Genealogy Lovers Unite

Have you wondered where you come from? Now do not be silly, we all know that babies come from the union of two people. What I mean is where did your roots start? All my life, I have been fascinated with my family history. I knew little bits of pieces of my family, but nothing that seemed very tangible. About three years when my childred moved out, my husband told me to get a hobby. It was a no brainer, I was going to trace my family tree! So here is how my journey evolved. I am not going to tell you the ending just yet. You will have to keep checking in to see my progress. I will however tell you, I have found some pretty interesting stuff! And sometimes I hit a wall! A big one!

I had to get some tools to work with. Think about it, your going to build a bookcase, what do you need? Wood, screws, glue and a blueprint to work with to name a few things. My tools were 1. a computer, 2. a box to store my print outs and 3. a family tracking software.

So off I went to the "big box" store to get my first tool - a laptop. Thank goodness my husband knows a little about computers. All I was looking for was one where I could tap the keys and what I tapped would miraculously be saved into the perfect family tree format. He taught me to look at processor speed and memory. Then (my least favorite part) he made me take time to read product reviews (boring!). The end result, my newest baby was a lovely little gray and silver computer with a number pad. Why a number pad you ask? My background is accounting and I feel naked without it.

On the way home, I stopped at a ?mart and purchased a nice sturdy plastic carrying case to keep my print outs in (yes - I already had a printer, I didn't forget it!). Silly me, I thought a handy carrying case to file my findings in was a wise thing to do. For anyone new to genealogy - skip this tool. Learn to save in folders or directories on your computer! It's more cost efficient and it is easier to find information.

Then I went to the local bookstore to get a family tree software. There were about 10 to choose from. They all seemed alike, so I picked an inexpensive one. Tip: really read up on the available software. Some are much better than others!

So I'm ready right? Well no, I had the tools, but no blueprint to start with. So I started with myself. After all, I knew information about myself and I knew what was true...

Read on tomorrow...

So as I noted before, I know myself. Luckily I know my parents & siblings information as well. So I opened up my nifty little software program and began to enter my know data. My grandparents were a little harder. Do you know there are no Nunny's or PaPas's to be found when searching genealogy websites? Just kidding, I knew their names as well, but not birthdates. But with the help of FamilySearch.org (registered website) I was able to find out all sorts of goodies!

Now FamilySearch.org (registered website) is free and it is full of information and very easy to use. If you want to view actual microfilms of the data, you can visit a local Family Search Center (information found on their websites). My local center was awesome! It was located inside the local church and not once did anyone ask me if I was a member or if I wanted to attend. The lovely gentleman that was present was all about genealogy. He gave me wonderful tips for searching for family members...

Anyway, I found 3 generations of my family through FamilySearch.org (reg website). That was a good start, but not enough. I was websurfing and found that Ancestry.com (reg website) had a 14 day free trial. (3 years later, I'm still a member as they keep providing more and more information). I really started building a huge granddaddy oak tree using Ancestry. The only problem I had was my nifty little software program was too bulky to use and hard to navigate. Therefore I purchased the software promoted by Ancestry.com (reg website - do I have to keep saying that???) which was much easier to use and I could print pretty graphs. Here is where I should mention, that as of 2 years ago, my family tree, when put on a disc and taken to Kinkos for them to print, it would be 5 feet high and 32 feet long? No I didn't print it. I'm scared of what it would be today.

What I will say is thank goodness, my family tree does fork! I found really neat facts about my family such as....(tease - you'll have to read tomorrow)...