Jacksonville Area Genealogical & Historical Society
How Do I Begin?
| Always start with yourself. This means,
dig out the birth certificate and marriage certificate and actually read
them. Record all the information about yourself - date and place
of birth, date and place of marriage. Then do the same for both of your
parents and all four of your grandparents. Of course, if any of them
are deceased you will also record the date and place of their deaths and
burials.
Here is a good link to help get you started: RootsWeb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees Remember: Data is only as good as the source! You must be able to document everything. A genealogical society can be of great help to you. It is best to join the one where your ancestors lived. You need to know the location where your ancestors lived, as that is where their records will be found (births, marriages, deaths, deeds, church records, wills, court records, etc.) Now that you have done this, you may want to think about putting all your records into a computer program created for just that purpose. There are several good programs available. However, don't forget to keep your written records. Computers have an annoying habit of deleting all the records which you worked so hard to collect. Of course, you should make a back-up copy; Be sure to locate this copy in a safe place, preferably in building other than the one housing the computer!
All
materials contained on these pages are furnished for the free use of individuals
engaged in researching their personal genealogy. ©Jacksonville Area Genealogical and Historical Society. All rights reserved. |
You
do not need special books in which to record your data. A simple
3-ring notebook will suffice. Use a separate sheet of ruled paper
to record facts about each family member. As time goes by, you will
find it much handier to have two notebooks: one for your mother's side
of the family and one for your father's side. Eventually you may
wish to have a notebook for each surname in your family.