It turns out that at least one of my relatives has been doing some genealogy on our family. I learned this when I was talking to that relative through the chat function on facebook. I had no idea that there was a genealogist in my family!
Before you begin doing your own genealogy research, it is a good idea to ask your other family members if they have already started. Find out what has already been done. If possible, share what each of you has discovered about your family. This is a great way to expand your family tree, and connect with a living relative at the same time. My relative is going to send me an email with questions about my immediate family, so he can connect this branch of the family to the family tree he has been working on.
Some of my relatives have started using the Family Tree application on facebook. However, the relative I just spoke with prefers to use the Ancestry.com website, instead. I can see why! They have over 5 billion records that you can access from their website, including census records and voter lists, records on births, marriages, and deaths, military records, immigration and emigration records, court records, land records, wills, and even information from newspapers. They have a video you can watch that shows you how the website works.
You can add your own family tree to this website. I think this means that if I decided, some day, to use Ancestry.com to help me create my own family tree, I might be able to access some of the work that my relative has already put on the website. You can sign up for a free, fourteen day trial, which gives you time to explore the website. Years ago, I tried to sketch out my family tree, but I never finished it. At the time, I had absolutely no knowledge about how to go about doing that, and quickly got overwhelmed. It’s nice to know that I have a relative who might be able to help me with it, if I ever decide to give it another try.
Image by Takato Marui