getting started - 1
You may know where your parents came from, even maybe your Grandparents but have you ever wondered WHO they came from? You may know your Grandparents or who they were but who were their parents? Uncles, Aunts, brothers, sisters etc? Where did they live, their Jobs? The lists can be endless!
Well here's a Beginners Guide to get you started to researching your Family Tree or Family History : Your Family Tree is just who was born to who and is related to who else but as you progress you may start to find out more about them - where they worked, education, what they looked like from old photos, descriptions etc - "putting the skin on their bones" as they say, this is researching your Family History. This is by no means a detailed guide but should at least get you well on your way into finding WHO YOU HAVE COME FROM.
This guide contains some links to pages which you can print off and aid you in your research - please press your - BACK - button on your Web browser to return to this page after viewing them.
For an index of downloadable forms please go the the Downloads page.
START WITH YOURSELF!
SO, where do you start? With yourself! Quite often people start with their parents,Grandparents etc but remember - your descendants may carry this on so your information is just as important. So starting with yourself write down a pedigree tree ie your DIRECT ancestors that is your 2 parents, your 4 Grandparents etc as far back as you can using the pedigree sheet.
Then from your pedigree chart and starting with yourself, write down everything you can think of about yourself using the family sheet ie - birth, baptism, parents (with your Mother's MAIDEN Name), where you lived, education (Primary, Secondary, etc), Employment details, Married? (remember to enter your Wife's MAIDEN name), when & where etc, children? and so on.
Then repeat the same process next for your parents, ie - you will be in the Children entry along with any brothers and sisters you may have, then again for each set of Grandparents etc, so you will now hopefully be building up a good foundation Tree to build upon.
QUESTIONS
Right you now need to ask your relations some questions to start filling in some gaps!
First print off the questionnaire sheets - Questionnaire1 deals with direct ancestors and Questionnaire2 deals with related ones - brothers/sisters & uncles/aunts and their families, then distribute these to as many relations as possible to get as much information back as possible!
With this information you can start filling in the gaps in your Pedigree and Family Sheets, once this is done review what you still need and if possible arrange to 'interview' the relevant relations to obtain this and any other information, eg if they stated when someone died & where then try and find out when & where they were buried so you can visit the grave to see if there is a headstone to verify the information (and may give new information on other ancestors!), which leads me to an important point - always verify information you get (without upsetting anyone!) by other sources eg Birth, Marriage and Death certificates, gravestones (as above) etc. It's surprising how people can get their facts wrong so consider and note what anyone tells you no matter how ordinary or bizzare (family legends are good for this but they might be based on some real facts) but always try to verify them from other sources.
Also ask if they have any other information like Family Heirlooms, Certificates, old photo's, Family Bibles, newspaper cuttings & scrapbooks, War medals (may have name, rank & number on them) etc that you could look at - anything that you think could be of help.