Most of us want to get information about our ancestors and this is achieved through researching family history. Whether you call it genealogy or family history, it does not make a difference because they have the same meaning. Genealogy is the study of family history to trace the lineage and get more information about the ancestors. What is required for getting the necessary information about any family and the ancestors is genetic analysis, historical records and other records that are essential for getting the needed information. The information that you get as a result of your research is recorded and displayed in the form of charts or you can write it in a narrative way.
We resort to researching our families’ history out of curiosity and gaining more information about our ancestors, to tell others about our origins while we are proud of that or to protect our family history from being lost over time and to pass it to our children and future generations. It was difficult before to research family history as this required spending a long time and exerting a huge effort to achieve the results that you seek for. Genealogy has become more and more widespread as it is easier now to research family history than it was in the past thanks to the internet which provides us with all the required information that we look for.
The most important question here is how to start your research? You may find that you are lost and do not know from where you should start. It is not enough to have a great source of information which is the internet that can help you to get what you want. In order to know how to start researching your family history, follow these simple tips.
♦ Get all the possible information: Collect as much information as possible and write it down. Start with yourself and write all what you know about your family that includes places and dates of birth, marriage and death.
♦ Get more information from the living persons: In order to increase your knowledge and get more information, you can ask your living family members about what they know. If your grandparents are still alive, then you can consider them as a great and major source of information because they know a lot about hundreds of years.
♦ Physical evidences: In addition to getting information from family members, it will be great if you succeeded to find any physical evidences such as photographs, letters, wills, military service papers, certificates and other documents that are a treasure which can lead you to precious information.
♦ Start organizing a family tree: When you start organizing your family tree, write your name first at the bottom of the paper followed by parents above you, then your grandparents and so on with the dates of birth, death and marriage. Keep the original sources with you in case you need them.
♦ Check names and dates: You can get that through using indexes of birth, marriage and death certificates that are available on the internet, county archive and local study center. You can also use census records that are taken regularly. Find a family history society for getting more information about your ancestors.