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Question:i want too know where my family originia from


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: i want too know where my family originia from

As Skip suggested, except I would only look for the oldest proven link to your family and start from there.

Then join one of the following:

Ancestry.com .ca .au or .uk

A membership will allow you access to all the records of each country, supported with many other links.

It would help if you said what country you are in. Obviously not an English speaking one from your question.

I am afraid that you did not provide any specifics in your question. But here I few ways to get started. Forget the websites for now.

1) get a pad of paper to interview your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents if still alive. You will want what amounts to a family history. You want to know the following up front: Dates of births for them and all the others you will interview, and (siblings, their parents. Dates of death as appropriate.

2) Very important: military records, enlistment dates, pension dates if any, wars they served in, names and state regiments, divisions, etc. Ask what family members may have received a decedent's pension. The military has been an excellent genealogy source because of record-keeping.

The idea is to work your way backwards from the present to the past because there is usually more (accurate/available) information in present or recent past.

3)Ask all persons interviewed what documents they have (or the location), or anyone in the family has pertaining to #1 above (birth, baptismal and death certificates, marriage licenses, enlistment and pension records, etc.

4) ask each person to list their exact (or at least approximate) residences and dates of occupation starting with most recent and going backwards. Specifically ask the name of the towns, cities, etc at the time of their residence, county and state. Did they have any lease, mortgage, deed, tax documents, etc.

5) What religion and church/synagogue did they belong to. Get any documents if available.

6) Cemeteries for all appropriate persons. Ask for plot identification if available.

7) School enrollment and documentation if avallable.
8) Particulars about any organizations, fraternal group affiliation. What were their hobbies/interests if known.
9) any citizenship or legal/alienage particulars of all persons.
10) if immigrants, how did they get here and when. Who came with them, name of vessel and ports of embarkation/landing, etc.

Now you have to know something of a country's particular history and what record systems are available at certain periods in order to research overseas. Are there any living relatives in the home country who can help you. Or, can you hire a genealogical researcher there, go there yourself. If you no nothing but the name of home country and some tidbits, contact someone on the History Department faculty who might be able to shed light on record-keeping sources, etc. The foreign stuff is AFTER you exhaust the above stuff.

11) Based on the above information gathered you will want to start with census records. You must know approximately where your family members resided at the TIME of the Federal census (every 10 years). Census records are readily available. Census records will give you names in household, ages, country of origin, slave/free, and occupations, some other stuff in later years.

12) there will usually some inconsistencies or gaps the farther you go back. Now the hard part- research your interviews and gaps in documentation at archives, libraries, court houses, etc as appropriate. Fill in the blanks where you can with documentation, reliable sources.

13) Rule of thumb- When someone dies, moves away, their knowledge goes with them and may be lost forever. Start with any elderly and/or disabled relatives, or anyone who is moving away soon.

Every situation is different especially when you get to the home country. Foreign countries keep some records we do not here like tithe records, land valuations, landlord records, etc.

Citizenship 19th century -- any court jurisdiction from the local to the Supreme Court could process citizenship papers. That means you may have to research each for a given state, Federal, State, local.

Some states kept their own military records as well as the usual Federal sources.

Some neighbor, friend, war buddy etc may be able to supplement or recall information and close gaps.

You can also Google names on the web and see if anything interesting tuns up on someone. You can join ancestry.com to do some research and go to the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) website for a family history center near you and genealogy software. Make a family tree on paper. Keep all records/ documentation safe and backed up to disk.

I forgot -newspaper archives maybe.

NEVER trust your memory. Write it down always.