Starting your Family Tree

Anyone starting out to trace their ancestors has probably experienced the same thought… where do I start to build my family tree? You may be fortunate, like I was, to inherit a family tree. However, this can have mixed blessings. Early records may a mixture of hearsay, misunderstandings and wishful thinking! Always try to get corroborating evidence of each fact from a reliable source. I can certainly speak from experience here.

Start with the basics and start with the family you know. Begin with your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. They may already have information about the family which you are unaware of. Some might even have been researching their family tree.

I have a free template you can use to base your family tree on or you can set up an account on one of the many family tree makers websites. You can find out more about these here.

If you are only planning to create a limited family tree it is important that you organise your research somehow and this is a good way to do that. The essential details to record are as follws: 

• Full Name
• Date and place of birth
• Name of parents.
• Date and place of marriage/s.
• Name and previous name/s of spouse.
• Date of death
• Date and place of burial.

Try to record as many of these as possible. I would suggest recording these in a looseleaf notebook. It is best to keep one page per ancestor and reference each person with their position on the family tree.