Genealogy 101-Basic Instruction: Lesson 3 -Research

by Robert W Penry

Posted Jun 28, 2012
Last Updated Jun 28, 2012

Once we have captured the most basic information on our family.  Our own information and that of our parents, children, and hopefully our grandparents, the time comes when we want to start adding additional generations and adding uncles, aunts, cousins and their spouses and children.  This involves research.  This lesson will discuss ideas for research. We sometimes hear people say " There is nothing for me to research.  My Uncle (Aunt, Cousin, Sister, etc.) has already done it all."  Nonsense!  Please review the next three paragraphs and then decide whether or not there is still more to research.

You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc. Each line doubles (this is called binary progression) Lets examine 16 generations and see how many potential family lines exist. Starting with your parents:  2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536.

At sixteen generations with an average of 25 years between generations, if you start at the year 2010 and go back to the year 1610 you could have 65,536 lines to research. However, because marriages between cousins are common, the number will be much smaller and the same people will appear as ancestors several or many times.  But to see how many people we could have in our line, we need to add all of the lines together, and divide by two to see how many total marriages there are.  In the example above, after adding all the generations together, there are approximately 65,000 marriages.  Now it gets really fun.  Let's just assume that the average family size is five people (Father, Mother and three children).  Let's look at the potential from the above.  65,000 * 5 = 325,000 people - and this is just grandparents families!  Now let's add in the aunts and uncles and their immediate families.  352,000 * 5 = 1,625,000 aunt and uncle family members.  Now if we add in 1st Cousins, then we get 1,625,000*5 = 8,125,000 1st cousin families.  If we take it down to include all 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins, and add all the families together then our potential family members are  1,269,450,000!  This is over 1 billion people -  over 1/6 of the entire world population.  

You may have heard the old joke – If people from the hills get divorced, are they still cousins? As genealogists, we scratch our heads at the joke, failing to see the humor, since everyone is a cousin.  When I was teaching in High School, I used these stats with my students to show that they will marry a cousin. Of course they were appalled.  If you go back far enough, you and your spouse will find a common ancestor. This is statistically true.

Well, having shown that there always be people in your family to find.  I have never found anyone who can show me a file with over a billion family members, let's get started.

Step 1:  Gather every document you already possess  - Birth Certificates, Death Certificates, Marriage Licenses, Funeral Cards, Photos that show information about people in the photo, Awards, Licenses, Certificates of all types, deeds, land records and anything that may supply information.  Take each document and enter the information in your genealogy program.  You will be surprised at how your file will grow.  IMPORTANT.  Make sure as you enter each event that you record where you got the information.  This is called the source and must be captured for your information to be considered accurate and proved.  

This is a great time to scan the documents.  Why?  Because the scanned image can be attached to your genealogy program.  You can have photos of family members, sound bytes, pictures of certificates.  These enhance your program.

Step 2:   Contact family members and find what information they have and what they will share.  They will also have documents mentioned above that they may let you scan.  Someone will probably have old family Bibles and church records.  Try to either get copies or at least be able to view and write the information.  I use a good quality digital camera that can make pictures of documents without using flash - even indoors.  Interview family members, especially those of your parent or grandparent generation if available.  If they are willing, record the interview.  

Step 3:  Get a large map of the U.S. and a large map of the World, or maybe just Europe.  Mount them on corkboard and buy map pins.  Use pins to identify where your family lived.  You can use different colored pins.  Perhaps you might want a different color for each of your four grandparents lines.   This information will help you know where to look for information.

Step 4:  Use the internet.  Add a bookmark for Family Search.  If you have purchased any research links such as Ancestry.com, bookmark them also.  Start looking for information on your family first in Family Search.  (If LDS, then link to New Family Search).  You will find many sites dedicated to your family names.  You need to enter information you have and see where it takes you.  As you capture information, don't forget to record the source!  As time goes on and you become more proficient, it will soon become aware to you, that you will never be able to see everything available to you on the web.  

Step 5:  Visit locations and look at records any documents.  Visit cemeteries and take photos of family tombstones.  Go to county archives and get copies of documents if you couldn't find them on the web.  Take vacations that include research.  

Step 6:  Get your relatives involved in helping you.  Start a family organization and use a computer program that allows collaboration.

Tip:  I have found that having two computer monitors instead of one helps.  I can have my genealogy program up on one monitor while the other is showing Family Search or Ancestry.com, or anything else I desire. 

 


 

 

 

 

 

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