Getting started with family history

Family history rewards patience more than cleverness. Most of the work is ordinary: writing down what you know, asking the people who remember, and checking one record at a time. The people who make the most progress are usually the ones who keep good notes, not the ones with the most expensive subscriptions.

This guide covers the first few weeks. By the end you should have a short family outline, a list of questions worth answering, and your first records found.

Start with yourself

Genealogists work backward from the known to the unknown. That means starting with yourself, then your parents, then their parents, one generation at a time. It sounds too obvious to bother with, but it matters. Every jump you make without a document in between is a chance to attach yourself to the wrong family, and the mistake gets harder to see the further back you go.

For each person, write down the basics you already know or can find at home:

• Full name, including maiden names and nicknames
• Dates and places of birth, marriage and death
• Where they lived, and roughly when
• Occupation, religion, military service

A pedigree chart, the familiar branching diagram, holds the direct line. A family group sheet holds one couple and all their children. Free printable versions are easy to find, and every genealogy program has both. Paper is fine. What matters is that you can see the gaps.

Search the house before the archive

Most families have more records at home than they realize. Look through the boxes and drawers, or ask the relative who has them:

• Birth, marriage and death certificates
• Funeral cards and obituaries
• Family Bibles, which sometimes list births and deaths for several generations
• Letters, diaries and postcards
• Photographs, especially ones with writing on the back
• Military discharge papers, medals, naturalization certificates
• School records, yearbooks, deeds and old passports

Scan or photograph what you find, and note who owns the original. Don't take originals without asking. People are attached to these things for good reasons.

Talk to your relatives now

Older relatives are the most perishable source you have. A conversation with a great-aunt can give you maiden names, the town in the old country, the name of the church, or the story of why the family moved, none of which may survive anywhere else.

Some tips that make interviews go better:

• Ask permission to record, and say why you're doing this.
• Bring photos. Pictures prompt memories that questions don't.
• Ask open questions: "What was your grandmother like?" works better than "When was she born?"
• Ask where they heard something. "Mom told me" and "I was there" are different kinds of evidence.
• Keep it short. Two relaxed hours are better than one exhausting afternoon, and you'll get another visit.

Family stories are worth recording even when they turn out to be wrong. "We're descended from a famous general" is usually untrue, but the story often hides a real detail, such as an ancestor who served in that war or lived in that county.

Ask one question at a time

The fastest way to get lost is to "research the family" in general. Pick a specific question you could answer with a document:

• When and where was Grandpa Joseph born?
• What were the names of Mary's parents?
• When did the family arrive in the United States?

A good question tells you which records to look for. A birth date points to vital records and the census. An arrival points to passenger lists and naturalization papers. Our where to look page matches common questions to the archives that answer them, and the research log on our homepage is built around one question per card.

Your first records: the census

For most American families, the US federal census is the best first stop. Every ten years since 1790, enumerators recorded households, and from 1850 onward they listed every person by name. The records stay closed for 72 years, so the most recent one available is 1950, released in April 2022.

Start with the most recent census in which you expect to find a grandparent or great-grandparent, then work back a decade at a time. Each census adds clues: ages, birthplaces, parents' birthplaces, year of immigration, occupation and neighbors. Our census guide explains how to search and read the forms.

Census indexes are free to search through the National Archives' partners and at many public libraries, which often provide access to commercial genealogy databases on their own computers or with a library card.

Write down every source

This habit separates research you can trust from a list of names. For every fact you record, note where it came from: the record, the page or image number, the archive or website, and the date you looked. "1920 census" isn't enough. "1920 US census, Milwaukee Ward 14, enumeration district 196, sheet 7A, line 32" lets you or anyone else find it again.

Also record the searches that found nothing. Knowing that a person isn't in a particular index is useful, and it stops you from searching it again next year.

Weigh what you find

Records disagree. A birth year might drift by several years across census returns, names get spelled five ways, and death certificates are only as accurate as the grieving relative who answered the questions. Some rules of thumb:

• A record made at the time of an event is usually more reliable than one made decades later.
• A person who witnessed an event is a better informant than one who heard about it.
• Agreement between independent records is stronger than any single record.

When records conflict, write down both versions and the reason you prefer one. You may change your mind later.

Be careful with online trees

Shared family trees on genealogy websites are useful for leads and dangerous as evidence. Many copy each other's errors, and a mistake repeated in 200 trees still looks convincing. Treat a tree as a hint about where to look, then find the records yourself.

The same caution applies to living people. Most genealogy sites hide living people in public trees, and you should too. Our guide to privacy and ethics covers what to share and what to keep private.

Where to go next

Once you've found your family in a few census years, the next steps usually branch: vital records for exact dates, newspapers for stories and obituaries, and local libraries and archives for everything else. The guides on historical newspapers and libraries and archives pick up from here.