How Can I find out my family history from the beginning?

Question:Does anyone know, I would love to try to trace back my family history back 100's of years ago.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Does anyone know, I would love to try to trace back my family history back 100's of years ago.

Honestly you can't find your family history from the beginning...it HAS to be from the end - YOU.

You have to have a solid foundation, especially in the most recent generations, before any online source can be of use. And quite often, it is those recent generations that can be the biggest problem because information about living individuals is just no posted online by any legitimate source (except for the most public of public records, like phone numbers, etc.)

It requires talking to every family member you can find, searching through scrap books, photo albums, bibles, digging up records when you can (often requires filing a Freedom of Information Request). But talking to family members AND KEEPING GOOD NOTES, is usually the best.

But until you get that solid foundation (usually need to get back to at least 1930) online resources aren't going to help...because you won't find your name (you are living). You might be able to find some information about a deceased relative, the most common place is the Social Security Death Index, which, if you get their SSN you can request a copy of their SS-5 (Application for Social Security Number).

But you can't work from the beginning or without a solid foundation. As I can show...

Consider the following list of people....

John Smith, b. 1860 york co. va, children: John, Mary
David Smith b. 1861 york co, va, children: William, John
Michael Smith b. 1862 york co, va, children: David, Michelle
Martin Smith, b. 1860 york co., VA, children: Anne, Isabelle.

Now, I absolutely GUARANTEE, that half of the above people are direct blood relatives or yours. Guarantee it. Which ones?

You can't answer that! But with a solid foundation in later generations you might. Without that foundation, you can't answer it.

And that's just what you will find online. Except a heck of a lot more AND with no guarantee that ANY of them are related to you in any way.

You can't get there, can't link information you may find online, with your tree. Even a one generation gap will make this impossible.

So start with YOU, then your parents, then your grandparents.....and TALK to relatives. Sometimes you will find that another relative may have done some work already, but even if not, you will get your solid foundation that way.

Thats a good question, wish I knew the answer. It seems especially tough when you consider most people couldnt read or write before a couple hundred years ago.

In addition, those how would you know of those geneology websites are giving you accurate information of if they are making it up to get money??

Find a local mormon church that has geaneology (sp?) records. I was able to research my ancestry beyond the year 740. It does take time and patience though.

Genealogy DEPENDS on records, and yes, you can have a very good idea of which ones are likely to be accurate. Knowing that they ARE accurate is the whole purpose of research.
But.. let me turn your thinking around, so what you DO find is worth your time. The process starts with what IS KNOWN, ie, starting with you and connect yourself to your parents. That is completely opposite from "from the beginning". In other words.. you DO NOT start from the first known Jones, and look to see how you connect to that.
You CAN "prove" who your parents are (for the most part). Then, you prove who your grandparents are. Next, your gr grandparents. INSTEAD of working with memory, every step you work is based on DOCUMENTS like birth or death certificates, or tombstones, census records, wills, so on. (That is how you get past what people don't remember).
Online sites are not out there to know that you are related, they should not claim to. They CAN tell you that Mary Smith, who was born in 1875 in Dallas, was a daughter of John Smith and Sarah Jones (her maiden name). You can connect to that info by already having the records that prove Mary married James Hunter, and they were your gr grandparents.
Going back 100s of years is not that hard at all.. it is standard for good research. Once you have done this for a while, you will find out that most reliable records start in the 1600s or so. Something before that, can be bogus, because few records were kept.
There are just a few absolutely basic "rules" to genealogy, if you want to do it. Look at yourself as the "beginning" of your research, is one of them.
www.rootsweb.com is one (of many) online places with a guide to research (see the front page). You can also visit www.cyndislist.com that has beginner tutorials. Use the internet as a tool.. but remember, people searched their ancestors before there were computers, based on OLD records.

In order to be accurate on our genealogy you have to go to a good genealogy library, preferably, federal archives and do extensive research. The Mormon church has what people have sent to them but remember it is like any other site it also can be totally inaccurate. Just because someone says it's so, does not make it true. It's a good place to start, but you've got to check out all the census and birth and death records you can find and if you are lucky, you'll locate some of your family. All the pay to use sites are also the same. Paying for them does not guarantee that you will find the correct people. Doing genealogy is very difficult and time consuming. Feel lucky if you do find your family tree. But it is also addictive and when you do find that one particular person you have been searching for all these years it makes it exciting and makes you keep searching to fill in the other blanks. Have been searching for one grandfather's family for 15 years now.

You have to be very careful about taking as fact information seen in family trees on ANY
website, free or paid. The information is submitted by folks like you and me. Most is not documened or poorly documented. You might see different information from different submitters on the same people. Then you will see repeatedly the same information from many different submitters without documentation. A lot of people copy without verifying. Use the information as clues as to where to get the documentation.

Go to your public library and check out the genealogy section. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can use.
Ancestry.Com has lots of records and is obtaining more all the time. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet.

Now, still be cautious about information in famly trees. They have 3 programs, Ancestry World Tree, One World Tree and Public Member Trees. Ancestry World Tree is their oldest and probably largest. One World Tree is an absolute mess. Public Member Trees, at first I didn't like, but now I find it a joy to use to set up my own family trees.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons.
In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view for a nominal fee.

I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell. I haven't heard that they have done so to anyone else that took advantage of their resources.

As Wendy mention, vital records are important. Now, until the first quarter of the 20th century, governing bodies for the most part in the U.S. were not recording vital information. Different states started at different times. Also each state has it own laws as to who and when a person can get something like a birth or death certificate. I know in Texas, you use to be able to get a birth certificate 50 years after a person was born if you were not immediate family. Now it is 75 years. States are clamping down due to identity theft.

Before the vital information was recorded by counties and states, you will have to turn to churches for baptisms,first communion, confirmation, marriages and deaths. These records frequently have the names of both parents, including mother's maiden name.

Going back 100 years probably won't be too hard. Sometimes people do find a problem.