Since genealogy is my hobby, my profession, and my passion, many people ask me how to get started. What are the essentials to doing a family search? Here are some tips that should help you discover your family under the best possible conditions.
Get organized: I started working on my family tree almost 30 years ago by writing down names on a brown paper bag. Now there are 20,000 people in my tree ? about 3,000 proven to my satisfaction. Your tree may not grow that large, but organization is important regardless.
World: There are organizations in most countries that are similar to the ones mentioned in the US. Usually a search on Google for the word "Genealogy" and the name of the country will give you some good places to start looking. If you want to search the entire world, check out FamilyTrackers.com.
Join your local genealogical or historical society: Even if you are not really looking for relatives in your immediate area, the local society is a great place to learn, to network, and to make a positive contribution. You will meet wonderful people with vast amounts of experience who can mentor you and make you a better genealogist ? and a better person.
Publish: Nothing is more satisfying than helping someone else find their roots and one of the best ways to do that is to publish your findings.
Brick walls: When you can't find any more information about a person to determine their parents or other relatives, it's called a "brick wall." When this happens to you - and it will - don't give up. It is just a matter of patience, skill and luck. The best advice I can give you about a brick wall is to go back to the basics; look at the last place and time where you know this person was and start from there. Also, try to find genealogists who link to this person from a different line - your cousins. Even though you may not be able to prove a direct father/son relationship to your ancestor, you might be able to prove father/son/brother through one of your cousins.
Gene Hall is an avid genealogist with over 25 years of family-search experience and the CEO of FamilyTrackers, Inc. a World-Wide Genealogy Exchange located at http://www.familytrackers.com/
This article comes with reprint rights. You are free to reprint and distribute it as you like. All that I ask is that you reprint it in its entirety without any changes including this text and the link above.
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