Embarking on a Journey of Discovery
Ever wondered where you came from? How your family got to be where they are? Why they are the way that they are? You can start to answer these questions with some basic family history research.
Every person’s individual life experiences shapes them into who they are. But their experiences are first molded by their families. Where they were born and grew up and what values or belief systems they have are heavily impacted by their parents. You can follow that pattern all the way back to the dawn of man.
The good news is that you don’t need to go that far back to gain a little insight. A few generations back will give you plenty to reflect upon. Luckily, that’s fairly easy to do with the resources we have available today for free. Getting started might seem daunting. But you can break that analysis paralysis and make real headway quickly by following these steps.
Thanks to my grandfather, researching history, particularly family history became a passion of mine at an early age. He loved to tell stories and I love to listen to them, which naturally led me to want to uncover more stories. Sometimes we find that the fantastical stories we hear are embellished or fabricated all together. Other times, reality is the better story. There’s only one way to find out.
5 Steps to Start Your Family History Research
Step 1: Gather What You Already Know
Try to remember what you knew about your family members. Does anything stand out? Your grandfather’s birthday or birthplace. Did your grandmother tell you her maiden name or what type of work her father did?
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. If you have old family photos, take them out. What’s in the background? As a car guy, I can roughly date a photo by the cars in the background. A photo from the 1940s can’t have 1950s cars in it. You can make estimates based on their clothes they’re wearing. Who else is in the photo? This may seem obvious but check the back of the photo. It was fairly common to write names or a date on the back. See if you can identify familiar faces across photos. Sometimes knowing one face in a photo gives you an idea of who the other people in the photo are.
Think about any stories you heard growing up or documents that were passed down to you. What do they contain? What is the context surrounding them? Can you imply anything from them? You may not have confirmed answers in your analysis right now but this gives you a springboard to work from. I found a copy of the book my great uncle wrote about his family simply because I knew he wrote one and I bothered to look. Where I found that copy though was pretty lucky. More on that later.
Step 2: Talk to Your Relatives
This step is tied to the first step but don’t forget about it. If you already have starting information, your relatives already told you something. But keep them talking. There are details to be uncovered! You might just have the basics like “You’re great uncle wrote a book.” What was his name? When did he write it? What was the title? Ask those follow up questions to the people who told you in the first place.
For anything you don’t know, just have conversations with your family, if you can. If you have the opportunity to ask questions and listen to your older family members, I strongly encourage you to do so. You’ll find this time to be some of the best time spent with that family member. At least, that’s been my experience. They’ll appreciate that your interested in their history and who they are too. More than that, they’ll give you the gift of hearing how they experienced life and the things they learned along the way.
History isn’t just about names and dates. The most rewarding part of life is the lessons learned, wisdom gained, and connections made. Understanding and appreciating history is about not letting that legacy disappear.
What Success Might Look Like
This was a crucial step for my research of my great grandfather. I always understood that he was adopted but that his father was secretly his biological father. The only thing we had was the story. Nothing else, no proof. Until we asked an uncle, my great grandfather’s son. Sometime later in his life, his uncle, my great grandfather’s brother, pulled him to the side at a family gathering and shared the story that we all now knew. But there was more that I didn’t know about…adoption papers.
Virginia is a “closed” adoption state, meaning that a court order seals adoption documents. This means that there would be no way for me to get them through public records. Luckily, we asked the one person who had them. I now have the name of my biological great-great grandmother. The papers say that she died during childbirth and that the father is unknown. Without DNA, I can’t possibly confirm with 100% certainty that my great grandfather’s legally adopted father was secretly his biological dad but I got confirmation from a source as close to the original as I can get. That’s going to have to be good enough for me.
Step 3: Sign Up for FamilySearch.org to Organize your Family History Research
There are plenty of genealogical research platforms like FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, Geni.com, or MyHeritage.com. Why do I recommend FamilySearch.org. It’s free. They have a very robust database of information including census data, vital records, and immigration records. It’s user-friendly and allows you to build your family tree while conducting your research. On top of that, you can leverage the research of other researchers by connecting to an ancestor created on someone else’s family tree.
This is a great place to start uploading photos and documents that you already have, if any, along with any oral history that you know. Organization is key for this type of research. If you do not have it organized, it’s just a collection of facts and artifacts. Organize them. You’ll be surprised at the connections you’ll establish when you start putting things in context.
When you’re ready for it, Ancestry.com offers a full suite of records, including Fold3.com for military records and Newspapers.com. But it’s not cheap. FamilySearch.org gives you a chance to get started in a big way at no cost at all. Fold3 offers occasional deals or free access to specific records on the anniversary dates of those records
FamilySearch.org also has a mobile app to make access easier and allow you to research on the go.
*This post is not sponsored by FamilySearch.org. I am not an affiliate. I do not receive anything from recommending them. When I got serious about my family history research, I used (and still use) FamilySearch.org for the bulk of my genealogical research and record-keeping. No other site gives you that much access to information for free.
Step 4: Explore Basic Records
Now that you’ve gotten started with your free FamilySearch.org account, start digging for more information to your family tree. Search names, locations, and dates to find census records, birth records, baptism records, etc. Census data will tell you where that person was and when, where they were born, and what occupation they held. When you combine this with several decades of census data, you have the beginnings of a timeline of that person’s life. If you combine that with census data for their spouse, children, and parents, you have the first pieces to the puzzle that is their life story.
Do this for the family members that are closest in relation to you. Then work your way out. Start with parents or grandparents. Move to great grandparents and so on. Knowing context like how many children a person had and their rough ages will help to narrow down if you found the correct record, particularly if your ancestor had a fairly common name like Joseph Smith.
This is the part that lays the groundwork for the most interesting part, to me, of researching your family. Basic records gets you the beginnings. It’s the information that hints at what their life was like. Step 5 is where you can paint the picture, so to speak, and tell their story.
Step 5: Expand Your Family History Search
This is where you dig deeper and all of those basic facts will come in handy. You’ll know time frames, occupations, locations, etc. Sometimes, it’s just about searching a name and a location in Google. Get creative with how and what you search.
Remember when I mentioned that my great uncle wrote a book about his family? We reached out to cousins to find someone who knew the title of his book. We finally got it but we also learned that very few copies were actually produced. It was a long shot to find one.
I searched and found a record that showed the title, author, copyright date, and the publishing company. So, I asked the publishing company. That was a dead end too but they were kind enough to respond to me that they just weren’t able to find any copies in their archives. After quite some time and on a whim, I searched on Amazon. By some strange miracle, an antique book dealer was selling a single copy on Amazon. I bought it on the spot. You never know where you’ll find new information.
Pictures in old photo albums might give you your initial search terms. Or you might recognize a business name in an ad while you’re looking through records at a local library for something else. A big mustache or other facial features might give you enough to identify someone in a photo that was mislabeled. This is where all the pieces that you’ve collected start to come together.
The Journey Continues
When you think about it, your family history is just one thread in the giant tapestry of human experience. By exploring it, you’re connecting to something bigger than yourself. It’s about understanding where you fit in the story and what got you there. So, take those five steps, see where they lead you. You might just find that understanding the past helps you appreciate the present in a whole new way.
For more discussions on topics in history, keep an eye on The Study here in Dad’s Parlor, where we delve into the echoes of the past, uncovering the stories, artifacts, and ideas that have shaped our world.
