Have you ever been interested in genealogy as a hobby, but didn’t know where to begin? It is a literally endless pursuit that could keep you occupied off and on for the rest of your life. It is as complicated as it sounds, but also so fun and rewarding!
Why get involved with a neverending hobby–a puzzle you can never completely solve? It requires a passion for history and preserving the past. It’s the only way most of us can keep our ancestors and family lore alive. Think about it–after a few generations, most people are forgotten and lost to the past forever. If anyone is going to keep their memories going, it is their descendants. No one else is going to do that for them. Genealogy is about preserving the records, stories, and photographs of the people who existed before us. It takes a lot of people working together, sharing their knowledge so information about individuals who are long gone can be verified and mysteries solved. And it all starts with a family tree.
Did you know you can make your own family tree online for free, with or without a DNA test? You can make an Ancestry.com account and get started today. I would love to walk you through it!
Start With What You Know
Of course, not everyone is so fortunate, but the majority of people at least know who their siblings, parents, and grandparents are. This is where you begin. Go to Ancestry.com, select “Trees” at the top, then “Create & Manage Trees” and “Create a new tree”.
From here, you can easily click to add family members and fill out any information about them you know, such as birth/death dates, places of birth, etc. As a rule of thumb, always use women’s maiden names, rather than their married names. You will thank yourself later when you remember that everyone on your tree is using the name they were given at birth!
You may not know many ancestors yet. That’s okay. You can enter what you have. Talk to your parents and grandparents, maybe your aunts and uncles. Ask them to help fill in the gaps, or list their ancestors as far back as they can. Then enter those names and dates, too.
Don’t Make the Mistakes I Did
As you work on your tree, Ancestry will suggest possible family members to you. When I first noticed this, my initial thought was a panicked, ‘Oh, I’d better save this now so I don’t lose it! I can just remove it later if it’s not correct.’ Thousands of names later, I had to prune my tree to the ground and basically start all over! This was as time-consuming as it sounds.
Some of the names Ancestry suggests might be accurate. But Ancestry doesn’t just have this magical fount of knowledge about every human who ever existed. (I wish!) The names it suggests are because other people have entered those names on their trees. Those other people might be incorrect. In fact, a lot of those other people might be incorrect and only adding them because one other person did and now the name is popping up under suggested ancestors, exactly like it is for you now.
So don’t just add the names Ancestry suggests to you willy-nilly. Don’t worry about losing them if you don’t add them right now; they won’t go anywhere. (Or if they do, it’s because they weren’t accurate.) Go slowly and carefully.
Adding New Names
Once you’ve added everyone you and your family members know for sure, then you have a good basis or “trunk” of the tree to start building from. Now you can start looking at those names Ancestry suggests to you.
When you click on the people Ancestry suggests, you’ll be taken to a page with all the resources they’ve been able to collect on the person. Here is where you can add one–IF all the information adds up. After the lesson I learned the first time about adding any and every name it suggests to me, I am much more careful. I click on the names, look over all the sources. I check the person’s full name, the names of their parents, siblings, and children if available, the dates and places of birth and death. If anything is amiss, even if it’s only a slight spelling variation, I don’t add the person to my tree. I wait for some kind of official document, like a birth, death, or marriage certificate, etc., to verify that all is as it should be.
Ideally, nowadays I would never add anyone without one of these documents or some form of proof being attached to their records. But sometimes, if there is a lot of other information that is a 1:1 match, I will still add them and continue digging for more.
Safety Considerations
A lot of people like to create public family trees so others can share in their discoveries. It’s pretty common for people who do that to keep the information for anyone still living private. This way it doesn’t come up in internet search results.
Another option is keeping your family tree entirely private. Both options are available on Ancestry. It’s completely up to you!
Preserving History
The only way to keep history alive is by sharing the knowledge with each other and perfecting and preserving our records together. By creating your family tree, you are sharing in that work! If you think you may have information that will help someone else, don’t be afraid to reach out to them using Ancestry’s messaging feature and share what you have found. The more we all help each other, the easier all our work becomes, and the better chance our own ancestors’ (accurate) stories will live on.
