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| Where to Start When You Don't Know Where to Start | |
| Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 Step 7 Step 8 Step 9
A Word of Caution Step 10
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Step 2 - Interview and Gather The Ancestor Chart you began in Step 1 will have many empty spaces. You may have filled in names for most of your grandparents and great-grandparents, but most likely many dates are missing. Or you may have several names missing. Don't be discouraged. Very few people can name their ancestors, including all eight great-grandparents, without doing further research. In step 2 you will interview relatives and gather documents.
Interview The Interview is a perfect starting point in your genealogical research adventure. Take the time now to sit down and talk with your older relatives. Their memories will provide clues for your research. You will want to seek out and interview your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, cousins, siblings and family friends. To help you prepare for the interviews, read the Interviewing Tips and Techniques.
Gather In addition to interviewing friends and relatives, you will want to "gather" documents, photographs, and other momentos (Home Sources). Do your parents have a shoebox, suitcase, trunk, or old cardboard box of documents, letters, and other papers tucked away? Or is Aunt Jane the keeper of the family papers? If there are family momentos in someone's closet, attic, or basement, you want to know where, and you will want to look at them. You may be fortunate by having Aunt Jane gladly give you the "box that's just taking up space". At the very least, she should let you photocopy and/or photograph its contents. What types of documents or momentos are you seeking? Anything that will reveal more about the lives of your ancestors. Everyone left behind a trail of paper. Your task as family historian is to find and follow that trail. Your genealogical journey will enable you to find the documents and piece them together to build your family history.
Continue with Step 3 - Examine Documents |
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