Did you ever consider that your great-great-grandfather may have fought in
the civil war? Perhaps your great-great-great grandfather made his way here
from the "old country" on a great old sailing ship with just a few pence in
his pocket. What of your grandmother? Perhaps she was the local librarian in
her town. Once they start a genealogy search most people find tracing their
family history fascinating. What may start with the simple desire to know a
few names and dates turns into nothing short of a fascinating archaeological
"dig" of sorts.
There are many ways to get tidbits on your family history. Perhaps you're
lucky like me and your family never threw any scrap of paper away. You may
have a handwritten birth certificate, as I do, for my
great-great-grandfather who was born in England in the 1800's. Birth, death
and marriage records are generally easy to find, especially if the family
members you are searching about were born here in this country. Maybe you
have letters sent back and forth that have information about your ancestors
in them. I have a bible that belonged to my great-great-grandmother that has
in the back pages where she recorded family births, deaths and marriages.
My father was interested in our family history and had quite a collection of
information about our ancestors. When my sister took over the work on the
family tree that my father had started one thing she did was to contact the
local historical society in the town where we knew my great-grandparents
lived. They were able to give some family history as my great-grandfather
was a rather prominent citizen. From there she contacted the cemetery where
family members were buried and was able to get birth dates and dates of
death. When she made a visit to another town where some of our ancestors
lived she took a camera to the cemetery and took pictures of the tomb
stones.
The internet is a great starting point for your genealogy search. You can
visit a website where you can check the passenger arrival records from Ellis
Island. AOL has a site where you can type in name, birth and death info on
your ancestors to see if there is any information online. Some sites offer
genealogy information by country. There are some sights that offer the
ability to see information that others have already searched out. Some of
these are paid membership sites. You may even find out that you have an
unknown family member out there doing the same search on your family
members.A great place to start your family history is:
Ancestry.co.uk
Don't tell anyone...but the Summer Sale is now on!
Jim Ackroyd:
http://familyhistory4all.co.uk/newsletter.co.uk
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