logcabinmama Posted June 15, 2005 Share Posted June 15, 2005 First steps in Genealogy Step 1 -- The first rule of genealogy is to start with yourself and work back! Talk to parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or anyone else in the family who is older than you are. Ask questions like: What's your full name? When and where were you born? Where did you grow up? When and where were you married? Whom did you marry? What is his/her full name? How many children did you have? What are their full names? What were your parents' full names? When and where were your parents born? Where did your parents grow up? When and where did your parents marry? What do you know about your grandparents? Do you have any family Bibles, papers, or photographs? It may be helpful to tape record the people you talk to in addition to writing down their answers. Keep the tapes for future reference. Be sure to ask perrmission before taping someone. Begin a genealogy chart like the ones listed in the post about 'charts. (You are able to print these off the internet and this is a great help, sure saves money). Fill in as many blanks as possible. If you do not have exact dates, pencil in approximate dates. Use pencils for preliminary work. Always use letters to indicate months. Write surnames in all capital letters. Use the maiden names of your female ancestors. I always use pencil on the paper or type it in. It is nice to have this paper copy just in case you lose it on your computer. Link to comment
redhenfarm Posted June 15, 2005 Share Posted June 15, 2005 Good information. It's amazing how fast you can lose this kind of info. DHs parents were divorced - thanks to his maternal relatives we have good information but on his father's side we don't even know his grandmother's maiden name. We know the paternal grandparents had sibs and they weren't first generation in America but I guess the guys in the family didn't care and this didn't get passed down. Don't have a clue when/where they were married. Jan Link to comment
logcabinmama Posted July 1, 2005 Author Share Posted July 1, 2005 Aww, Jan, that is to bad. Sometimes you can find things even if you don't know about the people, just keep digging. I know we have a couple dead ends and I just can't give up. I know there has to be answers someplace and one day I hope to find them. Link to comment
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