10 Tips For Genealogy Newbies

There is so much fun in digging into your family history. I enjoy helping people as a part time missionary in the church support unit. Several hundred requests come in daily from novices to experienced with a specific question to get resolved.

Here are a few tips for the genealogy newbie.

1- Start be seeing what is in FamilySearch Family Tree. Learn to use it, it's the genealogy of the world.
2- Use a separate email for genealogy related correspondence.
3- Using these four websites to search for an ancestor cover a lot of ground; there are many more: http://familysearch.org/ http://ancestry.com/ http://google.com/ http://findagrave.com/
4- Read on a regular basis the blogs listed on the right side of this blog. Add to that the FamilySearch blog: https://familysearch.org/blog/en/
5- Talk to your elderly relatives. Dig out their stories and facts. Remember when an old man (woman) dies a library burns.
6- When you find a fact record the source of that fact. Family History without sources is fairy tale.
7- When you want to find a website to tell you where to find an answer go to these two sites first: The Family Search Wiki: https://familysearch.org/ask/researchWiki and Cyndi's list: http://www.cyndislist.com
8- If you are like me and like to learn by video go to this site that is a dirctory of upcoming webinars:  http://www.geneawebinars.com
9- When searching in Google add the word genealogy to the search for better results.
10- There are about 4000 family history centers around the country. Likely there is one near you. Some are only open a few hours a week. They are usually manned by a pretty good expert volunteer. To find the nearest to you go to: https://familysearch.org/locations/centerlocator