Every family tree starts the same way: with you. Not with a famous ancestor, not with a coat of arms someone sold your great-uncle at a county fair, and not with a website that promises to find your roots in thirty seconds. It starts with your own name, your own birthday and the town where you were born, written in pencil on a plain sheet of paper.
Here are the first five steps I give every student who asks. I taught history for thirty-four years, and in that time hundreds of young people came to my desk wanting to know where they came from. Since I retired, the people asking are more often their parents and grandparents. The advice hasn’t changed much. Genealogy rewards patience, curiosity and good notes far more than it rewards expensive tools.
Step one: write down what you know
Before you ask anyone anything, sit down and write out everything you already know. Start with yourself, then your parents, then your grandparents. For each person, try to record a full name, a date and place of birth, a marriage date and place, and a date and place of death if it applies. Leave blanks where you’re unsure. Blanks are honest, and they become your to-do list.
I like a simple pedigree chart, the kind that branches to the right like a sideways tree, with you on the left edge. You can print one from your public library or draw it on a legal pad. Keep a separate page for each couple, too, where you list their children. Those “family group sheets” will save you from a lot of confusion later, when you discover that three cousins in the same county were all named William.
One habit I insist on: note where each fact came from. If you know your grandmother’s birthday because it’s on her headstone, write “headstone.” If you only know it because Aunt Lottie said so at Thanksgiving, write that down too. Your future self will thank you.
Step two: ask the elders first
Interview your oldest relatives now. Record names, places and stories. I can’t stress this one enough, and I put it near the top of the list for a reason. Documents will wait for you in a courthouse basement for another fifty years. People won’t.
Call your great-aunt. Visit your grandfather on a Sunday afternoon. Bring a notebook and, with their permission, a phone or small recorder. Ask about their parents and grandparents, where the family lived, what jobs people held, who moved away and why. Ask about nicknames, too. I once spent a whole summer looking for a “Bud Hensley” before a cousin mentioned that Bud’s real name was Archibald.
Don’t be discouraged if some memories conflict. Families remember things differently, and that’s part of the fun. Write down every version and let the documents settle the argument later.
Start with what you know, and the past will meet you halfway.
Walter
Step three: gather documents
Birth certificates, letters, family Bibles and photo albums are gold. Most families have more paper than they realize, scattered across closets, attics, cedar chests and the bottom drawer of somebody’s desk. Your job is to find it, borrow it carefully and record what it says.
Here are the places I tell people to look first:
- The family Bible. Many families recorded births, marriages and deaths on the pages between the Old and New Testaments.
- Letters and postcards. Return addresses and postmarks can place a relative in a particular town in a particular year.
- Photo albums. Turn every photo over. Grandmothers loved to write names and dates on the back.
- Military papers. Discharge papers often list birth dates and hometowns.
- Funeral programs and obituaries. These name surviving relatives, which can open whole new branches.
- Report cards, diplomas and church certificates. They’re small, but they pin people to places.
If a relative doesn’t want to part with an item, ask if you can photograph or scan it right there. A clear photo of each page is usually all you need. Handle old paper with clean, dry hands and never use tape to fix a tear.
Step four: search census records
Once you have names and rough dates for your grandparents’ generation, you’re ready for the census. Every ten years, the federal government counted every household in the country, and many of those records are now open to the public. Your public library or a local family history center can usually help you search them for free.
The trick is to work backward one census at a time. Find your grandfather as a boy living with his parents. Note their ages and birthplaces. Then look for those parents ten years earlier, living with their own parents. Step by step, decade by decade, the tree grows.
Be prepared for spelling surprises. Census takers wrote down what they heard, and an accent or a noisy porch could turn “Kessler” into “Kestler” or “Castler.” Keep an open mind, and match people by their ages, family members and neighbors, not just their names.
A word about online trees
You’ll quickly find family trees other people have posted online. Some are wonderful. Some are pure guesswork copied a hundred times. Treat them as clues, not answers. If a tree doesn’t cite a record you can check, don’t add its claims to yours until you’ve confirmed them yourself.
Step five: visit the county archives
Sooner or later, the trail leads to a courthouse or county archive. This is where you’ll find deeds, wills, marriage licenses, probate files and tax lists, some of them handwritten more than a century ago. It can feel intimidating the first time. It shouldn’t. Clerks and archivists are some of the most helpful people I’ve ever met, especially if you arrive prepared.
- Call ahead to check hours and ask whether you need an appointment.
- Bring your charts and a short list of exactly what you’re looking for.
- Pack pencils, since many archives don’t allow pens near original records.
- Ask whether you can photograph pages, and what the copy fees are.
- Thank the staff, and come back. They’ll remember you, and they’ll often save things they think you’ll like.
At our county archive, a clerk named Dolores Whitt once pulled a dusty probate file for me that held my great-great-grandfather’s signature. I sat there in that cold little room and cried a bit. That’s the kind of moment this hobby can give you.
Keep going, one generation at a time
Family history isn’t a race. Some branches will fill in over a weekend. Others will stay stubbornly blank for years until a single letter or record cracks them open. That’s normal. The goal isn’t to reach the Mayflower or a medieval king. The goal is to know the real people who made you possible and to keep their stories alive.
So here, once more, are the five steps:
- Write down what you know
- Interview relatives
- Gather family papers
- Search census records
- Visit the county archives
Key takeaway: Begin with yourself, talk to your elders while you can and write down where every fact came from.
Grab a pencil tonight and fill in the first box with your own name. Then call the oldest person in your family and ask them one question about their grandparents. You’ll be surprised how far a single conversation can take you. And if you get stuck, leave me a note. I still love helping students, even the ones with gray hair.