Family Tree Start-Up | News UK & US

We have set out to research our family tree. So where do we start? Naturally we will want to start where we are, with our own nuclear family and then move out with ever-widening circles of research and discovery. We will be setting out on an adventure not knowing how far we will be travelling or to whom it will lead us. It may come as quite a surprise that so much has already been done by others.On my mother?s side I stumbled across a website that gave me the names of hundreds of relatives of my great grandmother. She herself wasn?t mentioned on the site because they were majoring on the male blood lines but now we knew all about that her siblings, especially those who had emigrated to Australia, where the site had been set up. Another family member had married an Australian doctor. One of his relations had done all the hard work of tracing their roots back from Melbourne to Wales, and so we have the full tree going back two and a half centuries.You may well find a relative has started to place their family charts on a website like Genes Reunited. Then when take out a subscription yourself you can start to upload your own immediate family details. After a while the system will alert you to names that appear on the trees of other members; you may then either discover the names of relatives you didn?t even know existed and/or a known relative whom you weren?t aware was even interested in tracing their ancestral roots. It is often quite surprising how many people there are on the far branches of your family tree that are grateful for the link and are more than happy to meet up and maintain contact with you.Whether or not you find a great deal of help in this way there is a much you can look for in your very own home and so make a useful start right where you are. There will be old family papers and certificates to search through and old photographs from an earlier generation. Although your ancestors themselves may not have been interested in genealogy in those far-off days, there may still be diaries, and sometimes copies of wills that have been kept in a safe place And there is always the possibility that your ancestors might have written something about their family history, if they thought there was something worthwhile to record, such as foreign travel or military adventures.What other help is available? There are lots of websites on the internet, many of which require an annual subscription, but some are free. Censuses are another very important and useful source of information for family history researchers. When you have found out what information you have access to within the family circle, you will need to record your findings in a systematic manner. You can now check out the other articles about Family History and Genealogy which guide you through the early stages of note-taking and website exploration. There is also a great deal to learn about Primary and Secondary Sources, Record Offices, National Archives and much, much more. Happy hunting!

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Source: http://www.freenews.org.uk/2011/09/family-tree-start-up/

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