Having been exposed to the Civil War Battlefields when I was 9 year old, this helped to start my love for American history. My Father would take me to several battlefields in Virginia during 1969 and this brought history to life. Not having a lot of knowledge about the battles, I would start to read historical material about how the Country suffered during the 1860’s and the horrible war and the affect it had on the Country.
For me, it was also going to my Great Grand Mother and Father’s graves and seeing another relative with a CSA head stone near by. That brought the conflict home to me and made me wonder, what battles did he fight in, what rank did he obtain, and which leaders did he serve under.
I began the journey and started reading about the war and other historical events that occurred in the Country. The French and Indian War, George Washington, Robert E. Lee, D-Day, and many other books provided the stories that made history come alive.
After consuming so much history, it made me wonder about what roles did my family ancestors pay in the founding and growing of the United States. Did they meed some of Histories heroes? Were they a Hero themselves?
I decided to find out.
I was fortunate that I had people collecting information early on that I obtained from my family. For the Vest family, my Great Aunt Nellie “Baker” Harris had a bound book for the Baker family, loose leaf notebook on the Couch family and several pages on the Vest family. I kept the information over the years, and later my Uncle George Vest had collected a great deal of information that he shared on the Vest family and my start was almost complete. On my Mother’s side of the family, my Sister would provide me with details on the Michael and Chapman family.
If you are not lucky enough to have family with information, you can try genealogy websites and I have been working primarily with two main sites. These sites helped and then I found other sites that had links to other information that I needed to build my historical exploration of my family. The beauty of the Internet is that you don’t have to go to the court houses or talk to older family members about the relatives. You can search on your couch, desk or somewhere else that is comfortable.
- First step is to buy some supplies. I use a nice journal for me to record information and facts while I am searching the net. Below, you will see some nice journals that you can find on Amazon. Just select the picture and it will take you to Amazon to purchase a journal of your choice.
The life tree is a quality journal and has a nice cover to protect your notes and is one of my favorite choices to use to record your facts.
This is another favorite journal that looks nice and gives the appearance of a real educated Genealogist.
Last, the next journals are nice for starting out. if you are not sure if you want to continue long term, buy one of these and switch over down the road if the bug really grabs you too.
2. The next step is to find a quality pen to use. Why a quality pen? I like a nice pen that I keep up with and write really well. I have included several of my favorite pens below.
This is a nice quality set for the avid Genealogist. Great looking and designed for smooth writing in journals.
This is one of the cream of the crop and will make a nice addition to your collection.
Any pen can be used but I really like having a special pen to use while taking down my data.
3. As we work on our information, it often a challenge of keeping up with all of the materials collected. Pictures, scans, copies of newspaper, books, etc and loose materials can become lost and frustrate you. I keep a small satchel or briefcase to keep up with these materials.
Here are some nice ones to choose from.
It is not absolutely necessary to keep you materials in a bag or satchel but having some place to store information is a good tip. The one below is economical and a good choice at Amazon.
4. You will need information sites to use and the two I use the most are Ancestry.com and Familysearch.com.
Ancestry.com is a pay per month site that is collecting hints every day. These hints are automatic and contain pictures, stories, death records, and other information that you need to accept or reject before adding it to your tree. Ancestry will ask you about each relative before you select the person and add them to your heritage. There are several members and some trees are not private and you can scan the tree for ancestry information. The advantage is that the abundance of information that you can get at a cost of $20 per month. The disadvantage is that it takes hours and hours to add the hints into your tree. At first, I tried to keep up and it was easy. Over time the hints overwhelmed me and I cannot keep up without a great deal of time to invest in the search.
(For a free Ancestry Trial – Press the following link Ancestry Free Trial
(To sign up for your account, select Sign Up for Ancestry Today
The Familytree.com site is free and operated by the Church of Latter Day Saints. The advantage is that if your relatives are in their database, it adds your family to your tree automatically and you can build a tree very quickly. I was able to go all the way back to 204 AD with a set of my relatives and the person was a King of Finland (WOW). The disadvantage is that if you relative in not in their database, it becomes challenging finding their fathers, mothers and the database is geared more for Father and Mother and really not Brothers and Sisters. It is a great start to begin with and it can save time as you work in other database programs. I have found it a time saver when searching. I was able to go way back into the 1400 and 1500 for several of my known ancestors. Did I mention the cost was free.
Family Search Web Site
The link is found above and I would recommend using their website to help get you started. There might be more documents at Ancestry but time is valuable when you are building a family tree. I really love working with Family Search first and then taking the information into my family tree at Ancestry.
Having the two databases are great but you should back up, print out or use another tool to keep your family tree(s). If either of the two companies decide to stop managing trees, your information is at risk. You can do back ups and I would recommend printing out the trees and keeping the information in a notebook or scan it into a secure location with a backup. You really do not want to loose your time and effort. Click on the link below and it will take you to some helpful software at Amazon.
You can try doing the DNA testing and this is a quick way to find other relatives that you was not familiar with. The testing will also share what regions of the world, some or most of your family immigrated from and this helps when trying to locate family rosters that sailed on ships. The cost is about an $100 when you use Ancestry.com and there are times during the year that you can obtain testing for $69. It might not be benefit for some but it helped me to find others in my family tree.
AncestryDNA® Click Here to Go and get your DNA Test Kit.
There are other DNA testing kits and Sites such as 23 & Me. These use health and other related information as well as background information. I have only used Ancestry and cannot share which one is better. The beauty of Ancestry.com DNA is that as other relatives match, Ancestry sends an email sharing how you are related ad they are tested.
There are a lot of other ways to get information. You can check death records, marriage records and census records to get a lot of information. This takes a great deal of time and in today’s world, this information is not so freely given. That is one reason the cost of Ancestry.com works out for me. Saving time from going to the many places trying to find the documents makes this worth the cost. Once you start your membership, you can stop Ancestry at anytime so you always have options to help find information when you need help.
The next step is to work your way back going from relative to relative as you find more people to add to your tree. I have a number of relatives and I had to focus on certain family names as I went back up the tree. As you get more Uncles and Aunts and they marry other family names, it becomes more and more challenging to keep up with the great amount of information. I started focusing on my Grand Parents names, Vest, Baker, Chapman and Michael. Then I move up to include my Great Grand Parents and then went as far back in US history as I could.
Eventually, I came to the point where they immigrated to the US. I knew the date and the country and I needed vessel information to help track them. If you known when an ancestor came to the US, you can check ship records. In some cases, this can be difficult due to the lack of records saved before 1820. However, there are some websites that can as the one listed below. I was able to find some of my English ancestors using this web page.
Early 1600 Ships and Passengers
Now that I have the names, time and places, I needed more historical information. My search brought me to other sites to use for searching for information.
One site is Olive Tree Genealogy and it has some useful information and links to other sites. One link is the passenger ship information.
Olive Tree Genealogy
Olive Tree has a great wealth of information and the website really helps find crucial information about your family’s history.
While a lot of people want to charge for information, here is a list of 50 free sites that you can use to help find information. Please note that while some say free, these are changing everyday and wanting to charge for information. So, try it and see and if one of the sites change to charge for information, please don’t be surprised.
List of 50 Free Sites for Genealogy Information
Another great source that has been collecting information and links for over 20 years is Cyndi’s List. The website has information or links that point a person to finding great historical information about their ancestors. You can find Cyndi’s list at the link below.
Clyndi’s list is awesome and I highly recommend using her free site.
Press Here for Cyndi’s List
You can try Facebook and Social Media to help find relatives. Since I am a Vest, I am a member of the Vest Family of America group in facebook. There are other groups such as the Baker family and more. Try joining some groups that can help on ancestry gaps.
Our Facebook Page Usahistoryancestory
There are books you can try such as the one listed below which discusses who came to the Colonies and when.
Over time, you have built a great timeline and know more about your family history. I have a lot of fun finding gems like how many of my ancestors interacted with President Washington and President Jefferson. One of my ancestor is President Tyler.
Keep searching and let me know what you find. It is refreshing hearing how people find interesting stories and events as they search.
Don’t forget some good historical informational books to help bring the facts with the history together. Depending on which person you choose to study will make choosing the right books. I am a Prime member at Amazon and find that all of the books are priced better there than at most book stores. You can use the link below to take you to their site to begin looking for some quality historical material.
Be patient and if you are like me, I order books to explain the times that a lot of my relatives were living in. The books often give you a flavor of how people lived during the times. That makes it fun.
Good Luck and maybe you will find a King, President or someone interesting in your family. If you do, please share with me in the comment s section of this web site.