The Genealogist

How To Research Your Ancestors For A Family Tree

By Gregg Hall

Genealogy has become a popular pastime. Searching for ancestors can be fun and an interesting way to learn about history. While looking for your ancestors you will learn about the time and place in which they lived. How politics, wars, and economics affected their lives. It will give you history on a more personal level.

The easiest way to start your search is to interview your living relatives. Often there is one elder aunt, uncle, or grandparent that knows a lot of information about the family. The first questions to ask are dates of births, deaths, and marriages. In any family search this type of information is the most commonly found; these events that have been recorded somewhere outside the family and will have public records. Full names are also essential. There could be fifty men named John Jones born in New York City, in 1906. Therefore you have to be very specific on which one you are looking for.

Learning about your family and where they came from can answer questions you may have about family traditions that have been passed through the family. Maybe your whole life you wondered why grandma baked braided sweet bread only at Christmas. Then you learn through your search it is an old German tradition that started several hundreds years ago. It is something she grew up with and has always done without really knowing why. And know you can tell her how it started.

The Internet has opened a whole new world for genealogy buffs. Old archive records have been made available on many different websites. It may take some time and a lot of searching for the correct information, but a lot of it is out there. When doing this type of search it is better to start with a living person, like a grandparent, then move backward through history. You should never start with an event or name and try to link it to yourself. This can very difficult and frustrating, usually leading to misinformation. When doing your family tree you should try to keep it as factual as possible even if you find information you don\’t like.

Another new source of information is with your own DNA. It is now possible to test your DNA to find out your families origins. This information can give you a global overview of your genetic makeup telling you what percentage of your DNA is shared with different ethnicities. For more tribal societies like Africans and Native Americans, DNA can confirm what tribe you are most likely to have come from. These results are not always 100% accurate, they can tell which group you are predominately from, but because of population migrations there can be many different ethnic markers in one persons DNA.

About The Author

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as Investigate Someone Online at http://www.investigateanyonenow.com

Keeping Genealogy Records Intact for Now and in the Future

By Marie Christianson

Genealogy research is an interesting field that is becoming an increasingly popular pastime for many people. With the large number of people flipping through records and copying files, there are a few things you should do to ensure these records remain intact for those who are doing their research now and for those who will be doing research in the future.

Be Respectful in Facilities

One of the first steps you can take to ensure that genealogy records are kept safe and available to others is to be respectful when visiting facilities that house these records. For example, you should always be courteous to the people who work at these facilities. Remember that they have regular tasks to complete each day and, therefore, they really do not have the time to listen to each little interesting detail that you uncovered about your family lineage.

While you may be excited to share the information with someone else, allow those working at these facilities to continue with their daily tasks. After all, they are busy retrieving and preserving records for you and others to use in research - let them continue about their work so you can have more information to explore!

Being courteous in the facilities also means respecting the rights of others. Be sure to speak in a low voice and to keep a close eye on children so they do not cause a distraction or accidentally ruin some important documents.

Know What You Need

As part of being respectful when visiting genealogy facilities, know ahead of time what sort of records you need. Do not monopolize a worker\’s time by simply asking for everything they have regarding your ancestors. Come prepared to ask for specific records. Then, take the documents to designated areas in order to ensure they remain safe.

Never take them to areas that are off limits and always ask for permission to make photocopies of documents. In order to ensure the documents are not damaged during the copying process, you might also want to ask for assistance. Along the same lines, do not hoard all of the documents. Take only a fee at a time so others may access them and so you reduce the chances of causing damage to them.

Handle Everything With Care

Many genealogy facilities have excellent resources available in book format. Be kind to these books and avoid forcing their spines to be spread open and causing them damage. In addition, you should never \”dog ear\” the pages or make any other markings in the book. Make photocopies and then mark on those. If you find a mistake in a document, do not take it upon yourself to make a correction. Instead, bring it to the attention of one of the facility employees and allow him or her to determine if a correction needs to be made.

Photographs are an excellent resource that can really help you make a connection with your ancestors. Seeing what they look like helps create a mental image of them and their daily activities. So, be sure to treat all photographs with care. Preferably, you should were archival gloves whenever you handle photographs. In addition, be sure to handle them by their edges so the pictures do not become smeared and dirty with fingerprints.

You should also avoid laying your paper or any other objects on top of records or books as this may cause damage to them. In addition, never place pressure on the documents. This includes laying your paper on top of a document or book and writing on your paper. The pressure from your pen or pencil can cause permanent damage to precious document and photographs.

Put it Back Where You Found It

Always remember to place an document, book, or photograph back in the spot where you found in. Do not rearrange their order or place them in a different location. In addition, you should never remove anything from the facility. This includes printed information, originals, electronic documents, microform, and artifacts. If you are unsure of where the item was located, return it to one of the facility employees to ensure it is replaced in the proper location and available for those looking for it in the future.

Of course, you should always learn about the rules of each facility you visit. They do not all follow the same procedures. Some may allow you to mark pages with sticky notes while others may not. Never question the procedures and always be respectful of the rules. Remember, these guidelines are put into place in order to help preserve the living history of millions of people - including your own ancestors.

About The Author

Marie Christianson is a senior business analyst at http://www.FamilyDetails.com. Visit the FamilyDetails.com Genealogy Info Center for more articles and resources!

Weekly Newsletter!

That was The week That Was!

Well what a week or so it has been! As those of you who have read my post “The Worst Web Hosts Ever” will know we have been having a fraught time with 1and1.co.uk. This has been rumbling on now for nearly three weeks and there are four domains which they still seem to be incapable of transferring to HerosHosting who are my preferred Web Hosts.

I haave been fortunate that Jeffery Ash has excelled himself in terms of personal support in getting things sorted and hopefully in the next few days we will be able to bring this all to a conclusion! Jeffery really is an absolute superstar and what is more he offers my subscribers a very special deal! If you have been thinking of moving to a new host (especially if you are with 1and1.co.uk!) or have been thinking about setting up your own website then I cannot recommend Jeffery highly enough. Take a look at what he has to offer at Heroshosting.

New Domain Names

To get round the problems in the short term we have registered a few new domain names to cover some of our most popular domains so if you are looking for any of the following then click on the links and you will be taken there:

The Amateur Genealogist
Our Family Trees
Rose Gardening Success
Achieve Success Online

We have also taken the opportunity to register a few new domains for some of our inredibly popular Blogs. Two in particular that I know will be of interest at this time of year are:

The Genealogy Blog
The Landscaping Ideas Blog

Fame!

You know, I cannot pick up a Genealogy Magazine or indeed a few other magazines at the moment without finding my name in it! It’s okay it’s all very positive stuff! GenMates (our Genealogy MySpace Alternative) has really got people talking. We now have approaching 600 members since we launched about 6 weeks ago - which is not a bad achievement is it! Members are creating their own Groups and Forums, Blogging and sharing their interests and generally taking advantage of all the great features.

So if you haven’t logged in recently or heaven forbid haven’t joined us yet then you can pop along to GenMates once you have finished reading here!

Our Get the 1911 Census Online Petition is also about to be featured in several magazines! I am sure we shall see the current excellent 580 signatures exceeded very quickly.

Freebies!

If you haven’t already downloaded my Introduction to Scrapbooking eBook which is free of charge then just click on the link to be taken there!

I have always been a great exponent of Vision Planning and the benefits it brings. I have put together an overview of Vision Planning with some helpful tools within it which are essentially what I use - they are also what some companies have paid me handsomely to deliver as a training session

They are here for you to use and to share with your own subscribers and friends and not even an email address required! So just right click on Guide to Planning for 2007 to download your copy aand save it to your own hard drive!

Finally…

Would you like to hear my dulcid tones LOL Well, I am currently putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard more like) and writing the eBook that explains how we have created a successful Internet Business during the past twelve months. To get on the notification list for the launch of “Are Successful Internet Marketers Really from Pluto?” just click on the link.

Have a great week and thanks for reading! See you over at GenMates!