This is for beginners, wondering where to start. The tips on this page start with those things you can do that are free, and then we will add some ideas that will cost a little bit of money.

Here are the suggestions:

1. Just start! As simple as that sounds, decide to start researching your family’s history. It is a fascinating pastime, for sure.
2. Join one of our free Zoom meetings to ask questions and learn from those that have been researching for decades.  See the front page for a link and schedule.
3. Start with what you know – your parents, their parents (your grandparents), and so on.
4. The information you want to record is full names, date of birth, marriages, and dates. You will also want to know locations of these life events. If family members are not alive, include their date of death, the location where they died, and the cemetery.  This will help to give you a basic framework of the family before doing a deeper dive into the specifics of your ancestors lives.
5. Write it down! Use a legal pad or anything that works for you.  You can also use free forms of family trees from the National Genealogical Society.
6. The Internet has changed our lives. And it will make your searching easier than ever. Of course, the first place to start is with the search engines, like Google and Bing.  But be careful!  If it isn’t an original document, take everything with a grain of salt.  There is a lot of misinformation out there.
7. Some good FREE starter sites are FamilySearch, Chronicling America, and Find-a-Grave.
8. Expect holes and brick walls in your tree.  It will take time to gather all the facts about your family.
9. As your searching continues, you will soon discover the government is your friend when it comes to researching your family tree. Many different government agencies are sources of information. It may become a challenge as to where to look, but the public information available is astonishing.
10. Plan a trip to your local library and look for city directories, old newspapers, and local history books.

Quick Warning

Not everything you will find about your ancestors maybe 100% accurate, sometimes even in original documents. This is often true of dates and spellings of names.  The older the record, the more likely you may find inaccuracies. The more records you find, the stronger and clearer the picture of your ancestors will become.