What is the best way to look up family history?

Question:I've been told by many family members that Our blood line is linked to English Royalty, how do I find more information on this?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I've been told by many family members that Our blood line is linked to English Royalty, how do I find more information on this?

It always is a huge surprise to persons who start researching their ancestry... that 25 yrs down the road, it is still not done. It is a long term thing, not something that you look up, and voila, you have the answer. And for us research-aholics, that's fine. We love it.
Getting started CAN be frustrating, for many reasons. You might be looking in the wrong places. You might have not bothered with some of the tips on how to find the info (ie ALWAYS GET THE DOCUMENTATION). You may not realize that "recent" info (less than 100 yrs old) is normally less accessible than people expect. You might be trying to search by surname, instead of focus on the person.
You learn as you go along.
This area has a number of experienced researchers to help. For example... how do you write a question that gets good results? The best way is "I can't find a birth record for John Smith, who died in Los Angeles about 1920". We can give you exact routes for that, maybe even the record itself.
Work from yourself, backwards, ONE STEP AT A TIME. Block out the idea of English royalty for the moment (it's a bias), and only look at the problem in front of you. When you have enough details- names, dates, places, then it MIGHT lead to royalty, but whatever you do find, you'll know it is reliable. The rest falls into place.
Explain what you are stuck on, and see what we can do.

You have to work backwards from the present time......

....start with your parents, then grandparents ,etc.

Yeah, well, first you need to get your parent's surnames, your grandparent'smaiden name, ect. You should ask where they were born, lived, where your great grandparent's lived. It can be kinda hard, but you should keep a log so you can keep track.

The LDS church has the best family history website.

http://www.familysearch.org/

The best way is to do research and not expect to be able to look it up. Don't pick out a person in the past and work down from them.

There are lots of websites with family trees. However, information in family trees on any website, free or paid, must not be taken as absolute fact. The information is subscriber submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Documentation is a must. Even if you see the same info repeatedly by many different subscribers that is no guarantee at all that it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. The information can be useful as CLUES as to where to get the documentation. There are errors in internet family trees. Also, I understand, there are some people who think it is fun to put a lot of information and people in their family tree to see how many people will copy.

You start with yourself and work back one generation at a time. Get as much information from living family members as possible, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. They might be confused on some matters but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might be very significant. See if any family has any old family bibles. Also ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Birth and death certificates contain parent information including mother's maiden name. The Death certificate will usually have their places of birth. Depending on the faith, certificates for baptisms, first communion,confirmation and marriage also have important information.

Ancestry.Com, I feel, is the best website for records. If you find it too pricey then your public library might have a subscription to it you can use. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet.

Don't expect to find information on living people on genealogy websites. There is a concern for identity theft.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. They are free to use but you should first find out their hours for the general public.
In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at 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 of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources.

While you are at your library and the Family HIstory Center, you will no doubt make contact with other researchers and sharing ideas and experiences can be very valuable.

Rootsweb and FamilySearch.org are two good free sites. They have good tutorials on genealogy.

The suggestions already posted are good, also if you go to the library you can look at old newspapers on microfilm, and find the obituaries of the people whose dates you do know, and then you will find out who their parents and relatives are. Also, you can find information online. I've had good luck with the Genforum surname forums. They are organized by last name, so if you know a bit of information about one family branch, you can post what you do know, and often you'll find a distant relative who knows more than you. I found a guy who'd written a book on Workmans (my maiden name) that way, and I was in it, and didn't know until then! County history/genealogy websites are good too, especially if your family has lived in one place for a long time. Sometimes you can find out some information by typing in the names of the oldest (read - longest dead) relatives you do know, and just doing a Yahoo search.