Discovering Your Family Tree
Discovering your Family Tree is becoming one of the fastest
growing hobbies as more and more of us are inspired to trace our
Family Trees. Genealogy, or discovering your family tree, can be
a fun and valuable hobby. You will start to learn where you come
from and what your family history is all about. You may also
discover that your family played a role in historical events and
you will certainly discover what impact historical events had on
your family.
The hardest part of getting into genealogy for a lot of people
is getting started. They just don't seem to have direction or an
idea of how to get going with their research. The best way to
get started is actually by getting four things set so that the
process is easier. Make sure you have a plan, keep track of a
goal, have wide goals, and develop a set of methods that suits
you best.
The best first step to take in genealogy is to make sure you
have some sort of idea where you want to go. You will have to
set a goal so that no matter what you do online or in the
library you are always focused on your goal. If you constantly
review your information and goals, you will be able to make sure
you are always headed in a direction that will aid you in
achieving your genealogy goals. The goal doesn't have to be
complex, just make sure you have something in mind that will
help you find your way through your family tree and will keep
you focused.
Once you have come up with the specific genealogy goal you want
to pursue, make sure you have it in front of you all the time.
Keep a written copy of your goal or your list of goals in front
of you as you research. Handwritten or even printed index cards,
a notebook, or notes on a desk top calendar all work well to
keep your goals right in front of you. By having goals in front
of you at all times, you will be able to stay more focused on
what exactly it is that you want. With all of the information
available on the internet it can be easy to get distracted or
sidetracked by other information and before you know it you are
researching other people who may or may not have a connection to
your family! This way, you can keep your focus and achieve goals
and reach milestones with more frequency.
Third in discovering your family tree or your genealogy
research, is to make sure that you pursue your stated goal with
a broad stroke. Meaning that you should avoid the temptation to
focus your search on a certain site or a certain library and
instead go broad to allow yourself a better chance of success.
For instance, if there is a very specific relative you want to
learn more about, but you only know a name and a place of death.
Your temptation might be just search for his name or on a
website with information on the city or town where he died.
Instead, brush with a broader stroke and begin your search on
someone in the family you know more about. Perhaps you know a
lot more about his son. Begin by searching for more information
on the son and his family to focus you on that section of the
family. You will be surprised at how often you will stumble on
clues to what your original focus was anyway, by using this
method.
Finally, be prepared to discover your own little way of doing
things. That seems simple enough, however not everyone is so
prepared. What you should do is put together strategies that
have worked for you in your search so that you can use them for
other genealogy searches. For instance, many people like to run
all of their family members' names through all available search
engines. You can use this method and even add other keywords or
search terms that might pull genealogy or legal record websites
to the top of your results. No matter what method you use, try
to remember which methods have worked best for you in the past
and add them to your process so that you become more efficient
the more you work on genealogy.
Discovering your Family Tree can be a lot of fun. With the
increasing popularity and broadening of the internet, as I noted
at the outset, many more people are beginning to take up
genealogy as a hobby. If you want to get started in this fun
hobby, there are four things you should keep in mind. Make sure
you have a plan, set and keep track of your goals, brush broad
strokes in your searches, and continually develop your own
process for success. Once you are ready, the process itself will
be much more enjoyable.