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Question: Gnealogy request!. Can anyone help me please!.!?
I'm trying to trace my family tree and I don't know where to start so any help would be appreciated!.Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
The first thing you need to do is talk to your family!. You might be able to find an old family bible that has names and dates in it!. That really helps!. Write down everyones full name, maiden names for the women, birth dates, and place of birth!. Any little bit of information is helpful!.

Maybe someone has already started and is willing to share!.

Get a GOOD program to record stuff in!.
Keep track of all of your sources!. I didn't when I first started and it is a pain to find some of those things again!.

Don't get discouraged when you start out!. Be prepared to hit road blocks, but keep working to overcome them!. Remember that most of the people still living are not listed in a genealogy search!. I guess that is to protect privacy!.

Some sites that can be helpful and are FREE:
http://www!.rootsweb!.ancestry!.com/
http://www!.familysearch!.org/eng/default!.!.!.!.
http://www!.familytreecircles!.com/
http://www!.deadfred!.com/surnames_05!.php
http://www!.genealogysearch!.com/wwwboard-!.!.!.
http://www!.genealogy!.com/cgi-bin/gcom_re!.!.!.
http://www!.worldvitalrecords!.com
http://www!.myheritage!.com
I do use their free site to post my family tree!. Every month they send me notices that they have found possible matches for my tree!.

Some of these do require you to register to use their site, but that is no big deal!. I have been playing with this for about 20 years & this year is the first time I have paid for ancestry!.com It really is a big help, but you have to watch some of the data they think matches!. Sometimes they find a name on a Census record that says someone was living here in 1860, but I know for a fact they were burried 15 years earlier!. There are a lot of instances of people with same name!. That is why you need birth dates & places if possible!. If you find someone, try to match those and the person's siblings or parents!.

It is a lot of work, but is is kind of cool when you actually find something!.

Good LuckWww@QuestionHome@Com

ancestry!.com

genealogy!.com - buying the family tree software program is how I got my dad started!. interview everyone in your family & then work backwards

Government webpage is at http://www!.census!.gov/genealogy/www/

If you know who your grandparents are and where they were living, info is now public from the 1930 census
http://1930census!.archives!.gov/beginSear!.!.!.

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Quite obviously, you start with yourself and work backwards!. Get a large piece of paper and write down every single fact you know about yourself, your parents and any brothers and sisters etc!. Make a note of all the dates and places you are pretty sure of!. Hunt around your documents for original birth and marriage certificates - see what you have and don't have!. Did someone in the family inherit grannys old tin of photos or grandads old WW2 ration card!? Expand your search to your mum and dads brothers and sisters (aunts & uncles) and to your grandparents!. The further you get from yourself, the more sketchy your information is likely to be and you might be a year or two out with births or something, but you can always iron out these problems later!. All you want at first is to see how far you can get back through living memory alone!. After you've got as far as you can this way and asked questions of all those family members who might be willing to help you - some will be very interested and give you all they can, while others might be deliberately obstructive and unhelpful - then you will need to consider gaining access to the appropriate records that will enable you to get further!. This sadly is when the hobby can get rather expensive!. Birth, Marriage and Death certificates cost money, and so too do subscriptions to most of the large professional genealogy paysites on the internet!. The largest of course is ancestry!.com and its offshoots ancestry!.co!.uk et al, who have the US and UK censuses which are an essential tool when you get back to the 19th century!. The further you get back the easier it usually is to find information online, while conversely, searching in the 20th century and later can be quite frustrating!. You will soon become very familiar with the "Data Protection Act"!. People who are still alive do not usually turn up in any standard search at a genealogy or family tree site, hence why you usually have to break the "1901 barrier" for yourself before you will come across any distant second or third cousins working on branches of your tree!. Someone somewhere will have done some work on at least part of your tree, it's just a question of finding them - genesreunited is probably the best place for this!. If you're really lucky that person will be quite a close cousin and already done most of your tree and will have done a good job of their research and be willing to share it with you!. Again though, you can meet some odd people in this game - some will share everything they have without question and not expect anything in return, while others will be less forthcoming!.

Ultimately I guess it is the ordering of things like birth marriage and death certificates that is the most daunting problem you might face, but its one of those things that reads a lot more difficult than it is!. If you're serious about the hobby then anyone on any one of thousands of genealogy related message boards and forums will point you exactly in the right direction for which websites you need to be at and how to order that first certificate!.

The only real thing to say is a warning that the answers won't appear overnight and neither will they appear in two weeks, two months or even two years time!. Many people who have been tracing their tree have been doing it for years and have put in many hours and quite a lot of cash into the project - and crucially - they still don't have all the answers!. Most often, as soon as you find the answer to one question, another two appear to take its place!. It can be never-ending!. You should decide at the beginning how far you really want to take this and ultimately, how much time and money you want to put into it!. I always think of genealogy as detective work - piecing together a giant jigsaw, but I really wouldn't advise anyone to enter into it lightly!. It could take over your life!Www@QuestionHome@Com

start with your family first!. take a good note book!. indexed is best and just ask your folks to remember who they know about in your family!. you'll soon get a good list!. then work down your list confirming what you were previously known!. you'll be amazed at how much information you can get from uncles & Aunts etc!.!.!.

Once youve done that, the internet is a good place to start!. www!.ancestry!.com is one of the better places to go!. it will most likely be a long drawn out process!. but still good fun!. Iv'e been doing it for about 15 years!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites!. I have links to some huge ones, below, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first!.

If you didn't mention a country, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia!. I'm in the USA and my links are for it!.

If you are in the USA,
AND most of your ancestors were in the USA,
AND you can get to a library or FHC with census access,
AND you are white
Then you can get most of your ancestors who were alive in 1850 with 100 - 300 hours of research!. You can only get to 1870 if you are black, sadly!. Many young people stop reading here and pick another hobby!.

No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs!. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late!.

You won't find living people on genealogy sites!. You'll have to get back to people living in 1930 or so by talking to relatives, looking up obituaries and so forth!.

Finally, not everything you read on the internet is true!. You have to be cautious and look at people's sources!. Cross-check and verify!.

So much for the warnings!. Here is the main link!.

http://www!.tedpack!.org/yagenlinks!.html

That page has links, plus tips and hints on how to use the sites, for a dozen huge free sites!. Having one link here in the answer and a dozen links on my personal site gets around two problems!. First, Y!A limits us to 10 links in an answer!. Second, if one or more of the links are popular, I get "We're taking a breather" when I try to post the answer!. This is a bug introduced sometime in August 2008 with the "new look"!.

You will need the tips!. Just for instance, most beginners either put too much data into the RWWC query page, or they mistake the Ancestry ads at the top for the query form!. I used to teach a class on Internet Genealogy at the library!. I watched the mistakes beginners made!. The query forms on the sites are NOT intuitive!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Step #1 would be to interview your older relatives concerning what they know and then write this down so you don't forget it!.

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I've been using genes reunited but you have to pay to find information which is a pain as I'm only 16 and I have no money at all! Www@QuestionHome@Com