Get Started Researching Your Heritage With Genealogy Records And More
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There was a time when tracing your family history was difficult and expensive. You had to go to courthouses to look up information and travel to different areas of the country to get access to vital statistics. Most people didn't have the time or the money it took to do that. Everything is different today. All you need is a computer and a place to start. You can even find out where ancient ancestors lived by submitting DNA samples. If you have decided to become your family's historian and are interested in what genealogy records are available to help you, you might want to start with your living relatives.
Those who are lucky to have extended family have a treasure trove of information at their fingertips. Parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are the best place to start when it comes to researching your family history. If you haven't already started, you should really begin to write down the stories they have to tell about their lives. A lot of older relatives have birth, marriage, and death certificates with valuable information.
After you have established some dates, names, and locations for recent ancestors, you might turn to census reports for more information. Every ten years the federal government collects statistical data from every citizen in the United States. It has been doing this for over two hundred years. There is a record of all this information online. You can find out where a family lived, how many people lived under the same roof and how old they were. There is data about annual income and how it was obtained.
Obituaries are a good source of information. Most newspapers have old issues on their websites. Some go back farther than others. You might find some interesting articles about your departed relatives when you do a search of the papers.
If you know of family members that served in the military, you can find interesting data online that goes back to the Revolutionary War. There should be documents showing the enlisted person's rank and how long the service lasted. Free burial information is available on several websites and easy to find if you have basic statistics. Photos of headstones sometimes accompany the information.
A lot of state counties restrict access to personal documents online, but they do have them in their archives. For just a few dollars you can get copies of old wills, birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates. These will be copies of the actual documents, not just the information contained within them.
There are things to be careful of and to remember when you begin going back in time. You will find that spelling was more fluid long ago than it is now. Different people spelled names and places differently. Not all documents have accurate information. That may be caused by clerical error or by someone who was less than truthful.
Learning more about your past and the generations that came before you can be fascinating. You might find you have relatives with interesting and unusual lives.
Those who are lucky to have extended family have a treasure trove of information at their fingertips. Parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are the best place to start when it comes to researching your family history. If you haven't already started, you should really begin to write down the stories they have to tell about their lives. A lot of older relatives have birth, marriage, and death certificates with valuable information.
After you have established some dates, names, and locations for recent ancestors, you might turn to census reports for more information. Every ten years the federal government collects statistical data from every citizen in the United States. It has been doing this for over two hundred years. There is a record of all this information online. You can find out where a family lived, how many people lived under the same roof and how old they were. There is data about annual income and how it was obtained.
Obituaries are a good source of information. Most newspapers have old issues on their websites. Some go back farther than others. You might find some interesting articles about your departed relatives when you do a search of the papers.
If you know of family members that served in the military, you can find interesting data online that goes back to the Revolutionary War. There should be documents showing the enlisted person's rank and how long the service lasted. Free burial information is available on several websites and easy to find if you have basic statistics. Photos of headstones sometimes accompany the information.
A lot of state counties restrict access to personal documents online, but they do have them in their archives. For just a few dollars you can get copies of old wills, birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates. These will be copies of the actual documents, not just the information contained within them.
There are things to be careful of and to remember when you begin going back in time. You will find that spelling was more fluid long ago than it is now. Different people spelled names and places differently. Not all documents have accurate information. That may be caused by clerical error or by someone who was less than truthful.
Learning more about your past and the generations that came before you can be fascinating. You might find you have relatives with interesting and unusual lives.
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