Building Your Family Tree

There are many reasons why people get interesting in tracing their family tree

. Some people just want to learn more about their family history, others want to build a family tree for the generations to come, and then of course there are those looking for a new hobby. Whatever your reason is it's important to know your own motivation for building your family tree. This way you stay focused as you head down the genealogy path.

A few objectives to consider

* To find out who one's ancestors were, where they lived, and so on. * To create a family tree that tells one's children about their roots and where they came from. * To establish some facts in order to prove one's rights to an inheritance. * To trace any inherited medical condition contributing to a present family member's ill-health. * To find and meet unknown, distant relatives - second cousins, and the like. * To find out about certain ancestors who are said to have been famous in their day. * and the list goes on.

The details to record

The minimum basic information you'll be looking for throughout your genealogical project will be each person's:

* Full name, date and place of birth * Date and place of marriage, if married * Full names of spouse(s) * Full names of any children * Full names of parents * Date and place of deaths of any of the above

The above information is considered your "vital details." However, many people decide to go further and include other information that they see fit.

Creating a family tree starting with "you"

Your ancestral family tree project starts with none other than yourself. If then moves back in time to your parents, then their parents (your grandparents) and so on through your lineage.

Reasons for starting with yourself

There are several good reasons for this:

It's safe to say you know more about yourself than everyone else you will list on your family tree. This of course means all the material will be complete and accurate.

In the weeks and months ahead you'll be interviewing family members to find out about their own life details, and for that you'll use a checklist of useful questions to ask. By first doing something similar for your own personal details you'll get some valuable practice and also find out which information is easy to remember or obtain. Of course you will also find out which information may need additional probing or detective work to uncover or verify.

It's also important to understand that you can add as much information about yourself as you like. In fact, you can even build up your own mini-autobiography. This is great for future generations looking back on their own family history and discovering the accomplishments, disappointments, hardships, and challenges you dealt with throughout your life.

Once you start interviewing others, you will quickly see what questions are easy to ask and what questions might be sensitive. The more knowledge you have around interviewing family members the easier it will be to get more information. In the end it's all about honing your interview skills with some preparation before you sit down with relatives. What you end up with is better information when building your family tree.

by: Frank Jones

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