Family Tree?

Question:

Family Tree?

Hi I want to start my family tree, any tips on how to go way back into my family roots?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Way back? Fasten your seatbelt. Better yet get comfy, it's going to be a long ride! You've been given many (mostly) good ideas already. One thing I can add is that both rootsweb.com and familysearch.org offer a free primer for genealogy research on their sites.

The best, quickest help to building your family history on your genealogy software is access to census. We weren't told where you are from so it's difficult to give specific advice, but if you're US you'd be best off to subscribe to ancestry.com's because it's every-person indexed from 1850 and the search template is superior. Best of all you can do it at home any time day or nite.

One of the next things to get familiar with might be the surname and place message boards at ancestry.com, rootsweb.com and genforum.com. After you've scoured those and get a feel for what's more professional and to the point, try rootsweb's name and place email lists.

Ancestry, rootsweb, and familysearch.com also have historical records you can access online. Historical will always be more accurate than what someone puts down as "pedigree resource" or IGI there, which is something to keep in mind always when comparing others' "trees" and privately published genealogies and local histories. To err is human and sometimes we're careless or just plain wrong! Happy hunting!