Genealogy

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Recently, last Tuesday, I visited the home town of my mother, my grand mother, and great grand parents, Plainville, KS. And believe it or not this little Kansas town was just like my mother had described it to me the only change I could see were a few new houses and a bunch of oil wells.

And all the while I am thinking why oh why did they sell the farm leave the "Dust Bowl" during the depression for Colorado Rolling Eyes

And which oil wells might they have owned. Confused

Now I am thinking I might like to do a family history the only things I know for sure at moment are in addition to the above my Great, great grand father served in the Civil War for four years in the U.S. Army and I do have his Army records from the National Archives.

So now I ask for help and suggestions on where to start and how to start? I have never attempted to find out my family history other than what I was by the family.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

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I'd start throwing out names into google web searches. And, then, fine-tuning results at town halls and such. We can easily trace my mom's family back to italy. We're still on visiting terms with relatives there. Italy has a wonderful ancestery book keeping thing going for it. Eventually, if we wanted to, we could go over and look into our history there.

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You can peruse the Surname Message Boards at:

http://www.ancestry.com and http://www.genealogy.com
for the Surnames of your family and get in contact with other researchers., You never know, you may run into someone that has all the info you are looking for alreday.

For the ultimate genealogy reference point of the WWW take a look at Cyndi's List. If there is a genealogy site on the Internet it is listed there. http://www.cyndislist.com/

A few more sites that may be helpful:

http://www.familysearch.org
http://www.genweb.org

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The two most useful organization for geneological studies in the United States are the Mormons, and the Clark County library. The Clark County library is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Haven't a clue how they got in the family tree business, but they're the best resouce, other than the Mormons, who have spent more than a century making it their business to get all of our numbers . . .

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genology
Here's the link to genealogy in Indiana:

http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/genealogy/stateres.html

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Wow, you guys are fast and with so many good links. Thank you.

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I have not seen my father since the age of three. Nobody could tell me what happened to anyone on his side of my ancestry. My sister had looked for him online without success. Well, when I bought my first computer one of my first actions was to type his full name and hit search. A few seconds later I was at Ancestry.com, viewing a family tree that told that he died in 1948, just three years after I last saw him. Ancestry.com has a lot to offer.

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Joanne

I very good starting point (which will perhaps lead you to the above mentioned sites as well) are these sites:

Genealogy Learning Center

RootsWeb Guide to Tracing Family Trees indexes

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I don't think you're Jewish, but for A2Kers who are -

For Jews, one of the best genealogy resources is the old Arthur Kurzweil book (it was published in the '70s), called something like "Finding our Fathers".

Many European towns still have extensive information, even on persons who were wiped out in the Holocaust. One place to contact is Ellis Island, as many European town names have numerous spellings, depending upon which country "owned" the town (e. g. Poland, Russia, Austro-Hungary, etc.). Lots of towns have alternative vowels in their spellings so get to know all of the possibilities while you look things up. Chernovitz may also be Tchernovitz and Chernowitz and Chernovits, for example.

The Mormons are an amazing resource, even for folks who are not Mormon or have never been to Utah.

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Thank you for the tips Jespah. Recently I learned that the Dallas County Library is a good source as well. Of course the person that told me that was a Texan and said it was the best in all the world.

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About 15 years ago i was bored and took classes for just this stuff up at good old Salem State. Things however have changed since then. Not a great deal, really except that the online resources and places give you such great information at the click of a button.
The aforementioned sites are fabulous.
I found that searching between ancestry, genealogy, and familysearch I was well on my way to gathering more information in a much speedier fashion <as well as cheaper> then the old fashioned way. However, at some point you might get there as well.
You could certainly get lucky and find someone that has researched before you and its simply a matter of getting to that point yourself.
Best of luck..and, most of all..have fun Smile

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Check out County records for births, etc.

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