Posts tagged "tracing family history"

Planning your family research

Suppose you are interested in finding information about your great-grandmother. Here are a few tips that will help you create a solid research plan:

1.  Write down as much as you know about the person or persons you want to learn more about. Write down all the details you think might help you distinguish your ancestor from someone else’s like approximate date of birth and birth place, date of marriage and spouse’s name, names of any children, and the approximate date of death.

2. Write down exactly what you hope to learn about the person you’re tracking. Getting sidetracked when researching family history is easy. It can be very exciting to uncover facts you never new about your family and this can cause you to lose sight of your initial goals in tracing your family tree. This is why it’s important to write down your goals in your basic research plan. For example, your goal might be to learn as much as you can about one side of your family or learn more about an old story you’ve heard about your ancestors.

3. Use a genealogical search engine to get a general idea of what’s available. Using a site like Ancestry.com can help you find information about your ancestors. To start, just enter the name where the person you are searching lived to narrow the results. The data that you obtain will give you an indication of the range of resources available.

4. Prioritize the resources you can use. The results that are delivered on these genealogical search engines could turn up different resources like mailing lists, newsgroups, and one-name study sites. It’s best to prioritize the resources you are going to use. An excellent starting point would be to visit a site like Ancestry.com that give you access to civil registration documents that will allow you to verify important dates and events.

5. Once you’ve identified the resources you want to use, schedule time to use them. Tracing your family history is actually a lifelong pursuit. You can’t download every bit of information and documentation that you need all at once. Because researching your family history requires time and effort on your part, I recommend that you schedule time to work on specific parts of your research. Believe it or not, genealogy can be addictive so breaking it down into small tasks allows you to get the most from your research efforts without getting yourself bogged down by information.

There are a wide variety of websites online that make it possible to build your family tree at no cost. Mundia.com is the one I recommend. As you make progress with your research, be sure to keep good notes and share information with your relatives.

Free Genealogy Records: Understanding Who You Are And Where You Come From

Being an adopted child is not easy. Once a person learns that he or she has been adopted at birth, his or her first reaction would be to look for his or her birth parents. If you have just learned that you have been adopted at birth, it is natural for you to feel anxious about knowing who you really are and where you come from. However, finding your real parents may not be easy. Even if you do learn their real names and was able to trace their whereabouts that is not a guarantee that these people will welcome you to their homes. Besides, your parents may already be dead so you cannot talk to them. Fortunately, there are ways of learning about your natural family without even meeting them. Free genealogy records can help you trace your family members and learn more about them. You can easily find some of these free genealogy records online so even if you live in a far flung area or you live half-way across the globe from the place where you were born, you can still access these free genealogy records.

Aside from accessing those free genealogy records, you may also get in touch with those organizations that are offering free genealogy research. Working with these organizations will make it easier for you to find your lost relatives. These organizations have access to information that is not available to the public. Moreover, since the services of these organizations are for free, you need not worry about spending a lot of money to get the information that you need. The only catch here is that since there are so many people who are working with these organizations to find their long lost relatives, it may take some time before you will get some information from these organizations.

Managing Your Expectations

Finding your roots and learning who you are can be quite an emotional journey. You need to manage your expectations well and prepare yourself for some disappointments along the way. Do not expect to find all the information that you need about your family through those free genealogy records. These free genealogy records are just your springboards in launching your full blown research about your parentage and family history. Moreover, you need to bear in mind that it may take a long time before you can actually find some relevant information about your family. Do not expect quick results from your research. A lot of people have been trying to find their birth parents for years only to come up against a wall.