How to begin researching your family

The best place to begin your research is with what you know: you. Your full
name, date of birth, date of marriage, spouse, children, parents,
grandparent’s , aunts, uncles, etc. Anyone in your family that you have
personal knowledge of. Don’t worry if you don’t have all the details yet. Write
down as much as you know and the blanks will be filled in after further
research.

Always document where the information came from. The source of this
information is “personal knowledge”.

Next, ask your parents and other family members what they know. Write
down the name of the person who gave you this information as your source,
i.e. “As told to me by fill in name on fill in date”.

Now, you have enough information to begin your research. The census is a
good source of information. The first census was taken in 1790 and has been
taken every 10 years since then. You may not find your family in the 1890
census because in 1921 a fire at the U. S. Commerce Department Building
destroyed most of the 1890 census.

The census records you find can give you a lot of information on your family.
From 1790 to 1840 the only information on family members was how many
males and how many females. In 1850 and thereafter you will find the names
of all members of the family, their ages, and the relationship to the head of
the family.

Even though you don’t get much information on these census you can get
clues that lead to other records. The 1800 and 1810 census lists the number of
slaves living with the family. The 1820 census shows the number of foreigners
living in the household and the number of family members involved in
agriculture. 1820 also gives a break down of male and female slaves by ages.
The 1840 census gives both free white persons and free colored people.

The first ancestor in my family tree is Nathan. I have a book that shows his
children as: Allen born in 1799 and Sarah born in 1800. The 1800 census
shows that Nathan’s family has 1 free white male under 10, 1 free white male
age 16-25, 1 free white female under 10, and 1 free white female age 16-25. The
census verifies the information in the book. The source for this information is
the name of the book and the 1800 census.

It’s important to note that you should not believe something is true until you
check it out and document it with supporting evidence.

In 1820 Nathan’s family was made up of 2 males under 10, 1 male 16-18, 1 male
18-26, and 1 male 26-45. The 2 males under ten would be Nathan, Jr. born 1817
and a male child born somewhere between 1810 and 1820. We don’t know the
name of this child or his exact birthday but we can guesstimate by the
information given in the census. We do not know what happened to this
child since this is the only record we have. Someone on the internet has
given this child the name Thomas. We really don’t know what his name is
since we have no documentation that shows his name.

I have looked for Nathan’s family in church records and also in the Quaker
Meeting Records but cannot find them there. Just because your family is not
Quaker doesn’t mean that your family cannot be found in those meeting
records. So, if you are at a roadblock look everywhere, even places where you
think no information will be found.

Other good places to look are:

1. The Bureau of Land Management

2. AfriGeneas, for African-American Ancestors

3. Ahnenforschung.net, for searching your German ancestry

4. Find a Grave

5. Believe it or not Google can be a great resource for researching your
family. Type the name of your ancestor into the search engine and you
will be surprised what will come up. Another good resource is googlebooks. Old books sometimes contain just the information you need.
These books are searchable and can be used as source documents.

6. The National Archives

7. The Social Security Death Index can provide information on your
ancestors from 1962-2019.

8. JewishGen is for searching your Jewish heritage.

9. The Ship’s List offers a lot of information on passengers coming to
America. If you have been unable to find an immigration record for
your ancestors, try this list.

10. If you find a book about your ancestors but it’s not in your library then
check WorldCat to see if any library in the United States has a copy.
Then talk to your librarian to see if he/she can borrow the book from the
library that has it.

Good luck.
Sharon Fortner Wright