Five Tips To Get You Started

5 Tips to Start Your Family History

One of the most satisfying aspects of Family History work is finding new family members through research efforts. Researching has become significantly easier with the help of multiple search services, "Record Hints", and such. So many different types of records are on-line now, such as Census Records, Military Draft Records, City Directories, Probates & Wills, birth, marriage, and death certificates, obituaries, and more.

Doing research is like putting a puzzle together. Try collaborating with other family members. Feel free to explore the tips below.

Learn About Descendancy Research

Rescendancy Research

Explore the Different Ways to View Descendancy Lines

Traditional Hourglass View
Family Tree Descendancy View
Puzzilla
BYU Virtual Pedigree

It is said that if you pick an ancestor back ten generations, there would be close to one million descendants. Many of us probably have those "Aunt Marys" in our family that traced our ancestral lines back to "Noah", or at least back into the 1500-1600s. These will be our "ANCESTRAL" lines.

Around 2012 or so, an emphasis on finding all the collateral line descendants, our cousins, was introduced. This is called "Descendancy Research". If you were to pick an ancestor just four generations back (a great-great grandparent), there will SIXTEEN collateral descendant lines to research. Sorry…just when you thought that your family history was done! Actually, it is quite exciting to think that we can work on finding new people in these lines, AND during a time period when records are more easily found. Don't forget that your collateral line living cousins may often have photos, histories, or other information about your family members just waiting to be shared with you.

You will find that doing research on descendant lines is much easier now with all the records coming on line. It is certainly much easier than trying to find your ancestry lines before the 1800s.

Learn More About Descendancy Research

Explore Census Records of Your Ancestors

Use the Family Tree Record Hints

Family Tree Record Hints

The easiest way to begin finding ancestors is to just look for the little blue "Record Hint" icons. These are found associated with an individual on the pedigree, or when on that person's "Person Page", they can be found in the upper right column. In addition, when you first log into FamilySearch, the "dashboard" page has a section that lists record hints available.
Record hints may point to birth, marriage, or death information, but can also include census records, military records, and even some outside sources like Find-a-Grave.
They are correct "most" of the time, but still, be sure that the record hint actually belongs to your relative. There are a lot men with names like "William Smith" in the world!
Explore what the hint is about. It could be a US Census record showing where your ancestor lived and who was in the household. It could be a Draft Registration record that shows the physical description of your ancestor. Birth, marriage, death, and other records are given to you to look at and then determine if they indeed belong to your relative. Take time to explore everything in the record. You are seeing a bit of history about your ancestor.
Try attaching a Record Hint to your ancestor. These hints become "sources" that will add additional "story" about your ancestor's life events. If you need some help with this, be sure to contact us.

Attach Record Sources to Your Facts

Record Sources

Record Sources Are SO Important

Record sources are the birth, marriage, death, census, and other records that we find. They document basic facts about that individual, like what day they were born on, when they were married, etc. It is important to "attach" these sources to the individual(s) to document the specifically entered facts. The following statement is often quoted.

"Genealogy Without Sources is Mythology"

Sources document that the individual actually lived. Just because Aunt Mabel told us that the information is true, doesn't mean it is, unless there are sources for the facts.

FamilySearch is now doing a lot of the searching for you, even while you are asleep. Just how cool is that? They will show you a record source as a "hint". Just look at it, and determine if it belongs to your ancestor or not and then attach it through their "Source Linker" if it is.

Sources not only have dates and places, but also may have information describing your ancestor's physical characteristics, like having red hair, being tall & slender, and having blue eyes. World War 1 Draft Registration cards are great for this kind of information. Census records will tell you where they lived and often what they did as an occupation and much more.

Learn More About the SourceLinker

Review Sources That Have Been Already Attached

Sources Already Attached

Not All Source Information is Actually Reviewed

Let's say that I have an ancestor with 11 attached sources. It's interesting how many times I have just gone back to review each of the already attached sources, from top down, and found additional information to record from the source. Often other family members that have not yet been added to Family Tree are found. People that are attaching the record hints to FamilySearch, are just not gleaning all the information from the record source they are presented with.

The process of using the FamilySearch "Source Linker" can be a bit confusing at first. It is typical to not know how to use this tool and so some family members may have incomplete sources attached. We can show you how to use this great tool!

Another common problem we see, is that the person attaching the source record, doesn't even look at the actual document. They only look at the index of the document. Always look at the document image to see for yourself what is in it. Remember that dates or other information can be mis-indexed.

By actually looking at the document image, gleaning all the information from it, and correctly attaching the source, you will be amazed at how much more information will be available for them, including additional family members.