The Family Tree-genealogy

Ever wonder who your ancestors are and what they were like? About 20 years ago a distant cousin sent us some genealogy information and a very basic, simple family tree program. From this we know a lot about our familys tree clear back to the early 1600s. From a great great uncle who mysteriously disappeared to outlaws who were killed by their own family members for taking a house the outlaws did not own we have read about all types of characters. Think you wont find this kind of information in your family keep digging its probably there. There are numerous resources to help you. We keep our information mainly on the computer with a few back up copies and most of it is on paper too.

There are wonderful programs like Family Tree maker or Broderbund to help you keep track of your information and organize it so at a moments notice you can tell someone exactly how you are related to them or even print out a birthday calendar or numerous types of reports.

What is great about genealogy is that there is a ton of information to be found online not to mention the visits to libraries, cemetaries and older relatives are a wealth of information. Ways to find information can be as simple as googling a name of a relative. By googling, I mean going to google.com and enter a name with parenthesis around it. This will many times lead you to information about that person and sometimes you find people researching the same person and they will have their family tree online.

The wonderful thing about genealogy is that once you start it really gets fascinating. To be able to tell someone who you are and where your ancestors are from is a wonderful thing.

Couple of tips:

Be prepared to write a lot or type a lot depending on how you keep your information.

Be prepared to be persistent about getting information.

Never assume you have the right person always get the right information before recording it.

Family tree programs can be pricey.

Other sites for genealogy information:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ some of this site is free and some of it you have to pay to use.

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

http://www.cyndislist.com/ lots of genealogy stuff