone listed as head-of-household's in-law you might be able to get a possible maiden name that way. Some other types of records have witnesses listed that could lead you to a maiden name too.

3. Remember that women can change their name multiple times if they marry more than once. Her "maiden" name on the marriage certificate could be a married name from a previous marriage. Don't rule out records without looking closely at all the possibilities.

4. Searching other family members can often help if a woman has changed her name. For example, if you can find her on the 1881 census with her three children and then can't find her in 1891, search for the three children instead. If her husband died and she remarried the children may have kept their father's name. They may also have her listed on their marriage and death certificates and that can help you narrow down a place where you can start to look for her.

Also keep in mind that two women with the same name may not be the same person! I have one ancestor that married two different women named Anne. The only reason I know they are different people is because the census listed how many years they had been married. One year he'd been married to Anne for 20 years and ten years later he'd been married to a different Anne for only 3. Yikes, that must have been confusing!

Finding your ancestors through prayer

You type in "Grizelda Crowell", search. Nothing comes up. There aren't any records for that person. She's lost.

I teach the 3 year old children at church. It would take them about two seconds to solve this problem. When something is lost, say a prayer and look again.

Family history research involves searching. Prayer is the best way to direct the search.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Matt 7:7-8

Why doesn't Ancestry.com have the record I'm looking for?

It's usually pretty easy to find answers to questions on the internet. Type in "what is the state flag of California" and you'll get a picture of it, even if you can't spell California. So why can't I find someone's death certificate by typing their name into ancestry.com? 

The record you're looking for might not be on the site. It seems obvious, but I'm still surprised every time it happens to me.

Sites like ancestry.com can only search records in their own databases. They build their databases by asking for records from the agencies who own the records (often governments and churches). The record-holders can say no. And then the record doesn't end up on the website. Simple. 

Or if they say yes, it can take a really long time to become available. Search engines can't search the text in the original records because they are pictures, so someone has to type every individual record. It takes forever.

When the American government released the 1940 census, millions of people helped type it out (they indexed it) and it still took several months to finish. You couldn't find anybody on the 1940 United States census until the government released it to the public and it was indexed.

Check out which collections each site has available to see which records you are searching. And keep checking back because they're adding new collections all the time.

Inheriting Genealogy: 5 steps for new genealogists in genealogy-savvy families

Just because you’re a beginner genealogist doesn’t mean you are the first one to begin. Lots of families already have a great uncle or a grandma who has “done” the family history. No matter how much work they’ve done, there’s a lot more to do. I promise. But there’s no reason to start from scratch if you don’t have to. Here are 5 steps you can take to get started.

My mom inherited most of our genealogy information from her Aunt

1. Get files from the other family genealogists

Family Tree and other genealogy-sharing websites have made this step a lot easier. In Family Tree you can just log on and input information for your living relatives starting with your parents. You shouldn’t be able to find living people, so just add them as new people even if you know they have their own account. As soon as you get back far enough to input a deceased person just switch from add person to find person. If you add a "found" person to your tree, all of their ancestors are added too. It’s great because you can get all the information you need without actually talking to anyone in your family.

Just kidding! You still have to talk to them. Ask around your family for PAF, GEDCOM, and other genealogy files that are not posted on the internet. While a lot of information is posted on genealogy-sharing sites, most genealogists keep their records off the internet so that they can have more control over them (or because they’re still on dial-up). Even if they’ve shared what they have on Family Tree, they probably have a lot more information buried on their computer somewhere. You may have to help them find it. Bring a flash drive with you to get the files, though, because some of them are too big to e-mail and it may take a really long time to upload them onto cloud storage like Dropbox.

2. Compare

If you can find more than one source for your genealogy (i.e. you found stuff on Family Tree and in Aunt Min’s old binder), they probably won’t match. Don’t automatically assume that one source is right and the other one is wrong. More likely, they’re both right and wrong in different places. Don’t start correcting until you’ve done some research. Please don’t call up Aunt Min and tell her that her life’s work is all wrong. Genealogies represent hundreds (and hundreds and hundreds) of hours of work and probably a fair bit of money too. Treat it with respect.

What you can do is start to make a list of discrepancies. If your sources have different places of birth for someone, you want to remember to find out which one is correct, later, when you’re researching. Keep in mind that the answer may be more complicated than it seems, though. A person can only be born in one place, but the place can change names, they can write down the county instead of the city, and other people can write down the wrong place on official records (especially death records. Relatives that fill out death records aren’t always super acquainted with the deceased).

3. Interview your family

But you already talked to them, I know. Now that you’ve looked at their files hopefully you have other questions. Bring a paper pedigree (or make sure you have your genealogy stuff in front of you when you call) so that you both know which ancestor you’re talking about. Family history conversations can be confusing without a reference point.

Ask about one of the discrepancies you found. You may be able to solve it without doing any further research. Your experienced genealogist relative can probably tell you if one of your ancestors had aliases, or if two places with different names are really the same place. They keep this information in their heads, though, so you have to ask.

It’s a good idea to interview family members that don’t consider themselves genealogists too. You may be the first one to ever ask them about what they know about their family and they probably know more than you’d think.

4. Start your research

When your pedigree goes back to Hans King of Denmark, where do you start? With your closest ancestors, just like everybody else. There are so many more records available now than when your grandma started so start at the beginning. You probably won’t be able to find much for people born after about 1930, though, so don’t get discouraged with a slow start. Just keep looking.

5. Share what you find with the other family genealogists

It’s really important to maintain contact amongst genealogists in the family. Older relatives can help you know what to look for and they can teach you how to read confusing records. You can help them too. Find a way to consistently share the records and information you find with your interested family, through e-mail, or cloud-sharing, or a website. You may have to print out the records and mail them. Choose something that’s easy for your relative. Genealogists keep so much of what they know in their head and your only way to access that information is to keep in contact. Trust me, it will be worth it.

Five free family history resources that beginners can actually use

There are lots of ways to spend money on family history research – from ordering a birth record to paying for a subscription to a website. I love genealogy, but with so many great, free resources I just can’t justify spending money on it… yet. Here’s a list of the free family history resources I use on a regular basis.

1. FamilySearch.org

There’s a reason this is number one. I’m definitely not saving the best for last. There are billions of records on this site and they are literally adding more every day. The site is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) and everything on the site is completely free for anyone to use. The Church has an online army of volunteer “indexers” who transcribe handwritten records into typed, searchable text. (You can too if you’re interested.) This allows Family Search to get the rights to the typed versions of the records for a very low cost and so they can provide the most of the same records as the paid sites for free. Along with free access to family history records, Family Search has a pedigree program, called Family Tree, which allows users to save and share information they find on their deceased relatives.

2. Government websites

Who has the original records? Usually governments and churches. They issued them. The UK, the US, and Canada all have excellent genealogy resources on government websites and I’m sure many other countries do as well. You can usually find them by searching “Country government genealogy archives”.

3. Libraries and Family History Centers

I can’t even imagine how much work it must have been to try to do genealogy without the internet. I’m glad I never had to. Even though there are a lot of great online resources, a lot of family history information is still on microfilm (and microfiche) and in books. These are great resources! Start at your local library and look for genealogy books about the places your ancestors lived. Those books can tell you about the kinds of records taken in that area and can sometimes provide you with historical context that will tell you more about your ancestors than any of the records. Immigration records won’t tell you that your ancestor immigrated during the Irish potato famine. Only historical context can do that. There are also special genealogy libraries where you can access records and get help with your research. I highly recommend the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

If you live close to an LDS church building (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) you can access paid genealogy sites for free from the Family History Center. You can check if there’s one in your area using their locator. Anyone is welcome, though their hours may be limited so you’ll want to check that first. Most centers also have microfilm and microfiche readers.

4. Google

Yes. Google. Or whatever search engine you prefer. Genealogy is super place-specific and different places have different resources. I have ancestors from a small, tight knit island in Nova Scotia. There are websites and even genealogical societies specifically focused on people who lived on that island. The easiest way I’ve found to find out about the place-specific resources is Google. Just type in “Place family history” or “Place genealogy” and hope for the best. I hope for the best for you too.

5. Two week free trial at Ancestry.com

While Family Search has much of the same information as Ancestry, Ancestry can usually provide an image of an original record where Family Search cannot. And it is by far the most popular and family history site out there. Don’t sign up for the trial right away! Save it. Since you can only have it for free for two weeks, you have to make sure you’re prepared and can get as much information as possible within those two weeks. Before you sign up for the free trial try to find as much as you can on free sites. Make list of the things that you really need to find out like birth places and years that you’re missing. You can even search the records for free and find out what they have available. Then wait for two weeks when you have nothing else going on (easier said than done) and get as much as you can. You can save time by just saving the records that you find on your computer and looking at them more closely later.

Bonus source: Your family! 

If you’re going to start finding out about your family history you have to start close. Interview your parents and grandparents (and aunts and uncles and cousins). People love to talk about their memories. Recording an interview on your phone is super easy so you really have no excuse. The information is so close and all you have to do is ask. It’ll be fun; I promise.