Genealogy...where to start?

[Riverkilt]

Whoa! My other addiction since 1970.

Don't forget to pester elders for old letters, papers, photos, souvenirs. Even return addresses can be helpful in the quest when matched with postmarks. Genealogy has been a hobby for centuries so you may luck out and find work your ancestors did and passed on by letter. Ask for the old boxes of letters and go through them carefully, they are rife with clues.

The LDS site can be helpful, but as mentioned it can also be incredibly wrong from bad info just copied and typos from the transcribers. I've seen well documented branches of my family incredibly wrong on the LDS site. Caution and verify.

The Library of Congress has a genealogy room that is pure gold. Found a book on my line of Gordons in there that had my grandfather listed as an infant. Talk about making the work easy - AND, it had personal descriptions of many ancestors. Finding that info is wonderful...and scary...we don't change much sometimes.

When I traveled for a living I often stayed the night in small towns. As mentioned local libraries have genealogy sections. What was amazing to me is how many small town libraries have great genealogy resources that have nothing or little to do with their own area. Ya just gotta look and ask.

I gave my little sister the bug and now she travels to the places our ancestors lived and finds the old newspaper copies for the towns and goes through them. She's added generations on some difficult lines by finding a social notice of parents visiting the small town locals in the social section of the paper. A lot of work but productive.

Don't forget area histories and are pioneer biographies. A great place to flesh out who these folks were.

And, I agree, relatives don't much care...but....I've sent packets of what genealogy has been found info to every brother, sister, cousin, niece and nephew. I figure if some of them keep it somewhere, maybe some day later some descendent may find it.

Doing genealogy at an addictive level I've also found a second cousin deep into the same compulsion. Her work saved me a lot of time on her branches and kept me from buying off on some unproven links.

I've also met other cousins on GenForum and been able to share both ways. One even had photos to share - priceless

And don't overlook all the cemetery lists that are appearing on line. Many old small town cemeteries have lists of tombstones done by volunteers and posted on line. One list helped me prove a link.

And I understand about wishful family stories. I got hooked on genealogy first during a 5th grade genealogy project. My maternal grandmother said my grandfather's lineage went back to the Mayflower. The family scoffed and there was a break in the proof. That cemetery list proved the former break and I was able to prove to the family that she was right. Even better it turned out my father's side also has a Mayflower link to the SAME three Mayflower families. When I told my mother that she and dad were 13th cousins her immedieate response after 35 years of marriage was, "Good, now I can get an annulment!"

And, it seems the more I learn about the various branches of the family the more I get the feeling that the spirits of my ancestors are looking over my shoulder trying to get me to see the right information...yes, it can be spooky too.

Of course, genealogy work is best done kilted...

Ron