Tips to Aid Genealogy Searches

So you have begun your search into your family’s genealogy, that’s great! Isn’t it? Or maybe you are having a “few” problems finding information. The family’s not opening up or perhaps their information is not helping. Join the club, that’s why genealogy is so fascinating. That is also why genealogy is such a challenge and a “mystery”.

For many years our ancestors thought if you had bad things happening in the family, it was better to keep quiet. Never talk about the “bad things” and eventually it would disappear. But with the times changing, people are beginning family searches, thus, these “bad things” are coming “out of the closet”, so to speak. What our ancestors did not realize was, their family was not alone. Many others have much deeper secrets to hide.

Here are a few tips to help aid with your searches, while some may help right away, others may not be so helpful.

First you will need to get a spiral notebook or something to keep track of any small details. At first these details may not seem important, however, at some point, you could find the small details very helpful.

Next, take a little time to question your parents and grandparents for all the details about your immediate family. In case your parents are not available then go to any Aunts, Uncles, Cousins or friends who may have memories about your family.

Also, any stories-funny or otherwise, write them down. This will help future generations form mental pictures of what the members of your family were like. Include details such as birthdays, death dates, middle names, cities where they may have lived and approximate dates of when they lived there.

Try to include occupations, their language spoken, whether they finished school or how long they attended. The names of the schools, ask about old grade cards to, this is always fun to look at later (especially your parents or grandparents records).

Collect any photos available, new or old, they may not seem important now, but to our future generations they are like a goldmine. As you will find in your search, far too many photos have been thrown away.  Families don’t give much thought about new generations wanting to compare who it is they look like, height of ancestors or what color their eyes were or hair color. All this may not seem so important now, but someday it will be priceless.

If you can collect information about family members currently living, it will help when you begin digging for ancestors no longer alive. Visit the cemeteries where family members are buried, take a few snapshots; write down the name, address and city state where located. It sounds odd to some but to others, knowing where family is buried is quite important.

Continue your search and questioning of family and friends to gather as much information as possible. Once you have gathered all the details about current family you’ll be ready to travel further back into time to locate more family members. Always file your information either by complete families or surnames. This will aid in later searches, making your job easier to locate information you already have to compare with any new facts.

There are so many other ways to perform searches and find free charts to enter your information on. We’ll discuss several new tips in future articles to come. Until then, Have fun and happy genealogy hunting!