Deeds, wills, transfers, mortgages and land grants are all going to go a long way toward helping you to find out where you family was, what they did and taking you another step backward in time.

On tracing my own ancestry, I found relatives in Normandy area that up until that point I’d no idea even existed, based upon property records.

Isn’t it amazing what they can reveal to us. The path our family took to get us where we grew up. Who the old homestead was sold to, and when it was sold, as well as, if it still exists, and who lives there today. There are so many tools that one can use to gather information about your family and their history. Don’t let anyone tell you that one type or another is completely worthless because it isn’t. Every small bit of information you gather is another piece to the puzzle of how you got here and what path you took.

No information you come across, no matter how difficult it is to come by, is going to be worthless when putting that puzzle together. In the beginning I was told to omit property records as they were difficult to gather and hard to find. I found them a bit difficult to find but what they revealed about my families history in West Virginia and Pennsylvania put the puzzle together nicely and I could not have gained what I did without them.

Search your families properties when you research your history. The results will very likely amaze you.

In Genealogy, there are many areas that need to be looked at. In point of fact, almost too many mysteries to tackle at one time, if you are searching, as most of us are, for more than one family ancestor.

One of the things that many of us neglect to do is to focus on each area of our genealogy research, one at a time, until we find the solution we wanted, or come to an area where we can’t go any further. THEN, and only then, move ahead to another mystery.

One thing that becomes apparent the more that you enter into genealogical research. You need to keep a narrow focus and try to find one ancestor, or one set of ancestors. Rather than trying to find all of your great grandparents on both sides, settle for one set of your mothers, an begin there. Be specific in what you are looking for and who.

Make vast and myriad notes and keep them near where you are working to keep your focus on that particular solution before moving on to another problem. Genealogy research is something that will lead you in many directions at one time. Keeping the proper focus will help you to resolve your mysteries one at a time until they are all solved.

If you can find your grandfathers father, but not his wife, that will be your area of focus. Jot down questions that might help you in the search, such as, not who was my great great grandmother, but perhaps instead, “did my great great grandmother live near her husband when growing up. In most cases, since long distance travel wasn’t normally an option, you may find an ancestor by using that type thinking.

Quite often, in genealogical research, because of the nature of it, we tend to find ourselves locked into linear thinking which normally will not solve our problems. Only when we begin to look at things from another direction, to find other approaches to the same problem will be come up with solutions.

Begin by asking yourself what you already know. Make notes and organize your information so that it is readily accessible and make time to work on it every week so that it does not become one of the unfinished projects.

Once you organize what you already know, make careful notes of what you still need to find.
Once you know what informatin you have, its a lot easier to accomplish plotting how to get the rest.

For example, when you want to find a grandparent, seek out the neighbors of your grandfathers family. Check into their children, and see if any had the right name, or were the right age and then you’ve taken a step to either finding, or eliminating those women. As you eliminate the neighbors and their children, you may come across one with the right name and the right age group and want to look at her further.

This fashion, one step at a time, will help you a great deal in your search for your ancestry.

Not all of the search for genealogical materials is going to be straight forward and easily found. Some cultures did not keep good records, for various reasons, while others did not have the wherewithal to do so.

Among those which you may find difficult to research will be Native Americans, Black Americans and aboriginal peoples from countries such as Australia. The reasons are primarily that good records on those races were not well kept until later years, and in some instances, such as the Black Americans who were enslaved.

For those who are currently seeking their African American ancestors, there are several methods that may bear fruit for you. Those plantations or companies who did keep records of their Black Americans may have lost them in the ensuing war or destruction of the property, however there are many slave narratives still in existence.

Additionally, although many of the records were burnt, there are some alternative methods of searching for your African American ancestors, most of them, thankfully wrought by the hand of slaves who had been freed and kept track of such things as marriages, deaths and banking issues.

Among places you might search for records of your African American ancestors you would likely find some type of information in reference points such as the Southern Claims Commission Records. These were the claims that were filed by about 20,000 Southern families who believed they had compensation coming to them for their properties which had been taken by the Union Armies.

You will also perhaps find some of those things you’re looking for in the Freedmen’s Bureau Records. A Freedmens Bureau was begun in 1865, and lasted about ten years, that helped those who had been slaves during the reconstruction of the Southern United States.

A collection of records exists there including: 

- Freedmens Savings and Trust, a bank serving many former slaves contains about 40,000 plus records.

Freedmen’s Marriage Records kept track of literally thousands of marriages between former slaves.

Make it a point to add information to the graph or computer family tree as soon as you get it, so that its not mislaid, lost or has to be dug out of a file again. Update at regular intervals even if the intervals are only every few months.

The absolute first thing that you should do is to get in touch with your family, the immediate one, those who are living, parents, aunts, uncles are all going to have some clues about the family that can help you in the search. Its possible to search them out, where they ended up, and what they did, even not having all the information possible, but just bits and pieces here and there.

To be honest at times its more interesting that way. Each person you talk with, each little story you hear,( and DO listen, not just to facts, but to stories, they provide invaluable clues to small things you might never find otherwise) each bit of information is a new piece of the puzzle that you might add to the overall mystery you’re trying to solve.

If your family members are deceased, move to their friends, childhood ones, if they are available, or even those they made later in life. Inlaws of the parents will also have information that might be helpful to you. Anyone who might have a story to tell about your family member is someone you want to get in touch with again.

Some of the questions you might want to ask are:

• Do you know where they were born, or the date?
• Where did they live growing up?
• Where were they married, or when?
• Do you know their parents names?
• Did the parents have sisters or brothers who may have children, which could also be helpful?
• Where are their parents buried, or if alive, where do they live?
• Who are their oldest living relatives?
• Do you know where any relatives may be buried?
• Do you know of any childhood friends who may still be alive?

Take a camera with you when you visit. Almost everyone will be glad to let you take a photo of their old photos, but many people will be reticent, and with good reason, to let you take them with you to copy.Use those older photos in searching and also to illustrate your family history.

When you visit someone to ask questions, particulary a very elderly person, be prepared.. They will love to hear from you and truly love answering your questions.. The conversations will most likely not be short lived, nor always straightforeward. Be prepared to take some time, and make sure that you bring a pencil or even a tape recorder or a video camera (with fresh batteries and lots of tapes).

Hearing great stories about family members is something that will give you clues about little things you want to explore later, so don’t let them slip away without having some way to commit them to memory. The story about Uncle Alberts trip to Alaska, where he settled and married the native girl, is going to clue you in to search the arctics for part of your family tree. Make sure those things are committed to paper or tape to explore later.

Write or record everything, even if it seems trivial at the time. That little bit of information that seems worth nothing now, may be the exact scrap that you need a year from now, when another puzzle piece just won’t fit.

The internet is one of the latest and greatest new tools in our genealogical research and can be used to offer us:

~People and places to learn from.
~Meeting of the minds, people to assist us and places to discuss our research.
~A place to publish your conclusions, in many cases free of charge.

A few of the things it won’t give you however are absolute conclusions, always reliable data and access to everything you want. No matter how powerful a tool, it isn’t infallible. One of the real issues that I see with internet use is that it tends to be accepted in many cases, particularly by newcomers to the ancestry hunt, as the be all and end all because there are so many places to hunt online.

It isn’t out of the question however that some of the information that you find online is in many cases not reliable or just plain wrong. This leaves questions as to how it gets here, why it continues to be used and whether in fact you can rely on the internet as a tool at all. The answer is yes of course, because you are the final judge as to how reliable the information is and if you use it at all.

Several mailing lists offered a theory that bad data being entered into play, drives out the good data, in a Greshams economic law type way, (old bad coinage drives the good money out of circulation) and to a point that is true. No matter how many times or how many years ago a certain correction appears for an error, the error seems to travel faster, and to appear more often so that the correction never entirely catches up with it. For this reason, many older researchers refuse to use, or are biased against the internet as a tool for their research, however, the problem isn’t limited to the internet but is prolific in printed media as well.

Long before the internet became an item in research or was able to be used to get you in touch with Uncle johns great aunt Marth, volumes and volumes of printed material came out and were the items of choice at the public library, yet many of them, most noteably, series like Frederick Virkus’ Compendium of American Genealogy, had published things which were submitted to them by subscribers, and they were, simply put, as unreliable as even the most heinous eror that could be found on the internet today.

The difference is that a famed book of conclusions and family trees, in most peoples minds, particularly an expensive book, won’t be party to errors .. will it??

The simple fact is that anything at all is subject to erroneous conclusions and information, which is where the human factor, the researcher who is willing to keep digging to get the right information comes in.

Don’t count out any source of information, interaction, or materials and do check it all out thoroughly and discount those things that don’t make sense to you. The internet, like any other tool, isn’t perfect, but it does add one more thing to your research arsenal.

There are many places that you can use to learn the skills involved in genealogy, not the least of which is of course the internet.

The advent of online classes in many areas has also reared its head in the genealogy courses, many of which are available for you to take online as opposed to taking the class in an institution of learning. Its far easier in the busy world of today to take them at your own pace and at your own leisure and still accomplish the same level of learning.

There are more than just a few areas of study offered as well as several places where you might compare costs and time involved to get the best value for your time and money.

Among the online courses offered today are those which come from The National Genealogical Society’s Online Learning center, which features, (from their online course descriptions):

A. Introduction to Genealogy
This is a course available online for those who have done little research or genealogical searching in their families and is open to anyone who chooses to enroll in the class. Those who are members of the National Genealogical Society are given a discount on the tuition for the course, which is quite reasonable.

The student there will learn how to record their genealogy information, how to get started with finding the information they need, how to find vital records, such as birth and death, as well as marriage certificates, and how to write source citations for birth, death, and marriage information.

B. Using Census Records in Genealogical Research
An online course designed for genealogists who want to learn more about the information that can be found in the federal population census records (1790 - 1930), and how that information can be used in their genealogical research. The course is open to anyone who wishes to enroll. Members of the National Genealogical Society (NGS) receive a tuition discount.

C. Special Federal Census Schedules
Designed for genealogists who want to learn more about the information that can be found in census records, and how that information can be used in their genealogical research. It is the second of two separate courses. Using Census Records in Genealogical Research covers the federal population census schedules, and Special Federal Census Schedules covers other federal census schedules. The course is open to anyone who wishes to enroll. Members of the National Genealogical Society (NGS) receive a tuition discount.

Moving on to other institutions, the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, which is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose offerings include:

- A Certificate in Genealogical Studies jointly from the University of Toronto and the National Institute for Genealogical Studies.
- Online courses on a variety of genealogical topics from the very basic to the much more advanced; from general topics to quite specific.

If you’ve begun researching and run into a dead end, or you simply think that this is something you’d be interested in learning more about and how to accomplish, you might want to consider a bit more education in the field of genealogy with a view perhaps to a certification.

More and more people are curious about their family history.

However, finding out all the intimate details of your genealogy isn’t always cut and dry or easy. For example, people who have adoptees in their family line will often get derailed at that juncture because of privacy laws and closed records.

Or, perhaps the town hall where family or household records were house burned down – now what? Step one is always start simply with what you know. Write that down. Next, go to each living person in your family and talk to them. Ask them what they can recall including towns in which forebears lived, friends of whom they spoke, where they went to church etc.

Keep separate notes on each individual otherwise you’ll quickly discover that things get very complicated to sort out. Don’t forget to check what you’ve already documented against the new information you’re receiving. You’ll quickly discover associations and side stories that will help you uncover more data later on down the line. At this juncture seriously consider starting a chart.

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One approach that works well is using sticky notes on a large, blank wall. The person whose birth date is the earliest chronologically will be at the top/middle of the tree along with his or her partner. Now later on you may get more information that’s even older, so leave some space at the top of the wall. Under each person comes their children, and those children’s children with any other information you have (death dates, marriage dates, cities lived in, etc.). After exhausting your in-house leads including scrap books, diaries, letters, family Bibles, and boxes long forgotten in the attic – that’s where the fun begins.

Step two is going to local records at town or city halls, in the public library, and don’t forget your local phone book! Also review court records (wills, probate, criminal activity, etc), coroner’s reports, and swing by your family’s church or temple to see what details they can add to your puzzle picture (things like baptism, christening, confirmation, marriage, bar mitzvah, etc). It may not hurt to take a walk through the cemetery in your area too, especially if your family has been in the area for a long time. There you’ll find both written records, and of course the rock-solid documentation offered on tombstones.

On the local level you can also check voter registration documentation, or go to theVital records office where births, deaths, marriages and divorces are recorded. Whew… tired yet? If you haven’t already guessed, gathering solid information for your geaneology isn’t a quick task. ) and you haven’t even moved past the local level yet.

There are still things like state and federal tax records and the census to consider. For many of us, searching foreign records also comes into play. It may take years and several family members working on different parts of the “tree” for you to be successful (splitting up the workload isn’t a bad idea). In the end, however, the time and effort is well worth it.

Before buying genealogy software you should know that there’s currently over 40 different products on the market. Each of these programs are acceptable if you just want to see or organize family information in different ways, so really a lot of the determining factors come from your computer system’s logistics and your budget.

If you already use genealogy software and like the results you’re getting, then check online to see if that company offers upgrades. Traditionally, you can get an upgrade for far less than the cost of new software. And, if you’re happy with the software you’re using and comfortable with it, it makes sense to stay in that comfort zone. Now, if you’re looking for something new or different, you need to take a look at exactly how you plan to apply the software. Do you want a program that can, for example, take the data and create a color printout suitable for gift-giving?

Or, perhaps you just want an inexpensive program that manages databases effectively. In pondering this, try to think long term. If you’ve already found you’re really “getting bit” by the genealogy bug, you may grow out of very rudimentary software quickly. Additionally the lower end programs don’t’ offer a lot of variety in how the data can be formatted, stored and linked. Now look at features.

Do you think you’ll need a system that handles various languages? Do you want software that’s compatible with LDS databases? Will you want to be able to import and export the data you collect easily? Do you want to be able to keep scanned documentation with your database?

Bear in mind that there are some free software programs available out there through reputable sites that’s worth trying. You may find a trial run with several of these programs refines your awareness of what you REALLY want in genealogy software. Now let’s get picky. - How much space is there for recording people’s names?

In an era of hyphens and several middle names, this isn’t a silly question. You need enough room to record a person’s name completely as well as variants if applicable. - Can you sort the data you collect various ways (by date of birth, by region, etc.)?-

Can you record information such as occupation, or add notes to your files that can aid in future research?- Multiple parents: many children will have both natural and step parents, both of which need to be recorded for accurate recordkeeping. - Source notes: is there a place where you can note your sources (this is very valuable for future research)

Finally what about narratives? If there’s a way that the program you use can organize information so its more easy to put it into book form, it will save you a lot of time. For example, if it can create footnotes, a bibliography, etc. This way you can share your discoveries like a story with friends and family alike.

Before you panic about the idea of charting your family tree, take a quick trip around the internet.

There are a lot of genealogy sites that offer free “starters” from which you can fashion your own documentation, including a Google genealogy chart.. I strongly advocate this approach if you’re a beginner to family tree research. It helps a lot.

There are also software programs out there into which you can add your discoveries as you find them. The problem with software is that you can’t always see the whole chart on your monitor, so if you want something global you’re back working on paper. No matter your chosen approach, the first step to building a family tree is get yourself organized.

Gather as much paperwork as you can from your own research thus far, or those given to you by others in your family. Begin writing down what you know about yourself and the family members of which you currently know. Effectively you work backwards from yourself. As you do, you’ll start needing information that comes from sources other than direct family like military records and deeds.

For this reason, it’s suggested that you keep the information on each individual or each “branch” of a family tree separate in your documentation. For one thing it’s not so overwhelming. Focusing on one person or small group at a time also typically yields more successful results because you’re not diverting your attention in 101 directions.

This approach also provides a linear overview that you can line up later with other branches based on years … slowly connected the dots. If there’s a family reunion in your future seize that opportunity and ask everyone to bring photo albums, family bibles, scrap books, etc. that might help you in your efforts.

This is the point at which you need to decide how detailed you want to be. Most family trees do not include cousins, aunts, and uncles because they’re not directly part of your family “trunk”. However, these individuals may provide valuable clues to the family’s global connections. It’s really a personal decision as to who gets included in your charting efforts, but each person included should minimally have their full name (including maiden name), date of birth, place of birth, and date of death if applicable. If you have documentation to prove each piece of data, even better. Things like birth certificates as solid gold to anyone interested in genealogy.

Besides talking to your family, all those little things in and around family members homes will help you fill out missing pieces of the overall puzzle. Look at journals, check old books to see if there are notes inside that were long since forgotten. Check out old dressers and mirrors – all the places clues might hide for years without anyone being the wiser. Think of this a bit like a treasure hunt where the reward is carefully safeguarding your family’s history and memories all in one place.

Good hunting!

Over 60% of the people in the US are currently doing some type of family tree research. Some get frustrated – there’s no question that climbing through the family branches is often an arduous and unrewarding task. Sometimes the leads break, turn out to be mis-remembered, or you “fall completely out” without any solid documentation for all your time and effort. If you’re nodding vehemently, know you’re not alone.

While various groups like the Mormons have been diligently trying to preserve their records, there’s no question that some information simply gets lost along the way. DNA testing, therefore, offers another scientific rout to finding that lost relative, distant cousins and kin, and even ethnic origins.

There are several DNA testing companies in the field now. They use the markers in your DNA to look for men and women to whom you were related, the regions in which those people lived, etc.. The Y-DNA test provides the paternal line (note that women cannot be tested for this – they would need a brother or father to take the Y-DNA test for that information. This is suggested as the Y line is very dependable).

The mtDNA test looks for the maternal line, and both men and women can use it. These tests cost between $115 and $650 to process and get results. A basic kit includes scrapers and collection tubes that get returned to the company from whom you bought them for processing.

How does it work? There are genetic markers that come from various parts of the world. Those markers in your DNA provide information on where your ancestors came from and to where they traveled. These markers also tell you the various “haplogroups” (such as being Native American). Additionally any mutations noted in your DNA give researchers insights into more recent ancestry and geographic areas where your markers fit. In the end you can:

- find out if you’re actually related to someone else
- find other people with your surname to whom you’re related
- find out if you had a common ancestor with someone else
- support the information already assembled for your family tree
- find potential countries from which your family and surname may have come
- offer insights into various ethnic origins

Because DNA services are relatively new this approach has its limits. The more people in a family who get tested, the more specific the results become. Also the size of the DNA database to which you’re compared does matter. The larger the sampling, the more specific the results will be.

Despite this limitation, once your DNA has been recorded it will be available for future generational searches too – so you might be helping unravel a mystery for your progeny’s children!

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