Tips for Organizing Your Genealogy Research

Researching your family tree is very rewarding. You find things you never knew before and identify yourself with your heritage. It can also be frustrating when you can’t find what you are looking for. Finding that one source that helps you go one generation deeper, or find a new family fact is satisfying to us genealogy hunters. Building a solid family history with proper sources requires many hours of research and tons of patience. As you make progress, it’s important to carefully track all of your findings. This is essential to preserving your family history and ensures that all the hours of hard work you put into growing your family tree won’t go unnoticed.
To help you build a precise family history and a reliable family tree, here are tips for organizing your genealogy research:
Manage Your Sources
Once you start your family search and start to find sources, be sure to document where you found the source. This is known as the repository. Make sure you write down everything and copy all pertinent family information. Make it easy for yourself and others to go back and investigate the information again. And yes, on more than one occasion, you will end up needing to go back and look up the document or directing a relative to the same source.
Sources abound out on the Internet, the library, genealogical societies, and government records. It’s really easy to copy information from someone's family tree, but beware of doing this. Most trees contain little or no sources and you should find the documents that substantiate family history, before copying and sharing your information with others. If you do copy the information, make sure you give credit to the person and repository where you found the information. Your family search should always contain sources to back-up the family information you record.
Keep Track of the Little Things
Recording both your research methods and your findings will help keep your family search efforts up-to-date and, if another family member takes over as family record keeper in the years to come, this documentation will make his or her task easier.
Don’t just document your successes but your failures, too. Pointing out dead ends will help prevent future family genealogists from making the same mistake and could even remind you of leads you followed that went nowhere.
Many family genealogists find that carefully documenting their findings (both the successful leads and the dead ends) often helps in paving the way for a new research idea. You never know when or where you’re going to come across a key piece of information that will unlock more of your family history.
Ensure an Accurate Family Tree
You will inevitably find sources that contradict family information that you thought to be true. This may be due to inaccurate memories passed down within your family, or it could be a mistake by the person who created the written record. You may even find one historical document that contradicts another historical document. For example, a census could have been filled out by someone who didn't bother to ask the spelling of the family member’s name or the information could have been given by a neighbor or the eldest child in the house. To make sure your family tree is as accurate as possible, document all dates and information and make notes as to why you think certain information is correct. You can spend years trying to figure out which exact dates and places are relevant when you have multiple documents that don't have the exact same information. Documenting all the information you find from your family search will make it easier to compare notes later.
Stay Focused
When you get over-whelmed with your research, document what you have done, take a break, and come back to it later. At the end of the day, the process should be enjoyable and rewarding, so when things get frustrating take a step back and take a deep breath. This will help you stay energized and focused on the task at hand.

source: Article Base

The Many Benefits of Making a Family Tree

Researching your family tree has become a popular past time for many people. The thought of getting to know your ancestors and finding out how they lived, and what their life was like has enthralled many; and the internet has made it much easier to find vital information. It is akin to assembling a jigsaw puzzle about ancestors, one generation at a time. Most people have dreams of tracing their family tree back to royalty, knights, or founding fathers.There are other, important benefits to researching your family tree, however.• New Friendships - there are countless others online and off researching their own family histories. What better way to make a new friend than find something in common? You can share tips, ideas, and strategies to help each other and build lifelong friendships along the way.• Personal Growth - researching and assembling information about your ancestors can be a wonderful project on your own personal growth and education. You will discover skills you never even knew you had. You will have a sense of accomplishment that is unmatched with anything you have ever known.• A treasured heirloom to be passed on from generation to generation - this will be a work in progress, as each new generation will add their information and share their stories and memories, along with photos, journals and other heirlooms.• Getting closer to your living relatives - interviewing your oldest living relatives can bring you closer together, especially if you haven't gotten to know them well in the past. Most likely, they will be happy to share their stories and memories with you. It will make them feel less lonely, and more like a useful part of the family. Visit them as often as you can; if they live too far away, call or write often.• Medical history - as you conduct your research, you will most likely come across medical information, such as heart conditions, cancer, or other hereditary diseases that your ancestors suffered from. This will give you much needed information that you can pass on to your own family doctor.• Geographical history - not only will you learn about people, you will learn about places and interesting times in history. What city was your great-grandmother born in? What was it like? What was the population? Where did she go to school? Has the city changed its name since then? There is an abundance of information to be found, not only on whom, but where.Researching your family tree takes time, patience, and effort; but the payoff is tremendous. The benefits far outweigh any challenges. It is something that should be considered a life-long process that is constantly in need of updating as family members get married, have children, grandchildren, etc. It is something to be treasured from generation to generation. Keep a journal of your progress, as well as various notes and things you have learned along the way. Someday, you may be the one being researched, and the more that you can aid in the process, the better.

Source: Article Base