by desib77 14 Replies latest jw friends
Don't pay. There is way too much free stuff out there.
Here is another link. http://genforum.genealogy.com Enter your family name that you want to search, and that page will come up. There is a search feature, and you can also post after registering, asking whatever you want.
I love this one.
The best place to start is by talking to your family. Dig as far back as you can to start mapping out a family tree ... spend time with grandparents, great-uncles, great-aunts, etc asking about names & dates of birth & cities of residence. Tape record the conversations for future reference. Ask for copies of information from family Bibles, old photos, etc. THEN make your way to rootsweb and genealogy.com.
Also, there are a couple of very good offline genealogy resources in the US. Do I remember correctly that you live in the Midwest? The Ft. Wayne, Indiana public library reportedly has the 2nd best genealogy resource in the U.S. ... second only to the Mormon church.
You can also go to the National Archives. There is one in almost every large city. We have one here in Seattle, but I've only been there once. The internet has been the best source for me.
I do agree that talking to family is the best place to start. I found most of what I eventually got by using family records, and then searching on the names of my great great great grandparents. There are literally hundreds of descendants of that couple, and many of them have already done research. Our ancestors were Quakers and they kept detailed records, so I already had my father's data back to the first one who came here from England in 1720. From there it was a piece of cake.
My mother's ancestry is the Strong family and there was a wealth of information on them because they were a prominent colonial family. Very easy to research them.
My grandmother's mother's maiden name was Smith. I groaned when I learned that, but found all of them back to the 1500's online. Fortunately they were not the Joseph Smith branch.
It's so much fun finding the clues, and following them and finding a real nugget!
For anyone who is interested, this is my family genealogy website. http://home.earthlink.net/~herblst I built it myself.
I'm into it alos and have been able to trace one part of the family back to 1571 when some of the first settlers were coming to Canada
Try http://www.gencircles.com/
My family is here http://www.gencircles.com/users/leemarsh/1
Also try
http://olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml
You will also find that many governments have or are releasing old census lists to help you track family members You can also try church records
But one really good place to start is with family especially the older members. I had done a lot of research and then contacted my mother sister and discovered she had a wealth of info that I had never seen including my grandmother's parents' names birthdates and places of birth. That was a huge help to me
while I was busy typing I see a few other folks came in and gave you some of the same info
Rootsweb - thanks - I seem to have lost that one off my list so I have added it back on
