What is the best way to start genealogy research?

Question:

What is the best way to start genealogy research?

What public resources are available? I have a lot of names of people from 1890-1930, but no idea how to trace beyond them, and also trace through their sons, daughters, etc.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: The best way I know for you to learn about your roots is to:

Build your family tree on line.
You can use a paid site like:
http://www.ancestry.com/

OR You can do this for free on:

http://www.tribalpages.com/

Start with yourself, and then attach living family members.
Find out all you can about you family from living members, then attach it to your tree.
Now it is time to look for historical records and attach the info to your tree:

It is ALL about census records, and other historical records!

You might get lucky and others may have done some work on your family tree. Google family members names i.e. "Mary Smith" + "family tree"

Free sites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/...

http://www.cyndislist.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

Genealogy message board:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/messageboards/newgu...

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx...

http://boards.ancestry.com/

http://www.gensource.com/common/search.c...

http://messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/family__...

http://genforum.genealogy.com/

http://www.genealogyforum.com/messages/...

http://www.progenealogists.com/messagebo...

http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/b...

http://boards.rootsweb.com/

ECT.
The time may come when you want more information than you can find for free. When this happens you can back up your "tribalpage" tree to your computer on a "GEDCOM" file
you can then go to (I think it is the best subscription site)

http://www.ancestry.com/

Upload your "GEDCOM" file
and start to work!
You might need to make a few adjustments to your tree to make it look better. Source(s):
z First thing is to talk with the elders of your family. If you have Ancestry.com you can check records that way. Look for Census records. If you have a Mormon library close by, I hear they have a very good collection of genealogy records. Send letters to distant relatives and ask them for all the info they can gather. It can get very involved and confusing at times. But the rewards are awesome. Start with you living family and get as much information from them as possible, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. It might turn out they are confused on some things but what might seem to be insignificant ramblings and story telling might turn out to be very important.

Go to your public library and find out what they have. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can utilize. Ancestry.Com has all the U. S censuses through 1930. The 1940 is not available to the public yet. They have U. K. censuses also. Also, Ancestry.Com has message board and when you post a message of their board it shows up on Rootsweb and vice versa. It will also show up on the Rootsweb mailing list. You can put a message in under a surname or location.

Now be very careful about taking as fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. They are user submitted and most of the information is not documented. Even if you see the same information on the same person repeatedly by many different people, don't take that as a sign that it must be correct. People are copying without verifying.

Call your nearest Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church and find out if they have a Family History Center. They have 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.

They do not bring up their religion and they won't send their missionaries by to ring your doorbell.