Over the last few decades, families have become smaller with each generation finding homes further and further away from each other in search of work or good (social) geography. With this type of living arrangement, extended families are becoming increasingly estranged from each other, losing touch with one another and in the process losing their familial heritage. The recent proliferation of internet communication technologies, such as email, instant messaging and social networking sites, has allowed even the most far-flung families to reconnect and stay connected with each other and in some cases, at an even more intimate level than ever before.
So Many Questions. But what of the family heritage that may have already been lost? Do you know all of your grand-parents’ names? Where were they born? Where did they live? What did they do? How did they die? You can probably answer those questions for some, if not all, of your grandparents, but what about your great grandparents and your great-great grandparents? And what about their children who are not in line to you? These questions may be harder to answer and might be asked for a multitude of reasons. Maybe you want to discover or confirm a possible link between you and a historic or living figure. Or perhaps you have health concerns and a comprehensive genealogy of ailments and medical histories would be of service to you. You might be trying to create a greater sense of community with a particular place or group of people. Whatever the reason, the goal is the same. You want to create a full family history and there are a variety of online tools that can help.
Where to Begin? The first thing you should do is collect information from sources within the family. Look for names, dates, and places associated with your family. Newspaper clippings, diaries, family bibles, photo albums and grandmas are great sources of information. Sometimes even a family quilt might give you a clue or two. Next, take all the information you have, don't worry if it isn't much, and begin organizing it in reverse chronological order starting with you. From here you probably have quite a few blanks to fill. Luckily there are literally thousands of websites that could help, like Ancestry.com and OneGreatFamily.com. These sites do charge a small fee, but unlike the free alternatives, you get access to both member researched information as well as access to many public records such as birth certificates, death certificates, marriage and military records. These kinds of records are usually only found in county offices, in the county where the event took place.
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For just a small fee on a genealogy website, you are saving possibly hundreds of hours of digging through county records. These sites also provide excellent tools that allow you to link your family history together and even connect your family to on-going genealogy research projects conducted by other members. While some of these features are not totally unique to ancestry sites that charge fees, there are added benefits over free sites. Because all of the members pay a fee you can expect their work to be taken seriously to the professional or semi-professional level. This means fewer errors, more fact checking and less project abandonment.
If you are trying to piece together your family history, give one of the genealogy websites a try. In some cases, you may even get a free trial period to see how you like the site and its features.
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geneology