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Wondering How To Make A Family Tree – It Boils Down To Just Three Core Documents Your Searching For!

I receive great feedback every day by email. I wish more people would use the comments form below to share their experience.  Please don’t hesitate to do so yourself. Regardless, keep the questions coming. I wanted to write right away and respond to everyone with the answer to a great question I received. One beginner genealogist wrote, “All this about government resources and talking to your family is great but it’s still not clear what I’m looking for.”

 

 

Has this same question crossed your mind?

Here’s the bottom line.  You want to trace your ancestors back as far as you can.  By that I mean identifying your direct ancestors (your parents, your grandparents, your great-great grandparents, etc.). Brothers and sisters, Aunts and Uncles, they are all great people to keep notes on but your core family tree is just the parents of the parents of the parents of you (and beyond).

When you find a direct mother or father in your lineage, you need to have documentation that proves that they are a part of your lineage You do this with formal documentation.  Namely, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and death certificates. You’re ultimately searching for these three documents for every person on your family tree.  This is how you do a family tree.

These documents will provide you with the critical information you need to go back to the previous generation.  For example, a birth certificate will tell you who the parents were.

Does that help?  Stick with it… you’re doing great.  Just take it one generation at a time.

Making a Family Tree – The Challenges of Beginning Genealogists

We did a survey a little while back where I asked the original visitors to this website what their biggest challenge was when making a family tree. The idea was to make sure the website was a resource that would help people overcome these initial barriers.

 

 

 

This is what people said was their hassle.

• Trying to figure out how to complete a formal family tree chart (like the one you downloaded)

• There was confusion on whether or not cousins should be on your tree

• Some folks had a terrible time understanding how to obtain birth, marriage, and death certificates (and when or why they were important).

• Surnames (especially when immigrating relatives changed the spelling) were a problem.

We actually received 182 different responses, but these were some of the more popular ones. We built this site around the results of that survey, and developed the tools you’ll find on this site around solving these problems. How are things going with you? Are you finding that any of these relate to what you’re experiencing? Use the comments area below to post your biggest genealogy challenge.

I’ll answer what I can. Please feel free to comment as well if you know an answer or resource that might help.

Making a Family Tree – What to Record

In case you are a novice, researching the genealogy of your family, you will know that you have to begin with yourself and move outward to your immediate family next. Keep a blank family tree and pedigree chart handy since you will have to record all the information there.  You should record the following data for each person: name, date and place of birth, date and place of death, spouse, children and parents. If there is any other interesting fact, you can add that as well.

 

For relatives beyond grandparents you will need to consult secondary documents for data compilation.

Find out how to make a family tree

For affiliate info, visit: make a family tree

Great New Step-by-Step Genealogy Guide

If you’re having trouble getting started with making a family tree, let me suggest this great new genealogy guide. This step-by-step guide will provide you with clear, concise, instructions on all of the problems and challenges you face when starting to make a family tree:

 

 

 

• Learn how to get started
• Where to go for accurate, trustworthy, free family information
• Discover a treasure trove of blank family trees and templates
• How to search government databases to find immigration logs
• The time management tips and tricks used by professional genealogists
• How to treat and manage name changes, authentic certificates, and international data sources.

This guide is simply the most effective way to get started in genealogy.  Click here to read more.