- Work from the Known to the Unknown
- Go back in time from generation to generation
- Decide what you want to learn:
-- Birth and place
-- Marriage and place
-- Death and place
-- Place of burial
- Look for evidence
- Context is important
- Be critical of all informations sources
- Keep good notes and organized files
- Document all of your information
Common Mistakes
- Genealogy is more than names and dates
- If you find information on the Internet, it must be TRUE
- Don't accept family legends as fact
- Don't limit yourself to only one spelling
- Don't trust everything you see in print
- Don't assume you are related to someone famous
Good Sources to Discover Your Ethnicity
- People / Family
- Family stories
- Census records
- Birth records
- Photographs
- Obituaries
- Newspaper articles
Other Sources to Learn about Your Family History
- Diaries
- Journals
- Letters
- Family Bibles
- Baptism records
- Marriage records
- Divorce records
- Death records
- Pension records
- Military records
- Wills
- Gravestones
- Family histories
- County histories
- Historical societies
