GENEALOGY 102

BEGINNING YOUR GENEALOGICAL INFO SEARCH

INTRODUCTION

FCB Genealogy is a family search service dedicated to finding your roots one step at a time. While we specialize in documents in the New York and New Jersey area, we also have access to nationwide genealogical material and European records such as American & British Censuses and Emigrant Ship Manifests. Some of our services are available thru auctions on EBAY. Since 1999 we have a 100% positive feedback rating here. Please consider us when you hit those brick walls or live too far from a record source to procur it inexpensively.

LET'S GET STARTED

Half the fun is what you can accomplish cheaply or even for free. Where the search gets tough our services can help you succeed. This GUIDE covers what you can accomplish on your own!!

If you’ve ever wanted to trace your family’s roots (but didn’t know how to begin) I have some very good news for you. We intend to help you create a family history that will enthrall you and your relatives!!! You will become sleuths like Detective Columbo sifting through leads and piecing together clues leading to amazing discoveries.

You will use birth, death and marriage certificates, city address directories, telephone books, church baptism records and wills. You will even visit cemeteries, genealogy libraries, state and national archives and universities for their records.

Within a short time you will be using software for the creation of a family tree, and contacting other genealogists looking for the same lost ancestors you are seeking. Genealogy is the fastest growing hobby in the world and for good reason-it gives us all a sense of connection to our past.

But before we go anywhere, we have to begin with some research closer to home.

YOUR FAMILY IS A DATABASE!

The greatest repository of family knowledge you will ever obtain lies within your living family. You will build a family tree far more quickly and far less expensively if you do the initial footwork yourself!!!

Get a notebook or a tape recorder or a vidcam or a laptop. This is the info you will input into your family tree software program later.

Begin with your mother, father and both sets of grandparents. Interview them and be specific in your questions.

You will want:

1.Maiden names to trace the women in the family.

2.Names of siblings and their spouses so when tracing them in the censuses they will be easily identifiable if they have a common surname. John Smith may be hard to find in New York City BUT if he had a brother and sister named Caleb and Gertrude the odds of finding them go way up in your favor!

3.Death dates and places of burial so you can obtain grave records and obituaries that can lead to more unknown relatives.

4.First and middle names are just as important as last names because old naming conventions can tell you who their parents or grandparents were (i.e. Luke was father of James who was father of Luke who was father of James).

5.Old street addresses because you can trace your family for decades backwards through time year by year in old telephone and address directories and compare & identify them in censuses and other documents.

 6.Ask for old mass cards, newspaper clippings,    and legal documents they may have in a drawer somewhere.

7. Ask if they know the year of emigration and Country of origin of your ancestor. Ship Lists and Naturalization papers are out there waiting for you to find them!

8. Ask them to tell you stories about their family. While memories fade and stories are embellished and dates often get crossed, these stories are the soul of your family history and no birth certificate or will or census can tell the story the way a living relative can.

9. PHOTOGRAPHS!!!!! ASK FOR PHOTOS!!!! Not only is this the most fun you'll have seeing frozen frames from the past of your own family but...flip those photos over for dates, names and places!!! There are also plenty of websites around where you can learn to date photos by the type of clothes the people were wearing.

Armed with this initial information you can begin the detective work!!!

Most of the time we tell people to work backwards to get to the 1930 census. From this point on backwards every 10 years there was a census back to 1790 except for 1890. The 1890 census was destroyed in a fire. But this almost continual record along with the information you collected about your ancestors such as addresses and siblings and burial locations of known family, you can hopefully get back to the point when your ancestors arrived in America. Thats when the Ship Manifests come into play!

And if your living elders know anything about their country of origin, there are means to go back even further!

Start Interviewing those relatives!!!!!!!