Back to the Basics: Genealogy 101 | Ancestry

hi everyone Christa Cowan here with another episode of the barefoot genealogist today we are going back to the basics this is going to be a genealogy 101 class but whether you've been doing genealogy for a really long time or whether you're brand new there are still things that you can learn as always I'll be available live after the presentation to chat if you have any questions and if you're watching an archived version of this you can leave a comment on youtube we do monitor those and we'll respond as necessary so let's dive into genealogy 101 we've got lots to cover and only our standard 20 to 30 minutes to cover it so I'll be moving pretty quickly hopefully you can see my slides clearly as I go to screen sharing it gets a little bit blurrier and some of that is due to the technology I'm using some of that is due to the fact that I don't want you to see all the details about my family some of those people are still living so here is step one of genealogy 101 and this is should come as no surprise to any of you start with yourself and work back one generation at a time and I don't just say that because it sounds good or because I like to hear myself talk really start with yourself and work back from there there are a lot of people who come into genealogy because they have a family story that they're related to someone famous or someone notorious and if you start to try if you try to start with that person and come forward it gets really messy really fast so you start with yourself then you record the information about your parents and record information about your grandparents if there are things you don't know like your grandmother's maiden name or when she was born talk to your parents get that information from them if you're lucky enough to still have grandparents living talk to them about their parents or talk to your parents about their grandparents if you're the oldest living generation just fill in as much as you know even if you're not terribly certain about it and any little clue could lead you to more information so if you only knew your grandfather by a nickname go ahead and put that in if you're not sure of what his name is yet if you think you were two or three years old when your great-grandmother died approximate that death here and put that in anything you can collect just start collecting that information and and recording it now some people are only interested in one or two lines of their family history when they get started and that's just fine you don't have to do a complete generation at a time you could for example just trace your father's side of the family and work on that until you decide that you're interested in tracing your mother's side of the family one thing I would caution is that you just don't skip generations again that comes back to that one generation at a time work your way through and there are very rare instances where you're going to know the name of a grandparent before you know the name of a parent and so don't leave holes don't just assume that oh these must be the parents and so you plug them in and make sure that you collect the information you need to solidify each generation before you go tracing back because what happens is sometimes you connect the wrong parents and then you end up spending a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money tracing the entire wrong family and it has happened to me it has happened to the best of us and so it's a it's a trap that a lot of new people to family history fall into so here are some additional clues that will help you keep track of everything so step number two is keep track of what you've discovered there are a lot of different ways to do that when I first got started I did it on paper with a paper pedigree chart that I printed out and I just hand filled that information in if you're a tactile person feel free to do that just print out a blank pedigree chart and start filling in those blanks sometimes that's easier especially when you're talking to people when you're talking to your parents or your grandparents or your Aunt Sally or your great cousin your second cousin Jim whatever like fill in that information however you can to get it recorded once you've done that then you can make a decision about how other ways in which you want to record your family history so I'm just going to recommend of course that you keep track of it on ancestry.com you can do this for free you do not have to have an account you can come in here to your family trees and you can say start a new tree and I could just come in here and I could type in my information about myself and I could fill in my birthday in my birthplace and of course I'm still living and and then I click continue and it'll ask me ok who's your father and so I could fill in the information about my dad and his birth date and birthplace and what I've done now is I've just started a little tree I've got this little tree here that I'm starting to build and you can see there's a little preview of it over here and I can give this tree a name and I can decide if I want this tree to be public or private and one of the you have control over that you can decide if other people can find your tree and make those connections with you or if you want your tree private so that other people have to contact you now if you make your tree private and other people start contacting you make sure you respond to them but you have that control know however that living people are always private you can see how it says right here on myself and my parents that it says living right underneath us maybe you can't see that let me make that a little bit bigger there we go ok you can see how under us under our names it says living which means that and if anybody else comes to look at my tree they're only going to see the word private they're not going to see my father's name or my mother's name or my name it'll just say private until we get two deceased people and then they'll be able to start seeing names so however you choose to record your information I would suggest that you do that that you just start building a tree like I said you can do that for free you do not have to have a subscription to ancestry.com now once you start doing that you're going to notice these little shaky leaves telling you that there are hints to records online that that we you do have to have a subscription to view most of those records not all there are some that are free for example the 1940 US federal census is free through the end of 2013 so if you see a hint for the 1940 census you can access that and we have a few hundred other databases that are free as well but I would suggest that you just start building your tree with as much information as you know and can collect from your living relatives before you dive into those hints and start to try to prove that all your family stories are accurate or maybe not so record that information you can do it online or in this case I use a Family Tree Maker software which just allows me to do the same thing I can record information about my family I can see these this whole view I can see this pedigree view and this family view all at once as well as the information about the person over here I can add information and media and details I can attach records and then I can just come up here and I can sync it to my online tree so that way I'm using the flexibility and the power and the options that are fully available in a desktop software program I'm syncing it with my online tree so that I can access it online if I choose to or through any of my mobile media my iphone my iPad if I choose to do that as well then and what we're going to do is check out a few more tips for how to keep track of some things so let's talk about just names dates and places to start with always record women with their maiden names and if you don't know what their maiden name is leave that maiden name field blank until you figure it out there's a few reasons we asked you to do that first of all women's maiden names never change and no matter how many times a woman gets married her maiden name always remains the same so that's one thing the second thing is if she does get married multiple times you hopefully will have attached her husbands to her as spouses and so the system when it's searching or when you're looking at it you know here's her maid name and here are some of the other surnames that she went by and you can search either way of course if you're looking for records of her as a child you're going to search with her maiden name if you're looking of records for her as an adult or upon her death you're going to be looking for her with her married name now the reason we ask you to leave that blank is there's a couple of reasons one is if you've left it blank you automatically know you're missing a piece of information that you need to go find you can tell at a glance that name is missing the second reason we ask you to leave it blank is because sometimes women really do marry men with the same last name as them and if you've put in her husband's last name as her last name and without any kind of note and certainly not at any kind of a quick glance you're not going to know whether or not you need to go find that maiden name or not so always record women with their maiden names dates in jenny ology are always recorded day day month month three character month and then the four digit year okay dates are recorded differently in different countries and particularly the biggest difference that I notice is between the US where we typically record a date month day comma year in Europe they record it you let's see if I can remember those day month year if they're using the slashes so we have to have a standard way to record dates and so this standardization where you record the two-digit day the three character month abbreviation and then the four digit year is the best way to standardize those now of course we always want to use the four digit year no matter what because when we start talking genealogy we don't know if you mean 1927 or 1827 or 14:27 so always record that four-digit year also places when you record places just remember to record them smallest to largest now in the United States that means we're going to record at city county state and then country if you want to append USA or United States to the end of that if your research is mostly in the u.s. you may want to eliminate that but just keep in mind that your research could go global very quickly and that other people outside of the United States might be looking at your research and so I always include USA where it's necessary if you just know the city and you don't know the county look it up and we have look we have place authority dictionaries so when you start typing something into your tree we try to look it up for you and provide you with a list of options but just keep in mind that sometimes there are towns that have the same name in the same state that might be in different counties and sometimes boundaries change so a city that may have been in one county in 1850 could be in an entirely different County in 1950 and so just do a little google research look it up look up the place on Wikipedia see what some of the history of the boundaries are of that location make sure that there's not multiple places with the same name also keep in mind that sometimes there are cities and counties with the same name and sometimes they're not always connected to one another so just just record as much information as you can about the place keeping in mind that you're trying to make your research easier for you a lot of records are held at a location level and so the more you know about that location the better so always enter as much information as you can and if you don't know something don't be afraid to google it or to use that place authority dictionary as a help to look it up now couple of other tips about how to record dates in particular there are some standard abbreviations when you're not sure the exact date and I really want to impress upon those of you who are just getting started that and you're going to see things like in a census record where I have one great-grandmother who she only aged six years between censuses pretty consistently but censuses were taken every 10 years so so each year she only each time a census was recorded she was only 6 years than she was the previous census and this went on for like 40 years so very quickly her age became very inaccurate or if I had used just one of those census records to approximate her age I would have been very very off so always keep in mind that you're looking for records that are closest to the event that occurred so a census when she was in her 80s is likely to be far less accurate than a census that was recorded two or three years after her birth so just keep that in mind and know that when you start looking at some of these records that you're not going to know the exact information at first so I have a lot of people in my family tree where I have estimated their age or their birth year based on their age in a census record and so I just put abt for about and then I'll put the year abt 1837 and then I'll put a note that just says you know in the 1850 census they were 13 years old and in the 1860 census they were 24 years old and in the 1870 census they were 33 years old right so just sometimes it just fluctuates a year or two and so you have to make a decision and just put in an approximation and so I'll do that using abt sometimes you'll have to use other abbreviations for dates before and after are two that I use quite a bit so for example if I find an obituary for a man and it lists two of his children who have pre deceased him I know that they died now before their father died I may not know when they died I may not have found that information yet but I'm going to record that in their death date field as a piece of information for myself it helps narrow it down so that I start to look in the right time in the right place so if he died in 1967 in his obituary states that two of his children pre deceased him I would just put BEF four before 1967 in the death date field for each of those children same thing with after if it says that his wife survives him I might put after 1967 in her death date field so that I know went again so I have an idea or at least some general idea of when to go looking for records when you start narrowing it down like that it makes it really really useful so those are just some of the date abbreviations that I use to help myself keep track and start to narrow in on that information and then of course I record that information either in my family tree or in family tree maker now you can see here I've attached a bunch of records to this third great-grandfather of mine you can do that once you have built your tree on ancestry.com and which again you can do for free if you decide you want a subscription you can start looking for records and as you find records you can start attaching those records to different people in your family tree so I can find a 1950 census record or an 8 sorry an 1850 census record or an 1860 census record and I can start to attach those things to the different people in my tree one of the other things that I do and I'm just sharing this as an FYI I don't want me to overwhelm any of you who are new but let me just share with you one of the practices that I got into really early that has actually saved my sanity in a lot of cases not only do I attach those records or make copies of those records I also make notes so this is my great-great grandfather I did not know him he died in 1924 he actually was an elderly gentleman and he was hit by a car in Dallas Texas I just reread his obituary the other day but I did know his daughter who was my great-grandmother and and she had a lot of really excellent pictures and stories and information about him and so I've been collecting all of that information so you can see here I found a passenger list and I made a note about I basically transcribed everything off that passenger list and then I found census records and a marriage record I found him in several city directories with an address and an occupation and I have just included all of that information now it doesn't matter what order I found the information in I may have found this 1880 census and then found this passenger list and then found this we scroll down here a little bit then then found the 1910 census right it doesn't matter what order I found the record in I always record the information in the notes in chronological order according to their life and the reason I do that is because not only does it help me see it a really quick glance oh look he moved between 1893 and 1894 but then between 1894 and 1897 he didn't move oh and he's still in the same place in 1898 and 1900 and then when I look at the 1900 census he's at a different address right so I can I can look at a glance and I can just skim through this information to see do I have the right person right because sometimes even when you think you have a unique name there could be multiple people with the same name all of a sudden if I'm looking at somebody with a completely different occupation or a completely different address it may be somebody totally different as a matter of fact when I first found this city directory his occupation is listed as mechanic and I thought I had the wrong person because he was always a carpenter from the time he left Germany until his death and that was very consistent and now all of a sudden he's recorded as a mechanic but he was living at the same address the same address he'd been living at and for several years previous where he had been a carpenter or a cabinet maker and so either this was an inaccurate piece of information recorded by the city directories they got it wrong or maybe he expanded his occupation or did something a little bit different for a couple of years due to economic circumstances or whatever so one of the things that recording information this way does is it helps me to determine if I have the right person or not and to get a really quick overview of their life almost like a biography you'll notice I also record things that I am not sure about so there is a family story and that he had served in the franco-prussian war and received the Iron Cross for heroism so I recorded that that family story there also was this little snippet here about how he'd served three years in the Prussian army that came out of his obituary however when I looked up the franco-prussian war it was from 1870 to 1871 and he came into the United States in 1869 and so I just made a note here about some of the questions I have about this and that I need to do some further research I always use that phrase further research needed to verify and because then I can do a quick search in my notes and pull up anybody who has that phrase in their notes and it gives me a starting place if I don't know what to work on or you know I'm not particularly excited about some branch of the family tree that I'm working on I can just do a quick search in my family tree maker database and say show me everybody who has the words further research needed to verify in their notes and I get a list of people that I can then go and and see you know who I'm interested in working on that particular day so I do put in notes about things that I have questions about things that I'm not sure about I also put in notes about things that I can't find so if I looked for somebody and I can't find them I'll make a note here's what I did I searched for William Cowen I searched for all Williams with no last name born in this particular year range living in the specific 1 or 2 counties and I couldn't find him that way if new records come to light or I know if a new piece of information comes to light that he didn't always live in Lincoln County Ohio or Grundy County Missouri as a matter of fact he lived in Iowa for a little while well I can look at this really quickly and I can see well I didn't search that specific county in Iowa so I can do that so I always make notes of those things as well ok number 3 and this is a big big big one for those of you who are brand new to this jenny ology is so exciting and it is so addicting and when you get in and you start seeing those shaky leaves and you get so excited and you want to connect your family tree to the world but just be aware that you don't know what you don't know that there is so much still to learn and so make an effort to learn as you go this is one of those opportunities where self education and an opportunity to connect with a larger community of people who have a lot of expertise is a really good thing I have been doing this for decades and I still learn new stuff almost every single day records that I didn't know existed new records that have come to light information that's included on records that I've looked at over and over that somehow I didn't clue in on all of that I'm still learning and so just take an opportunity to do that you're here watching this video so I assume that means that that learning a little bit more about how to do this right is important to you hopefully you'll spend some time in our Learning Center we have lots of articles and helps what's new there's a family history 101 category what to do first what to do next we try to guide you through some of those things with lots of little helps we have webinars that are available and then we have our helps where our community actually you can post a question and people in the community will answer you and reach out to you and then of course there's the family history wiki which if you watch videos for me you'll hear me talk about a lot where you can go and you can actually say you know I'm interested in records from the state of Massachusetts and you can find an article about when and where and how records were kept for the state of Massachusetts and then at the bottom of most of those articles are links to online databases where you can find those records really an excellent excellent resource we also have message boards if you're looking for a specific family or a specific person or if you're looking for information about a group of families in a specific county in the United States for example you can go to the message board you can look for that surname or that County and you can post information about what you're looking for and then that community the genealogy community is so so generous with their time and their energy sometimes even when it has nothing to do with their own family people are willing to help each other out so the Learning Center under collaborate spend some time there getting to know some of those resources now I'm just going to briefly mention here at the end this concept of brick walls it's not a phrase that I'm particularly fond of but it's the one that gets used the most the idea is when you hit a roadblock of some sort when you don't know what to do next or you've you think you've done everything you can do I would just recommend that you just take a deep breath and look at it with different eyes maybe share what you know with somebody else here are some of the questions that I use to help figure out what to do next the first thing I do is I ask what do I know about this person and I get asked that question all the time people say well well rather I asked that question all the time people say I want to learn more about my grandfather my great-grandfather and I'll say okay well what do you know about him and it always amuses me when the answer comes back well nothing well you know something you know he's your great grandfather right oh well yeah well and then you know that he had a child because he couldn't be your great grandfather if he had no children oh well yeah okay well who was that child when and where was that child born did that child have older brothers and sisters or younger brothers and sisters do you know the name of that child's mother all of a sudden you realize oh wait I do know some things so think about what it is that you know and think about and what you want to know so I switched those around what you want to know I'm looking for his parents okay well then let's see if we can figure out do you know when he was born no do you know where he was born no okay well where was he married oh well I have that he was married here okay well let's start there right so sometimes you just have to talk your way through it sometimes it's good to do that in writing sometimes it's good to join a genealogical society and have other people who are interested in genealogy to go talk to and you can post it on our Facebook page all the time we have people posting requests for help on our Facebook page and if you just say here's what I want to know here's what I already know and how I know it can anybody help me figure out what to do next or where I can go to find this piece of information and again that community of genealogists this community of people who have gotten interested in family history many of whom have been doing this for years some who are just as new and excited as you are but may have learned something else or that they can then share with you and are more than willing to help so I encourage you use the message boards use the Facebook page join a genealogical society any of those are things that you can do to help break through those so-called brick walls or those what do I do next or I don't know how to take this line back any further I know that was a lot of information to cover in a very short period of time so let me just do a quick recap and again you can watch this video it will be archived on our YouTube channel later today and you can watch it again and again if you need to and but start with yourself start with yourself and just work back one generation at a time that may not seem very exciting but the more methodical you are the more likely you are to have success and to enjoy it as you go also keep track of what you've discovered start a family tree on ancestry.com if you have not already it's free to do that once you get that information if you want to start using a software program like Family Tree Maker it has a little bit more functionality a little bit more depth and maneuverability than by all means do that as well but just get started attach records keep notes and I when I first started I was most mostly paper-based and I always had scraps of paper with things written on it and let me tell you the papermonster gets out of control very quickly so the quicker you can get online and either like I said I create an ancestry tree and/or get a software program the more successful you're going to be the more sane you're going to be so you won't have all those papers and scraps and things to keep track of and then just be willing to admit that you don't know what you don't know and this goes this goes for me who I've been doing this for decades it goes for everyone that there are things that we just don't know and so when you hit those so-called brick walls in your family history and be willing to just take step and step back and figure out what it is that you need to learn about maybe I need to learn about pre-colonial Pennsylvania records or maybe I need to learn about you know immigration in the 1900s early 1900s or maybe I need to learn about you know whatever you can go into that learning center and you can type in you know polish immigrants you can type in you know Germans from Russia you can type in Texas Hill Country whatever like wherever your family came from whenever they came you can figure out what information is out there that you can access use google use the ancestry.com wiki connect with other users through the message boards or through our Facebook page or join a Jenny illogical society you will learn and then your family tree will grow even faster and that gets really exciting at least it does for me so that's all we have time for today if you have questions I will be available live on chat immediately following this presentation if you're watching it live or if you're watching an archived version of this on youtube feel free to leave a comment we do monitor those and we'll respond as appropriate if you have suggestions for other presentations you'd like to see first be sure to check out our YouTube channel and you can find it here at this URL all of our past presentations are available there we've been doing this twice a week for a little over a year now and so we've got quite the collection or library of videos there if there's a topic that you don't see there or that you would like to see addressed more in more depth please feel free to email me at ask at ancestry.com if you want to include some information about your specific research question or challenge so that so that I'm really clear on what it is that you're looking for I'm happy to read through that information as well and then if you want to just check the ancestry.com Facebook page click on the events tab there you can see the topics dates and times for future livestream presentations all of the December schedule is up and available there and I will be working this next week to put together the January schedule so if you've got those suggestions please get them into me until next time this is Krista Cowen have fun climbing your family tree you

Channel: Ancestry

Views: 108,646

Rating: 4.9068785 out of 5

Keywords: ancestry, ancestry.com, genealogy, family tree, family search, crista cowan, barefoot genealogist, TBG, beginning genealogy, beginning family history

Id: Ct2bq6M7fNk

Length: 30min 50sec (1850 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 11 2012