What is the cheapest way to trace a family geneology?

Question:

What is the cheapest way to trace a family geneology?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Hey Melodee,

If you were lucky, someone in your family would do it for you. A brother, sister, mother, father. Then, you simply take the GEDCOM file from them, graciously. That would be cheap.

The benefit derived from doing it yourself is worth more than the cost for me. From my ancestry, there is an understanding of how the world is related. When I started, I spent about $30.00 bucks on Family Tree Maker software, and within a month, had found my mother's side of the family documented in a set of trees already waiting. A lot of that was free. My fathers side came to me in conversations with relatives, and what I already knew.

From there, when I started looking, what I discovered was missing branches everywhere. My Father's surname is done real good, but my paternal Grandmother's mother, I had not even considered. So, you will discover, that as you progress in your tree, there will be branches you know nothing about, and may be difficult to find.

Back to your question, tracing the family genealogy is getting cheaper with all the information available on the internet, and the interest of people like you and me. There are some really good sites to hook up with distant cousins you don't know you have right now. GENFORUM is such a place. Each Surname has it's own forum. So, you explore a branch by using that forum.

When you discover that the proof of genealogy is documentation and records, you will discover the expense, the real expense. To document 1 person you should have 2 good records. A birth certificate costs a bit of money. So, you can go on the Belief that someone is in your tree, or you can prove it.

If your GOAL is to prove your ancestors came to the USA on the Mayflower, then your genealogy will cost you a lot more money, simply because of the required proof. But, if you simply want to document what you can find, and are willing to live with the ambiguity of <possible> branches, then you can do it fairly cheap.

Start with all the living relatives you have and interview them. Collect pictures, documents (especially Birth, Death, and Marriage ) BMD, Obits, wills, probate, stories (the fun part). Use a cheap software and organize what you know. Now, look at the resulting tree. You see branches missing now. For each person you find, there will be two (parents of that person) people that you need to find.

Here are some sites you might like. Software, Vital Records, Genealogy supersites, and others. LDS Family Search is really good do get dates from. GENFORUM to speak with others for a surname. CINDIS List is a list of list of lists of genealogy sites. Use it for country searches, that will take some time. Ellis Island is a great immigration site. Don't limit yourself to what is here, you can find tons of Vital Record locations where the records are stored online. You can find tons of FAMILY sites by searching for the surname and the word FAMILY in the same search.

If you get stuck, come back here, someone will try to help.