Genealogy Search Tips

I want to assemble my own family tree, how should I start?

First get as much information about your ancestors as possible from your living relatives and family friends. Try to build your family tree that way back to the 19th century, and then continue with online databases. Because of privacy protection laws, most online databases only contain data of people born before 1900.

Who else can I ask for help?

There are many genealogy forums out there where very useful information is exchanged. In my experience, genealogists are very willing to help. I have closed several gaps in my family tree by e-mailing fellow genealogists who always provided high-quality hints. There are also commercial providers who will search church books on a fee-for-service basis, but I have no experience with those.

Which websites will be most useful in my search for ancestors?

The by far most comprehensive database is FamilySearch. The data is not very well curated though, and there are many duplicates. Date of birth, parents, children, spouse and date of death of the same person might be in five separate database entries with slightly different names. For German ancestors I highly recommend GedBas. Disadvantage of this site is that you can only search for exact spelling, it even differentiates between "ss" and "ß".
Many of the commercial websites, like those listed in the ad blocks on this website, will actually provide some information for free. I have been able to trace further ancestors just by searching for known ancestors on these commercial sites without ever paying a cent.

How should I store the genealogy data I collected?

Install a genealogy program that allows you to store all your genealogy data and to generate family trees. I used the truly no-cost German freeware program Ahnenblatt to create both my list of ancestors and my graphical family tree. Be careful with shareware. You risk losing all the genealogy data you entered if you decide not to purchase after the trial period ends.

What type of information shall I store in my genealogy database?

Store all information about your ancestors you have. Tracing back family relationships in not always unambiguous. Often several people were born with the same name in the same town in the same year. The more information you have on your ancestors, the more likely it is that you will be successful in identifying their relatives. The most important information to have about your ancestors is their full name and date of birth, but any other bit of data might provide the missing link.