Genealogy Basics for Beginners

Sometimes you get lucky

2010-03-30T15:55:00.000-06:00

The information sources for Norway, where the majority of my family originated, are excellent, as I've mentioned in other posts to this blog - not so with my wife's family. My wife's father was born in Poland in 1925. When the Nazi and Russian army divided Poland between them in World War II, he and his family were sent to a prison camp in Siberia.

I knew from stories, that he and two of his brothers fought in the Polish Army and that the rest of the family trekked through the Middle East and Africa, eventually arriving in England where some settled after the war. However I didn't have a very clear picture of the history or timeline of events and finding records was next to impossible.

My father-in-Law had passed away before I had become interested in genealogy... There were stories and a few tidbits from surviving relatives, but very little concrete information. I persisted though and persistence in genealogy eventually seems to pay off. I did a search for information about the Polish Army during World War II - more for background information than anything else. However it was by hunting through this background information that I stumbled upon a solid piece of information.

I stumbled across a refrence to something called the "Indeks Represjonowanych" - in Polish of course (which I neither speak nor read) but "Google Translate" is a wonderful tool (learn to use it!) and it translated as the "Index of the Repressed" and there was an online, searchable database. On a chance, I typed in my wife's maiden name into the search engine and out kicked her father, uncles, grandfather and great grandfather's names along with dates and locations of where they were taken to in Siberia and, when and where they were released 18 months later (the staging area for the Eastern Corp of the Free Polish Army.)

This find was invaluable and more precious to me than all of the other successes I've had - mostly because it was so unlikely to find. But, as I wrote earlier... Sometimes you get lucky

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Genealogy Basics: Census Search on-line

2009-11-21T10:55:00.002-07:00

My genealogy search involved hunting for family tree information in four countries: Canada, The United States, Norway and Great Britain. I started with what I knew, then went to the internet to search for additional records.

Of the four: Norway was the easiest country in which to find on-line records despite the language difficult (once again - the records are in Norwegian which I neither speak, read, nor write - suprisingly this wasn't as big a problem as you might think) so let me start there. Digitalarkivet has a database containing transcriptions of the national census results for 1801, 1865, 1875 and 1900 as well as many other records, located in one easy to use site. You can navigate through many of the initial pages in English (Use Google translate to help with the rest) and it is possible to do a broad search of the entire country using using keywords such as "First Name", "Last Name" or "Farm" or search by location within the country. This is a free site.

For Canada, I used The Canadian Genealogical Center website which is part of the information offered on-line by Collections Canada, as well as Automated Genealogy which provides searchable databases of the 1901, 1906 and 1911 Federal censuses. Both are free.

For census results from the United States and Great Britain I used Ancestry.com since it seems to be the only agency putting this information on the internet. As I've mentioned before - Ancestry is a subscription site. You need to register and pay a fee to use the information.

I have a love/hate relationship with Ancestry - I love what I can find using their site, but I hate to pay out money (I've been spoiled by free records from other countries) There is a free trial period and if you use it wisely, this might be enough for you. (Be warned: You must give a credit card number to register for the trial period and you must remember to cancel the trial at the end of the period. If you forget - they will start charging you!) Sadly, the trial wasn't long enough for me and the sources were to useful. I pulled out my wallet and signed up!

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Genealogy: Documentation

2009-11-19T18:43:00.002-07:00

In my last post Genealogy: Citing Sources, I said that I would mention other good reasons for citing the sources of your information when doing your Genealogy research.

The reason is documentation.

What is documentation?

Documentation is the way in which you prove the accuracy of your genealogical information. Citations (good ones) are an important part of the documentation that supports the accuracy of your facts.

Having proof that your facts are accurate and true is important. YOU need to to know that your facts are accurate. A fact that can't be proven is a guess and has no real standing. To establish a clear, proven line of descent in a family tree, you need to show documentation that is clear and without contradiction.

Beyond the importance of documentation to you, your work may (and likely will) be looked at, examined, and possibly referenced by others who are doing similar research. For their sake as well as your own, you want your conclusions to be as accurate as possible - which requires documentation.

Of course, not all information sources are equal when it comes to their us as documentation for a given fact.

Ideally, you'd like to have original, official, written documents to support a fact. ie: A birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate, original census forms, etc. Even more ideally, several documents which support each other should be used. The ideal isn't always possible but IT IS something to strive toward.

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Genealogy: Citing Sources

2009-11-18T15:56:00.003-07:00

In begining your genealogy search, one of the most important basics for a beginner to learn, is to keep a record of your information sources!

I've mentioned this in previous posts (and you will no doubt see it again, since I Can NOT stress this enough) - it is VERY important to record the source of the information you find while researching your genealogy!

What are Sources?
Every piece of information comes from somewhere. Where the information came from, or where you learned it is its source. If you know the information personally, from experiencing it, you are the source. If your mother told you the information - your mother is the source. If you read the information in a document (book, letter, article, etc.) the document is your source. You get the idea.

The record of your information's source is called a citation, and recording it is called "citing a source." There have been multitudes of books and articles written on the proper form to use in citing a source. You can find them on the internet or in your library - and you probably should at some point. For know though - just write down where and when you got the information. Be specific. Be complete. "Joe told me last month," as a note in a notebook just doesn't cut it.

Why Do I Need to Cite my Sources?
First: If you don't record where you found a piece of information, you may not be able to find it again.

I can hear you thinking, "My memory is better than that. I don't need to write it down. I'm not going to forget where I got that from." Wrong!

If you don't record the source of your information, you WILL at some point look at it and say, "Where did I get that?" Usually when you discover a contradictory fact and are trying to decide which is the right one.

Every genealogist, myself included, has made this mistake when beginning their genealogy research. Save yourself the time and frustration! Write it down!

There are more good reasons which I'll get into in future posts.

Genealogy: Building a family tree on-line

2009-11-17T13:13:00.002-07:00

In my last post, I talked about genealogy software and organizing your information.

But what if I don't have a computer at home? What if I want my family tree on-line only? This is an option and not necessarily a bad one. Services such as Ancestry.com, genealogy.com, geni.com and many others allow you to build your family tree online and view it. Each site requires you to register with them – the family tree building can be done for free but they WILL try to sell you other services.

You might want that - or not. The sites I mentioned are also search sites for genealogical records and you may NEED to use them to find the records you want. If that's the case, you may very well need to pay a subscription fee to access the records you're looking for.

Do keep in mind that these sites usually offer a trial period. You can try out the service, hopefully find the records that you're interested in and, if you've found what you need, cancel the subscription without having to pay.

Genealogy Software: You will want it!

2009-11-16T06:05:00.003-07:00

I mentioned in my last post that you will want to have genealogy software of some type. Notebook notations and paper charts are all well and good - I use these as well - but for recording and organizing the information that you collect, your computer and a decent genealogy program is the best way to go.

The software that I selected was "Family Tree Builder" by MyHeritage. This software is free to download from myheritage.com and though I've looked at other programs I've stayed with this one. There is a "Premium" version with extra features for which you'll be charged a subscription fee, but the basic package is free. It comes with a limited amount of web space to publish and share your research and also has a very useful feature called "smart matching" which compares the information on your family tree with other peoples information and suggests matches. This allows you to connect with other people who are doing similar research and compare information. I've found it very useful.

At the moment I have more than 1600 people in more than 650 families, listed on my family tree. I have traced most of my direct ancestors back at least 8 generations and have some branches traced back to the 1200's.... and I have only been doing research for about 18 months - still a beginner myself, compared to many researchers. Still, I believe that I've been fairly successful with my search - as you can be as well! The point, of course. is that you need a way of organizing the mass of genealogical information that will come in. The computer is your friend! Compare software and choose a program that looks good - then start using it to build your tree with the information that you already have.

My Genealogy Search and genealogy software

2009-11-15T18:39:00.003-07:00

My genealogy search started when my daughter was expecting our first grandchild. I knew the names of my widely scattered aunts and uncles, but hadn't seen most of them or their children (my first cousins) in many, many years. Beyond that, all I had to start with was a family cookbook compiled from relatives during a family reunion.... but the cookbook listed the contributing relatives and a bit of information about how they were related to a common ancestor. It also gave addresses and contact information for many of them.

Going through the cook book, I listed each relative that was mentioned and made notes about who they were relative to that common ancestor. In short, I wrote down every bit of information that I could glean. It gave me a starting place.

I needed a way to organize the family information (slim as it was at that point) since keeping paper records was getting too confusing. That was when the internet became my best friend. An internet search for "free genealogy software" (If you've been following this blog, you'll remember that I highly recommend using free resources when at all possible - YOU WILL almost certainly need to spend money at some point in your search, but don't start yet) turned up a list of programs that could be downloaded from the internet and saved on my computer.

Since you're reading this blog I'm assuming you have access to a computer and an internet connection. There are programs that are available for free download, there are also review sites that will help you to compare the virtues of these programs.

Have a look, compare them and choose a program! Letting the computer help you to organize your search results will make your life ever so much simpler.

Genealogy: The first step

2009-11-15T14:11:00.005-07:00

So you need a starting place for researching your family tree... Before you lay out money for anything - and at some point in researching your genealogy, YOU WILL need to layout money - gather as much information as you can for free from local sources.

Start out by recording what you already know:
Every name, date and location that you already know, for each relative that you know about should get recorded, in as much detail as possible - as well as that person's relationship to you.

For now, a notebook and pencil (with a separate page for each person is all you need. (We'll get into how to store and organize your information in a future post.)

If you have contact information for living relatives, use it! Phone, write or e-mail them and gather as much information as you can. Record all the details AND record who gave you the information. The memories of living relatives and their stories are "Primary Sources" in your genealogy search (We'll talk more about the types of sources in another post...) so make sure to keep records.

Welcome to Genealogy Basics for Beginners

2009-11-15T13:40:00.004-07:00

This site provides tips and techniques for beginning genealogists who want to make a start at searching for and recording their family tree. If you have questions not covered in Genealogy Basics, please feel free to email your question to nander99@gmail.com and I'll do my best find an answer for you.