Search Results for: blog managing your family tree online

Creating Your Family Group Record

A family group record allows you to list everyone in an entire family. It will take several charts in order to complete a family group record. The family group record is several pages of one chart. The chart begins with a husband and allows you to mark if the husband remarried and has additional pages for additional marriages. Then, the chart will ask for the wife and then for each of the couple’s children. For each person listed on the family group record, the chart asks for their full name as well as important dates and places. The more information … Continue reading →

Creating Your Pedigree Chart

A pedigree chart is a list that shows your parents, grandparents and great grandparents. You can expand the chart to show as many of your great grandparents as you can determine. You may find it difficult to list ancestors beyond your great grandparents. This depends on how much information you can obtain. Start with the information that your immediate family members have. Has someone in your family already completed a pedigree chart of their own? You may find that someone else in your immediate family has done the majority of the work that you were about to do. If you … Continue reading →

Types of Family Tree Charts

There are several different types of family tree charts. Among the most popular types are traditional and graphical family tree charts. Other common types are medieval and heraldic family tree charts. A simple family tree chart starts with the person of your choice, usually yourself, and branches out to the right showing your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on. Popular heraldic family tree charts are those for the UK, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Mexico and Scotland. These charts feature a coat of arms on the chart. Graphical family tree charts are probably what most people think of when they think of … Continue reading →

Old Letters and Your Family Tree

By now we have learned the importance of a family tree. We know that a family tree is more than a list of names. Now, I want to share some of the significance of keeping old letters in addition to other papers with your family tree. I have decided to make a box dedicated to all of my paperwork related to my family tree. It is an ongoing project that I work on whenever I have the chance. In this box I have added all of the old letters that I have inherited from family members. I think it is … Continue reading →

Managing Your Family Tree Online

Are you using a website to store your family history? Do you use websites for research? There are several websites to help you manage your family tree online. I have used them for research, but only one to store information. I prefer to keep my records in a book that I created, so that everything is kept in one place and can be passed down to my son. However, there are advantages to doing things online. Information that is stored online reduces paper clutter. Research has been made much easier with the help of websites that offer search functions and … Continue reading →

Ellis Island Oral Histories: Now Available On Ancestry.com

If you do genealogical research on the internet, you have probably realized that the amount of historical information that is available online increases each day. Today I heard about a wonderful new addition to the Ancestry.com website. As the result of a joint effort of the National Park Service and Ancestry.com, the oral histories of about 1,700 people that passed through Ellis Island beginning in the late 1890’s can now be accessed for free in the “Immigration” section of the Ancestry.com web site. The National Park Service began conducting the interviews some time during the 1970’s and they were available … Continue reading →

Keeping a Genealogy Box

Many families keep old family photographs, letters and treasures in a box. In many cases, the box is a cedar chest or a trunk. Or the box may be an old shoe box or a cigar box. If it has been created recently, it may be kept in a plastic storage container. For those of us who haven’t inherited such a box, we can make one ourselves and ensure that there is one in our own family to be passed down to our children and grandchildren. Here are a few examples: Cedar Chest: The cedar chest has been used for … Continue reading →

Recording Genealogy Research in Books

When I first realized the importance of genealogical research, I wanted a book in which to record my research data and notes. I started with a three-ring binder and page protectors. I put everything that I had pertaining to my family tree in the binder. I had articles on how to build a family tree that I had clipped from magazines. I put those together in sleeves and added a tab divider to keep them organized. Next, I added handwritten notes that were given to me by my grandparents. The notes contained names and dates of some of our ancestors, … Continue reading →

American Indian Genealogy – Where to Start

If you are of Native American Indian descent, you may qualify for tribal membership and be able to receive benefits from the tribe. If you believe you may be a descendant of an American Indian tribe such as Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw or Seminole, this is an important aspect of tracing your Genealogy. Researching American Indian genealogy is different from other types of genealogical research. Most of the records needed to prove Indian descent are derived from the United States government. It is important to use all of the resources that you have available to you from family historians. The … Continue reading →

What Everyone Needs to Know About Genealogy

Genealogy is the art and science of exploring your family history. This provides you with the knowledge of who your ancestors were and where they came from. This is helpful information that everyone needs to know. Family historians and people who enjoy Genealogy go to extreme efforts to build on what they have found and continually add to their family history and the research results they find are usually kept in books that they plan to pass down through future generations. While some people simply are not interested in going to this much time and effort to find information, everyone … Continue reading →