How To Start-- Lesson 1: It all begins with you.

I've talked to a lot of  people that want to start researching their family trees and the first question I get from everyone is "where do I start?"  I actually think this is the hardest part.  At first, the world of genealogy seems very large and overwhelming but if you can narrow down a starting point it becomes much easier.  I know it sounds a little silly but for most people the starting point will be you.  Several years ago I was teaching a group of Boy Scouts about Genealogy and they had to fill out a Family Group Sheet (we will get to that in a second).  One of the boys was joking that this was a silly activity and he knew everything about his family.  We  got to his dad and guess what-- he didn't know where he was born.  Now this is a 14 year old boy that still has both parents living in his home.  He didn't know the simplest think like where his dad was born.

Now for my husband this question was much different.  His father left the family when he was 4.  He had not had any contact with his father until he was 19 years old and even then it was short notes with years in-between.  So the question of where his father was born was actually something we had to work to find out.

So if you want to start your family tree start with yourself.  Where were you born? What are your parents names  (mother's name should be her maiden name not her married name)? What  city, county and state was the hospital in?

For each family that you work on you need to fill out a Family Group sheet.  I have provided one courtesy of Ancestry.com.  They have quite a few forms that you might want to download.  So lesson one is to fill out a Family Group sheet on your current family.  It needs to be filled in for all children/siblings and the dates and places of birth/death for everyone.

Now some of you might not know this information right off the top of your head.  So the question is how do you find this information?  My first piece of advice would be to call someone.  Chances are someone on this list is still living and they might be able to help you piece some of the dates and places together.  Now one caution about this information.  There is a chance that the information people give you will not be correct.  My son though I was born in Utah because that is where I grew up.  I was not.  So even though he knew my birthdate he did not know the correct state.  So all information needs to be verified.  But the first step is to collect the all the information that you can.  Good Luck!!!

Please feel free to ask any questions about this step.