What's the best way to go in genealogically searching your family?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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The Sticks, Northeast PA.
Nathan's thread about genealogy intrigued me. My grandmother claimed she married my grandfather as a blushing 17 years old. At her passing, we finally found her birth certificate- she just forgot to mention that she was 25 when she married my grandfather. I'm quite sure one family member was hung for being a horse thief. I'd like to get into the genealogy of my family. It's not like I want to spend the rest of my life doing it.
What's the best way to go in searching your family.
 

Do you have any relatives whom you could ask questions?

Find the local libraries, many keep newspapers copied into books (I used to do this), there can be alot of info. Some libraries also have past records stored on microfilm, you can search those for info too.

There are online places that can be helpful. I would store my info in a way it can be erased and changed easily, as you'll find some will get/give wrong information unknowingly. It is interesting, my grandmother and mother have done this most of their lives. Good luck, and have fun!
 
spookycat2 said:
Do you have any relatives whom you could ask questions?

Find the local libraries, many keep newspapers copied into books (I used to do this), there can be alot of info. Some libraries also have past records stored on microfilm, you can search those for info too.

There are online places that can be helpful. I would store my info in a way it can be erased and changed easily, as you'll find some will get/give wrong information unknowingly. It is interesting, my grandmother and mother have done this most of their lives. Good luck, and have fun!
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Agreed, I signed up with a few companies just so I can control my information (opt in or out).....I decided on out. Plus they are all interconnected
 
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Oldeagle66 said:
The Mormon church has the largest repository of family genealogy in the world and they started the genealogy industry.
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I spent a delightful afternoon a few years back at the Mormon genealogy center in Salt Lake City. They were able to find things for me that I had hit a brick wall on. The great thing is that it is free for anyone, no matter what faith you are. They also have auxiliary offices in a lot of cities where you can tap into the database.

Genealogy is important to the Mormon Church as Mormons can research their ancestors, then stand in as "proxies" and have them baptized into the Church.
 
With patience. It can be a tedious process. I've joined and un-joined Ancestry a couple of times. I'm currently a member again, but this time a friend of mine, who is an expert at it, is helping me. She knows how to use other free sites to gather information that Ancestry charges for. She has helped me "populate" my family tree, way beyond what I could have done and continues to do a deep dive. I'm still not keeping up with it as closely as I should.

I found someone who is likely my half sister. She reached out to me 3 years ago, but I had gotten off the site then. this time I reached out to her and haven't heard back. I also found some first cousins, 2nd cousins and tons of 3rd cousins. If I look through 50 people per page, I have 391 pages of relatives, most of whom I had no prior knowledge of. I'm most interested in finding out information about my maternal grandfather, who I've never seen or heard much talk about.
 
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This is actually quite fun to do. There are several sites you can start a tree on without paying a dime…start small and keep it to what you really know. It is easy to make mistakes if you just randomly snag and mesh other trees into your own. Then paying to use the data bases on a site such as ancestry makes some sense. But you would be amazed at what is actually available for free once you get the hang of it. Good luck in the rabbit hole and have fun.
 
My biggest headache was the misspelling of my maternal side on my grandfathers family during the years when many couldn't read or write, signed with an X, census takers would spell the name as they thought it may be spelled. There were 4 variations. I hope you have common spelled Sir names. Good Luck in your search, have fun with it. It can be very interesting and fun.
 
Start by putting down on paper the things that you know.

Find a grave can help fill in a few blanks and may lead you to people with more information about your family.

Also Google will help to turn up some census information.

I wouldn’t spend any money until I was sure that it was something that I really wanted to pursue.

I was fortunate that most of the hard work was done by others.

A book was published in 1904 that detailed my family back to it’s American roots in the 1600s and a cousin published a book that brought us from 1904 up through the mid 70s.

When my cousin was gathering information for his book my grandmother was beside herself because it included her wedding date along with the birthdate of her first child who was extremely premature and miraculously quite healthy.
😉🤭😂
 
Ancestry.com is a good place to start. Keep in mind though, that it’s user generated content and is full of errors. As you work on each ancestor, look for entries that have reliable sources attached to the entry. You're more likely to find the story about the horse thief here because people can add notes to entries and also attach longer documents.

You can use some Ancestry.com features for free (link below), and do even more for free using the account at your local library. Ancestry also offers a two week free trial.

Ancestry.com for Free: 8 Ways To Use It With No Subscription

Good free sites are familysearch.org, wikitree.com, findagrave.com

Always, whether searching online or in print, make sure there are sources to back up info. All online sites have errors due to people posting family lore without sources and a lot of older genealogy books are also based on family lore.

Good luck with your search!
 

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