February 7th Meeting- Beginners Part II

Another great session with 15 attendees.  We started the meeting by discussing the Pedigree chart / Family Group Sheet homework.  It was great to hear the new discoveries of information and gaps.  It was stressed to Start with Yourself, create a good foundation with source documents and then work slowly backward in time?  How many of you have your own parents birth, marriage and death (if appropriate) certificates?  What about those Aunts and Uncles?

As you begin to use search databases, interviews, and other means to get information - you should (must) use a research log to keep track of not only the path to finding new information, but also those deadends so you do not repeat that same search in the future.

Here are some example Research logs - use one per person to research

pdf document for printing out log: Click here
MS Excel spreadsheet with tabs for each name to research: Click here

A demonstration of Family Tree Maker was given.  It is important to start your tree and grow it.  You can use an online "internet" tree like FamilySearch.org or Ancestry.com or others (which you may do anyway for searching of other trees).  You may also want to have a genealogy software program on your computer for disconnected work and having more control over your tree and the ability to publish information for others.  Here is a short video on why you may want to use Family Tree Maker: Click here.   Decide if you want to purchase this software and download this to your computer: Click here

Next was the use of FamilySearch.org (free tree building and database for searching).  Everyone then created an account in FamilySearch and looked up some family members to experience using FamilySearch.org for searching records and the worldwide family tree.

TIP: Once you have a FamilySearch.org account and have connected your tree, whenever you are in someone else's "person" view, near the top of the page below the person's name, you can select the 

and if you are related to the person, it will show the family tree relationship, this is great when finding people from your DNA searches to find relationships.  Try it - have some fun finding cousins.

Homework:

1. Use the research log for at least two of your ancestor searches
2. Use FamilySearch.org to research at least two of your ancestors (grand parents) and find new information
3. Decide if you want to purchase the Family Tree Maker software or continue with just paper

Have fun, see you next time.