How to Trace Your Family Genealogy

Image Gallery  Many folks feel that it's a good idea — at least in the beginning — to trace only one side of your family at a time in order to avoid the confusion that can result from the juggling of too many disconnected bits of information.  PHOTO: FOTOLIA/ANHEES

Thanks to the success of Alex Haley's Roots (surely you've heard of Roots! ), an intense new wave of interest in genealogy — a recorded history of the descent of a person or family from an ancestor or ancestors — has swept the world.

And that's good. As one of MOTHER's editors is fond of saying, "You don't know where you're goin' if you don't know where you've been." We can all benefit from learning who our ancestors were, what they did, and where they did it. And pulling such information together is not as difficult as you might have thought:

[1] Ask your oldest relatives for all the family names and events they can recall. Take careful notes of this oral history or, better yet, capture it with a tape recorder. Tip: You may be able to jog fading memories with old photographs or visits to long-ago places of residence.

[2] Copy names and dates off family tombstones whenever possible. You may also find valuable information in local undertakers' records.

[3] Check your family's old documents and Bibles for vital statistics, names, and dates. Search out dusty trunks in attics and basements and go through them to find any memorabilia that may have been stored there.

[4] Send copies of all the information you're able to assemble to each separate branch — brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. — of your family. Ask all your relatives to fill in any facts you've missed and send them back to you.

[5] An increasing number of adult education courses on genealogical research are being conducted in most parts of the country. Administrative personnel at your local library, technical school, night school, college, or board of education should be able to help you find and attend the nearest such class.

[6] Many regional genealogical societies now hold how-to-do-it seminars, publish helpful information, and encourage their members to exchange advice, tips, hints, and leads. Someone at your local library should be able to help you locate one of these organizations.

[7] The National Genealogical Society offers its members two quarterly publications, a library loan service(either in person or by mail), and discounts on books.

[8] You can subscribe to a genealogy magazine, and place queries in it to obtain other readers' assistance in tracing your ancestors. The Genealogical Helper, printed bi-monthly by The Everton Publishers, Inc., is "dedicated to helping more people find more genealogy." Another, such periodical is The Register (short for The New England Historical and Genealogical Register ), a quarterly issued by the New England Historical Genealogical Society.