IloveNewYork: How can I trace my family history?
I only know 2 of my family names so how am I supposed to trace my family history?
I’ve been on ancestory but don’t really understand it,can you help please?
Answers and Views:
Answer by itsjustme
If you would like to email me I will get you started I just need what names you have birth years and country they lived in. I will email you back with my findings, I mean dear departed ancestors, if I can get you started you’ll get hooked believe me. If you would prefer to post the information please make sure you don’t give a living persons details.
Talk to your parents and grandparents first. If your grandparents remember who THEIR grandparents were, you are back 5 generations.
If that option isn’t open, you’d have to use birth, marriage and death certificates, family Bibles, SSN applications, funeral home records, cemetery records and obituaries to get back to people who were alive in 1930, then the census.
This is a page I use when I teach a class at the library about how to use the large free genealogy data bases. You are welcome to look at it. It may not be as clear as you’d like. It is a lot longer than most Y!A answers, though.
If you are outside the USA, some of what I said won’t apply and most of the page above won’t help.
Answer by Holly NI will suggest to you like I do all that are starting out. Get the book unpuzzling your past by Emily Croom. This is step by step. Then you will know exactly how to proceed.
Ask your parents if they have your birth certificate and theirs. That will save you some money. Then follow the step you read in the book.
Also go to your local LDS Center. They will be happy to help you for free. You’ll need to call and find out their hours.
Answer by Shirley TGet as much information as possible from living family, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. It might turn out they are confused on some things but what might seem to be insigifnicant ramblings and story telling might be very significant. People who do this state they go back a few years later after doing research and listen to the tape again and hear things they didn’t hear the first time around.
Your public library probably has a genealogy section. Check it out. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com that has lots of records. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have U. K. censuses also.
Just don’t take as fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid.
The information is user submitted and mostly not documented. Even when you see the same information repeatedly by many different submitters that is no guarantee it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. Use the information as clues as to where to get the documentation.
A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has lots of records, not just on Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world’s largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee. Just call your nearest Family HIstory Center and find out their hours for the general public.
I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell. I have never heard that they have done so to anyone else that has availed themselves of their resources.
You will need vital records, births, marriages, deaths. Now different states in the U.S. have different laws regarding when a person who is not immediate family can obtain those records. Many are clamping down on birth certificates due to identity theft. In Texas, a person not immedicate family use to be able to get a birth certificate after 50 years, now it is 75 years.. However, all these records are a way of obtaining parent information and usually the mother’s maiden name. Death certificates and applications for a social security number have names of both parents, with mother’s maiden name, and their places of birth.
Generally most vital information was not being recorded by any governing body until the first quarter of the 20th century in much of the U. S. Not every state started at the same time. So, then you will need church records, baptisms, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage and Deaths records can usually be found in churches.
Answer by ZinaRaeThe best way I know for you to learn about your roots is to:
Build your family tree on line.
You can use a paid site like:
https://www.ancestry.com/
OR You can do this for free on:
https://www.tribalpages.com/
Start with yourself, and then attach living family members.
Find out all you can about you family from living members, then attach it to your tree.
Now it is time to look for historical records and attach the info to your tree:
It is ALL about census records, and other historical records!
You might get lucky and others may have done some work on your family tree. Google family members names i.e. “Mary Smith” + “family tree”
Free sites:
https://www.searchforancestors.com/
https://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=27399&o_lid=27399
https://usgenweb.org
https://www.census.gov/
https://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
https://www.ukgenweb.com/
https://www.archives.gov/
https://www.familysearch.org/
https://www.accessgenealogy.com/
https://www.cyndislist.com/
https://www.findagrave.com/
Genealogy message board:
https://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ab-genealogy&nav=messages&lgnF=y&msg=90.1
https://boards.ancestry.com/
https://messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/Family___Home/Genealogy/
https://genforum.genealogy.com/
https://aolanswers.com?boardId=56406&func=2&channel=aol+research+and+learn&refresh=true
https://boards.rootsweb.com/
ECT.
The time may come when you want more information than you can find for free. When this happens you can back up your “tribalpage” tree to your computer on a “GEDCOM” file
you can then go to (I think it is the best subscription site)
https://www.ancestry.com/
Upload your “GEDCOM” file
and start to work!
You might need to make a few adjustments to your tree to make it look better.
Sure call Genalogy.com Ask for Elizebeth,she is the best and awful patient .
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