I’m a detective. I’m a history buff. Searching in the past requires detection skills like rooting out and sometimes solving problems. These skills I have always been good at. And I love it so much so that my main source of entertainment is mystery shows and books. I’m in tune with the amateur detectives and can ferret out a bad guy before the show is over. (Though I admit I’m not always right.)
As for searching out my family history many might ask, why would anyone want to search the past; those people we came from?
I recently found a World War I draft card for my great grandfather showing me what he looked like. He was stoutly built, with black hair and had gray eyes. And on a passenger ship from Italy that my husband’s great grandfather was dark skinned, brown eyes, and 5 feet tall.
I started searching out my family when a friend ask me to accompany her to the New Jersey Archives in Trenton, New Jersey where she was going to continue her own family tree. Her mother had started their family history before her death and my friend decide to go on with it. I helped her with her until we came to a loll in the subjects we could root around in. We where were I myself could already in the place where my family history would be found since I come from Paterson, New Jersey, and the Archive in Trenton housed some much of the states history I was in the right place to start my family tree. I always loved research. Early on in school I found that to understand a subject I have to know much more than the basics to grasp any topic. I had to ‘see’ the subject to understand it. Though dyslexia wasn’t known at the time, I believe that was my problem and a major part of how I came to be such a good researcher. So I began ferreting around in the archive to see what I could find about my family. Which started my journey into genealogy.
You can find the exact place where your family lived and what their time period was like. How they traveled. What they wore. What type of jobs they had to work. What it took to keep the family going. Did they own their house and property. Or did they rent. What size house they lived in might be found when you see they amount their property was worth which can be found on some USA government census and how many people were in the family. See how much money they made. Census were taken, depending on where you are in the country, every 5 to 10 years through the 1800s. Many countries over the last few centuries have also kept records.
With each new invention you could almost see the improvements to their lives and bring them closer and closer to us here in the present. The past is a look into how we got here. You can by searching find out the things that have happened to your ancestors. Some good, some really bad.
Research puts you in their world.
If you are lucky there are photos and documents to be found from other individuals and their family trees who might be related to you whether closely or distantly on the many genealogy sites out there on the internet, both paid and free. Schools, churches, local governments and family history books can be accessed in the areas your ancestors lived.
The one thing you must know right up front you have to look through the records yourself. This will be a must to insure you are finding your real ancestors. People do not always do research correctly. So copying from other trees and the hints from genealogy sites is not enough. You need to find and read documents yourself to verify a relationship to you.
If any of this appeals to you below are a few sites I like that you can get started.
Paid sites to start a personal family tree:
Free sites for searching and collaborative trees (meaning, anyone can change your information):
Some of many FREE SITES For Research:
https://books.google.com/ Find books and look inside them and copy and paste information you find.
www.findagrave.com Find your ancestors graves and more. Though sometimes some info is wrong there can be names and dates of their family members you didn’t know about.
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/
http://www.searchforancestors.com/
Free sites to search and videos for important information (I don’t have a subscription to any of these youtube sites):
https://www.youtube.com/@GenealogyTV
https://www.youtube.com/@GenealogyGems
