Genealogy
"Who are you? Who, who, who, who?"We're all familiar with this song by The Who. We hear it every time we watch CSI on TV. Genealogy can help you answer that question about you and your family. We can learn more about ourselves by studying those who cam e before us.
Genealogy is more than names, dates and places. It's also history. What are the family stories and traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation? What cultural or historical events shaped the family? What were the social customs of the times? Begin asking these questions of yourself and your family. Don't let those stories fall through the cracks!
Getting Started
Start with yourself and work backwards by filling in as much as you can on a pedigree chart, which shows all the ancestors from you directly descend. Then continue with all you know about brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins by filling in family groups sheets. You will soon discover you have lots of paper! Software is available to help save trees and make your life a bit easier.
Next decide where you want to go from here. You can pursue one family line, investigate one particular ancestor, or try to fill in the blanks for what you already have. It's really up to you.
Dig through closets, drawers and attics to find artifacts, records, photos, anything that sheds light on your family. Contact your relatives and see what they know. They probably have lots of information and stories to share.
Be sure to document what you find. This is my main failing. You (and others who look at your information) want to be able to find it again. You also want to prevent extra work by looking for the same information twice. Keep a record of what you find when. Try to get copies of original documents and don't put your trust in indexes of originals.
There are many resources online. Ancestry.com is probably one of the most well known, but there are plenty of free sites out there with tons of information. Put your surname in an Internet search and see what comes up!
Visit your local Family History Center (run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Mormon). Each center has local resources and computer access to others. The people on staff will be able to help you if you get stuck.
Try creating a timeline to put your ancestors in a historical and social context. They're not just names and dates, but people who were influenced by the times in which they lived.
Join your local genealogy society. Even if you live away from your ancestral stomping grounds, you'll find kindred spirits who can provide support and a sounding board for when you hit that inevitable brick wall.
Software
It didn't take me long to figure out there was going to be a lot of information connected with my family. I decided to use genealogy software to keep track of what I had. There are many software packages out there. I use Legacy. I stumbled across it at the computer store (it was the only one they had and it was pretty cheap). I like it because of its ability to generate web pages that I can save to my hard drive then edit and post where I want. (Other software packages will generate web pages, but not all of them will allow you to post to your own site. Family Tree Maker is like this.)
Software packages have features for creating reports, recording sources and adding photographs.
Most software packages provide a means to import and export a GEDCOM file. This is an industry-wide file format for sharing genealogical data. It's great for sharing your family information with others in your family who use genealogy software.