Step One: Consult Family
First, you want to find out whether other members of your family have begun tracing your ancestry. If you have an aunt, second cousin or other relative who's already started the research, you may have a solid start on your project already.
Step Two: Conduct Interviews
If you're starting from scratch, you'll want to interview your older relations — they have a wealth of information to help you. Find out when and where they were born, where they grew up (town, county and state), when and where they were married, and the names and birth dates of their parents and children. Use a tape recorder to capture all the information. Remember when you're doing your interviews to ask not just about data such as names and dates — you want anecdotes, too. When and how did your grandparents meet? What were Sunday afternoons like when they were young? What were their favourite family traditions? Vacation memories? Favourite pets? All these recollections help you get a sense of who these people really are, how they've lived and their most cherished life moments. Ask them to share their memories of their parents and grandparents, too.
Step Three: Collect Resources
Gather your family information — photos and birth, marriage and death certificates, family correspondence, and any other relevant documents. Label the photos with the names of each person you can identify, and ask relatives to help you fill in the blanks. Make photocopies of documents for your family-tree files. For documents you can't find in your home family records, you can check out the Web site of the Canadian Genealogical Centre.
Step Four: Complete Your Chart
At this point you'll want to begin filling out a pedigree, or ancestral, chart. The traditional chart is numbered, and has fields for up to five generations. It also provides fields that let you link from chart to chart as you move back through generations. Fill in as many fields as you can, and keep digging for the information you still need.
Tip: While you're digging out photos and records, you may want to start a "Book of Me" for your children. Include school pictures, favourite memories, teachers, extracurricular activities — landmarks from throughout your child's life. Use a simple spiral-bound book with durable paper. You can continue to add to this as your child grows.
Tip: You may want to look into joining a family-tree or scrapbooking club online or in your community — or start your own!
