Cutter Genealogy

GETTING STARTED
ON YOUR FAMILY HISTORY

Welcome to the very addictive world of genealogy and family history research.
It is time consuming but very rewarding.

The First Rule

The first rule of genealogy is to start with yourself. Look at your birth and marriage certificates, and from them gather the details of your parents and spouse’s parents.
Next, obtain your parents’ birth, death and marriage certificates and gather details of your grandparents. Work backwards with details from these entries.

Look-Ups

Request look-ups of bmd by people such as myself or local family history groups.
Go to your local library to see if they have a Genealogy/History Resource Center.
If they do, you can look up bdm, passenger lists etc directly from micro fiche.
Some may allow access to CD roms for this information.
Check out the links on this site for some of the many such groups.

Join your local Family History Group.
They often have CD roms or fiche to enable you to do bdm, passenger lists etc directly.

Contact researchers with your request but be aware that most of these individuals and organizations require the payment of a fee.

Your Own Memories

Record your own memories and interview older relatives and friends of the family.
This will help you begin your journey into the lives of your ancestors.
Oral family history can later be verified as other documents come to hand.

Photographs

Although it does not fit into the strict sense of genealogy, collect as many quality copies of photographs of your family, immediate relations (aunts, uncles cousins etc.) and ancestors as possible before they are lost.
Make sure where possible to write on the back of these photographs the names, ages, relationship (to you) and date of photo.
These will be invaluable to your overall family history document when you complete it.
You may then create a rogues gallery on a wall in your house.
Set out in the form of your family tree.
Some of the better genealogy software allows the insertion of photos.
This produces a more visually effective screen display or report.

Certificates

For accuracy (which is very important), you will need to obtain birth, death and marriage certificates.
This is a very expensive exercise when first starting out, but it is necessary to verify information you have gleaned from a variety of sources such as family oral history or hearsay or people like myself who have access to bdm indexes.
It is often possible to get photocopies of these certificates or extracts directly from your family and relatives. This will save a considerable expense initially.
When applying for certificates, it is advantageous to have the Certificate Registration Number
as this will speed up the search and hence delivery process.
This number is often included in information you have obtained from researchers
to whom you sent a request.

The Internet

The internet is a good source of genealogical information.
There are hundreds of thousand site of which this is one.
Check the links page on this site for some of the more useful sites.
Australian Genealogical Web Sites and Family History

Information You Need

Information you need to find for each individual includes:
(It may not be possible to find all of this information)
Family Name
First Name/s
When and where born
Parents names
When and where died
When and where married
Spouse's name
Children's Names
Additional information
ships they immigrated on
occupations
where they lived
how they lived

Journal or Diary

It is very handy to have a diary in an exercise book (not loose leaf) where you
write down what information you have just found, the source and any reference notes.
This can then be referred to at a latter time when your memory has failed you and
you need to find where you found that vital bit of information.

Genealogy Software

You then need to organize your information into an easily accessible easy to read format.
This is best done by using a suitable computer genealogy software program.
There are many such programs available, mostly commercial (cost) but some are free.
The two that I use are REUNION (a commercial program)
and PERSONAL ANCESTRAL FILE 5
(can be downloaded free from the Latter Day Saints web site
http://familysearch.org ).

Of the other genealogy software programs, some are good and others are difficult to use.


Remember that

Genealogy
without
Documentation
is
Mythology.