When you finally decide that you’d like to get you family tree down, its going to take a bit of effort to accomplish but there are a few things you can do that will help to speed the process.
First of all , you want to round up everything that you’ve got that might mean something.
Grab photos, documents, old letters, books, bibles, and even older clothing. Dig relentlessly through your own, or your parents basement or attic.

Make calls and ask about photocopies of old documents that anyone else in the family may have. The clue to your great grandfather might be in the postcard that your gramma saved from him fifty years ago. If they are willing to share, ask about having scans sent to your computer or photocopies made so that you can have your own set of documents to work from.

Different researchers are going to come up with different answers and needless to say only one can be correct. Genealogy isn’t an exact science and mistakes in family history can be made. Just because someone else has begun the family history is no reason you can’t jump in and help them with it too. Two heads are always better than one when it comes to digging through piles of information.

Don’t forget some live interviews while you are collecting documents and paperwork. some of your relatives are doubtless quite a bit older and will remember things that no one else does. To leave those memories or not have them recorded is going to be a vast loss in terms of your family history.

Your grandmother will have stories of her own childhood, or failing that, one of her brothers or sisters will have some stories of their own that might give you some insight into their childhood, family, aunts and uncles and etc. In this way, your family genealogy will be more easily accomplished. Not only that, but to be honest with you, stories about grandmothers childhood, in the early years of the 1900’s always struck me as being really fun to hear.

Write it all down. Anything you’ve learned or stories they tell you, either tape or write down so that you can then go back and transfer it to the computer or a hard copy of records you’re going to work from to begin your work on the pedigree or family history charts.

Work backwards, always starting with yourself and your own immediate family when you begin in your genealogy, and moving back through the years. It will be far easier to work with what you know first and then begin to move into the mysteries.

When you are just beginning, choose only one family name or family history on which to focus. If you focus more on just one branch, you’re going to get further and keep yourself on track far better than if you tried to move from your family tree back through both sets of parents family trees. Usually it leads to confusion and information overload. Do them one at a time.

Make sure that you keep a copy of any information or documents that you uncover while you’re researching your family history. While it may not seem important at the time you uncover them, chances are that later on you’re going to wish you had just that particular family document.

Tags:  antique documents family documents family history Genealogy genealogy research Interview old photos