When you first set out on your genealogy journey, it can be difficult to know where to begin. When I began, I was a teenager and it was the 1980’s. Yes, I’m that old. Really. So, every resource was accessed the old-fashioned way. Snail mail or visiting the site where they were kept.
It wasn’t like today where it seems like everything is digitised and just the click of a mouse away (that is an illusion and the subject of another blog post to come!). If I wanted a certificate from overseas, I had to write to a professional over there, get them to find the item, purchase it and post it to me. As a poor student at the time, this was both frustrating and expensive.
My strong advice, even in these days of easier access to information online, is ALWAYS begin with what you already know or can find out from people and items in your family. You might be surprised how far you can get before having to decide which subscription genealogy services you might need to invest in or to consider the services of a professional.
I talked with my parents, and wrote to surviving grandparents in England, and got as much information as I could from them. Names, dates, places, stories, photos, things that had been passed down through the family…anything they could tell me that might give me a clue as to where to look next.
Then I asked them who else might have information, photos or documents that might assist. I’m a hopeless letter writer, but I remember sending swathes of aerogrammes over to the UK, as I wrote to elderly barely-known relatives asking them for their memories. Those memories are precious now. Those letters were often my last contact with them before they passed away, and their writing was so much more interesting than the facts listed in an official document. Hints at family secrets, feuds, and random puzzling snippets (such as ‘We think Mrs McKnight is dead now’ from a slightly dotty great aunt which made no sense for 25 years!) add flesh to the bones of the burgeoning family tree.
Now that genealogy has become such a popular hobby, you may also be lucky enough to find out that someone in the extended family has already done some work on their side of your tree and be willing to share what they have found out with you (along with copies of their documentary sources if you’re super lucky!). And in return, as you find new things out about your common ancestors, you’ll share back with them, won’t you?
By the time you’ve finished with talking with everyone, you should find your tree has extended back to at least the early 20th Century for very little outlay. You are now back into the era of ancestors who can be confidently presumed dead, and thus publicly available records exist. We’ll be talking about records and where to find them in future blogs.
By this time too, there is no going back. The genealogy bug will have well and truly bitten you, so the quote above is really a mockery. There is no end to a family tree. You won’t stop, trust me!
Has anyone found out anything interesting from family members which sent them down the genealogy rabbit hole never to return? Comment below!
