Family Tree Research Where to Start

Family Tree Research - Where to Start

Priceless information for genealogy research can be gleaned from public records. The pieces of information they can provide that can prove essential are:

Birth

Marriage

Death

And birth of children

Here’s how to use these pieces of information effectively. In researching an ancestor that you know lived in a particular state, checking his birth record will give a complete name and the names of his parents. Checking his marriage records will show the name of his spouse. Checking his death records will show how long he lived. And it will show survivors, children, which allows checking on the date and place of birth of the children.

Why is this information important? Because tracing a family tree is akin to following a trail with many branches. These days there are many records of a person’s life and many of those records can be found online. In years past it wasn’t that easy. However, everyone had these vital statistics, these basic pieces of information, saved. If someone moved and dropped out of sight, then checking the marriage records of his children, and the birth records of their children may give an idea as to the town or area a person may have moved to and allow for easier tracking. Some jurisdictions in those days kept more extensive records than others did, and by following the trail of breadcrumbs and being a diligent ancestor detective these lives can be traced.

It was also common for people to have large families in previous years. Birth records of children will give the names – the full names that are not used by people at times, and can make searching for the children easier and more accurate. Take the name John Smith for example. This is a very common name. But the birth records will show the full name, which may be John Wesley Smith or John Adams Smith. This information will make it possible to track someone who might otherwise have slipped into the woodwork of history.

Death records are also useful. People, as we’ve said, moved in those days and many times when they moved it was so far from the old home area that they never returned. Death records, which give a cause of death, can show what eventually happened to someone and since they are kept in the region of death, it usually shows where that person was living when he died. Then a search of that particular area may turn up children or other family members. Then checking their birth records will show if they were located in that area at the time of birth, and marriage records will show if they were there at the time of marriage. In turn, the children may have had children. Checking the death records of the child will show who survived the child, more than likely, their children. Then checking the marriage records of these children forms a more complete picture. In this way a family tree really begins to resemble a family spider web more than a tree. Branches can travel, and branches can intersect.

Many times vital statistics will show evidence of a name change. Name changes for new immigrants were common. Sometimes the name was changed by the immigration official at Ellis Island because the old name was hard to spell or hard to pronounce. If for example a man immigrated using the name Schmidt, and he came over around the time of World War I, when anti German sentiment was running high, he may had changed Schmidt to Smith, the English version of the name. While this world allows the new immigrant to blend into American culture easier it would also make it more difficult to find him when doing genealogical research, and if the researcher didn’t know the name had changed, then it would send him in the direction of England rather than Germany when trying to trace the history back to the old country. Vital statistics will many times show the birth name.

Also when women married they would change their last names. Death information will usually contain a maiden name and the time of birth. Using this information a person can more easily trace the female side of the family back further. Vital statistics are a vital tool.

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