Genealogy - One’s Family History

Genealogy is the study of who is in a family and whom they are related to. The more general study of family history will also try to determine important information about their lives and deaths such as dates of birth and death and employment records. Genealogy has existed since ancient times. Genealogical information was originally transmitted orally and later, through written records. Genealogy was vital in determining the ancestry of rulers and nobles. Detailed genealogical records ensured that the passing down of titles would be done without error.

Genealogists helped people displaced by World War II find family members who remained in Europe. Many Irish families used genealogical records to help rediscover family members that have been separated for two or three generations since their families emigrated from Ireland. James Dent Walker founded the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society in 1977. He aided Alex Haley with his book Roots. This book inspired many African Americans to search for their ancestors.

Major events in a person’s life are usually recorded and stored at a local, regional or national office. Genealogists locate these records and use them to determine family relationships and recreate timelines. Genealogists generally start from the present and work backward in time. Genealogists may also conduct interviews with living relatives to determine the same information. The success of a genealogist may depend on the volunteer efforts of complete strangers.

There are many helpful message boards that will help you find people with particular surnames or who lived in a particular region. Many genealogists contribute their free time and participate in projects such as preparing name indexes for records and placing them online. Other genealogists can then use the name indexes to find these records. There are other projects that transcribe records so that genealogists can find records based on something other than a name. For example, there are projects that transcribe deeds, which allows for searches by land description.

You may also look for help from the thousands of genealogical societies around the world. These societies are generally focused on a particular surname, geographic area, or ethnicity. Most of the people who work at these societies are volunteers. These societies have large amounts of genealogy material. They may also publish a newsletter, provide research assistance to the public and offer classes in genealogy. There are two other useful genealogical resources: International Genealogical Index (IGL) and DNA analysis.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints copied most of their available genealogical records onto microfilm. An important part of the Mormon faith is tracing their family history, so there are a lot of records. This resulted in the creation of the IGL. The IGL contains hundreds of millions of records of people that lived between the 1500s and 1870s. These records can be viewed at the Family History Library, which is their main library, in Salt Lake City, Utah. They can also be viewed at the more than 4,000 Family History Centers located near their churches.

If you prefer the Internet, then you can view the IGL as well as the Ancestral File, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Social Security Death Index, Salt Lake City Library Catalog and some American Army Indexes to those who died in the Korean and Vietnam wars on the website FamilySearch. This is especially useful because you can do multiple searches for names, parishes, dates, etc.

DNA analysis has proven to be useful to the field of genealogy because the DNA from your earliest ancestors will be passed down relatively unchanged. A genealogical DNA test can estimate the probability that two people are related. The Molecular Genealogy Research Project is a collection of genetic test results that will be used to match people descended from a direct ancestor. The Genographic Project is a collection of results that can be used to trace human migratory patterns and to determine biogeographical and ethnic origin.

Author: Michael Russell

Michael Russell Your Independent Guide to Genealogy

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Public Birth Records - Tracing Your Genealogy Through Public Records

Tracing your family tree through public birth records can be an overwhelming task since it’s difficult to tell where to even start. Most people use their access to these public records to try to piece together their family tree. Getting access to these public birth records lets you do the work so much more easier and faster rather than having to manually visit government offices and trace it manually.

Defining A Birth Record

Birth records are public records and legal forms of document that are used to record an account of an individual’s birth. The document usually contains a person’s detailed information, like the name of the mother and father and the time and place that they were born are all included. The occupation of the parents as well as their nationality should be included in the public record. The birth record is done the moment the child is born and the doctor in-charge is the one that verifies all of the information that is written. It’s the physician’s job to make sure that it is error free and he places his signature to affirm it.   

Creating Your Family Tree

There are several ways for you to start your search. You have the option to choose from different websites to help you secure the public records of birth that you need. You can begin tracing your family tree by doing a people search and locating birth records of existing relatives. From there, you can take note of the names of their parents and trace their birth records and so on and so forth. Government sites usually keep several types of records, from birth records, marriage, and divorce records to death certificates. You can begin your people search through these sites and then expand from there.

Once you have located a birth record of your parents or their parents, these would contain their own parents’ name. You can then just continue tracing back using the names of their parents until you complete your family history. You also have the option to use the city or state name along with their names so that you trace it accurately when doing other public records searches. Locating the public birth records online is just the beginning. This can lead you to so many other information about your parents and great grand folks if you’re only willing to trace it. The information that these public records sites offer are very comprehensive. This is the reason why most of these sites ask for a fee to let you access their databases.

Having access to these public birth records is an invaluable opportunity to help you get in touch with your roots.

Author: Patrick Robinson

Run your free public records search now to find records like birth and death, marriage and divorce filings, criminal law, county public records, phone number, address and more.

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