How To Start Recording Your Family History

Getting started on your family history can be overwhelming. Genealogy doesn’t have to be so complicated. You may already be doing family history without even knowing it! Recording yourself and your current family is a form of family history. Getting to know your family and recording their lives will benefit generations to come. You can easily get going on your family history today.

Gather Any Documentation You Have of Your Family

You likely already have a lot of records of your family. Compile all of your photos, letters, journals, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and other documentation. It’s natural to have keepsakes, your family probably already has a head start.

Talk to Relatives and Record It

Recording your living family members is a great way to start your family history. The future generations will thank you! Talk to parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives about their memories and experiences. You can interview them verbally and record it or have them write down their own memories. Taking current photos is another great (and easy) way to record your family.

Focus Your Search

Having a why behind your research will help you propel it forward. You may want to focus on the blank spaces in your family tree or focus on recording the most recent generation while you still have their information. Finding your why may help you focus your search.

Utilize the Internet

The internet has totally changed the game of genealogy work. There are numerous resources out there to help propel your work forward. Whether you’re using Ancestry, FamilySearch, or Price Genealogy—there is a lot of help to be had! Learn more about how to utilize the internet in your genealogy research here.

While you are using the internet for your research, be sure to record your family tree online. There are many resources that will help you to record and fill in your family tree. There is likely information about your family already recorded somewhere online! You may just be able to add on to that.

Digitize Your Research

Digitizing your research will help you to keep them organized and keep them along longer. It’s easy to misplace a photo album, or lose family letters, but when you have all of your work compiled on the cloud or a backed up on a drive. Your records can stand the test of time when you digitize them and back them up. Your posterity will appreciate your efforts for years to come!

Share Your Research

Once you have gone to the work on your genealogy, be sure to share it with your family. You may find that other members of your family are doing similar research. Sharing with each other will help you both to progress. Even if others are not doing research, sharing your family’s history will bring your family closer together. Give your family a chance to connect with your research. It will bring you closer to your deceased family and your living family.