If you think you know your family pretty well, think again. There could be long lost relatives you never knew you had living hundreds of miles from you. Or the origins of your family name might be in an area or country you never even realized. Thanks to various family tree software and the Internet, genealogy is gaining in popularity as people discover their family roots. Plus, it’s great family fun as a number of research tools make it easy for people of all ages to find family members and create a family tree. 

Getting Started 

A good starting point is the purchase of family tree software. There are a number of choices available, so it’s best to look for a program that enables you to easily import photos, view your tree branches in various styles and allows linkage of family information. Among the options are Family Origins 6.0 from Parsons Technology (http://www.parsonstech.com). Family Origins makes organizing family information relatively easy, provides links and allows for the creation of a multimedia scrapbook and family Web page. A bonus is that the family research information can be printed in wall chart, pedigree charts, photo trees and other format styles. 

Another good program is Family Tree Maker 5.0 from Broderbund Software (http://www.familytreemaker.com). This deluxe edition includes two Family Finder Index CDs containing centuries of state and federal records. Plus, it includes Internet FamilyFinder Agents that regularly search the World Wide Web for information on the individuals you entered in your family tree and then send e-mails whenever new information is available. The software also allows for more recordable data, such as medical history, family stories and video clips, and for more options in displaying your family tree. You can also post your family Web page at http://www.familytreemaker.com. 

There’s also Family Heritage Deluxe from IMSI (http://www.imsisoft.com/familyheritage) in CD-ROM format. The genealogy program allows you to select from a number of different styles of family trees and to retouch old photographs. It also contains information on 200,000 surnames. 

If you prefer to create your family tree directly online, check out the Genealogy Online book from McGraw Hill. The guide helps you find your family’s earliest roots by providing the best sites for information and shareware. Another good information source, Kathleen Sands‚ Living Guide (http://www.netguide.com/HowTo/Life/Roots) provides helpful tips on how to trace your family tree online. In addition to providing answers to beginner’s questions, the Web site has some great links for genealogical look-ups and international help. 

Entering Family Information 

When creating a family tree, start with your own family first. As you add parents, children, grandparents, cousins, and so on, the tree quickly begins to branch off. It may seem overwhelming at first, but it can be best managed by completing one family before moving on to a next. Other family members can help in providing information, such as birth dates, names of family members, and so forth. By now, you have a pretty good tree of your family. 

Now the question is, how far do you want to extend it? You could chose to go back to when the family name first came into existence or just trace back to your great-great grandparents, the first family members to settle in the U.S., for instance. For more in-depth delving into your family history, the Internet can offer a number of solutions.

At Yahoo!’s People Search Four11 (http://www.four11.com), just type in your last name in the telephone search portion and the number of matches in the U.S. and worldwide will become available. Next it’s on to letter writing. 

If e-mail is an option, send a brief note explaining your family tree project and ask for information about their parents or grandparents. It may take several correspondences before you can determine whether they are related to your family. 

Another helpful site is the Helm’s Genealogy SiteFinder. It provides a comprehensive, fully categorized index of genealogical resources on the Internet. It can be accessed by keyword at http://www.familytreemaker.com/search.html. Also worth looking into is Hall of Names International Inc. (http://209.196.136.246/names2.htm). Rated "Cool Site of the Week," the site enables visitors to search all nationalities for last name origins simply by entering a last name into the online index. 

There also are a number of good CD-ROMs that have taken the trou-ble out of research by compiling helpful lists. For instance, The Family Archive, Everton’s Computerized Family File, Volume 1, 1400s to Present CD-ROM includes an index and images of worldwide family group sheets, a valuable genealogical source for obtaining such information as full name, dates and location of birth, occupation, marriage, residence, church affiliation and death. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1538–1949, available on CD-ROM from Broderbund, contains listings of nearly 2,750,000 individuals who arrived in the U.S. ports between 1538 and 1940 with information compiled from passenger lists, naturalization records, church records, family and local histories, and voter and land registrations. 

Family Tree Users 

The best part of creating a family tree is, when completed, it becomes a permanent fixture to your family. Family members can take turns each year to ensure that it’s updated with births, marriages, and so on. In addition to storing your family history on computer and disk, you might also want to consider printing the information. The pages could be framed, laminated or presented in a photo album so it can be passed to and from various family households. Your family tree also will prove invaluable as a resource when planning family reunions. But most importantly, a family tree permanently documents your family history for generations, ensuring that your surname will live on for years to come. 
 
 

Family Tree Resources

Everton’s Genealogical Helper: A genealogy magazine that helps readers discover their roots and share them with others. Contact Everton Publishers, Inc., P.O. Box 368, Logan, UT 84323-0368; (800) 443-6325 for subscription information. 

Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com): This is the World Wide Web’s largest and fastest-growing collection of online searchable genealogy data. The site contains free databases as well as databases that are accessible through subscription only. 

Genealogy Gateway To The Web (http://www.gengateway.com): Provides free genealogical services and has more than 48,000 resource listings, including family names and surnames, beginner help listings, all 50 U.S. states index and international listings. 

Genealogy Toolbox (http://genealogy.tbox.com): Well organized links to books, software and Web sites pertaining to genealogy as well as family data and histories and newsgroups. 

Odds are you’ve been using computers and surfing the Net for some time now. And it’s also likely you or someone you love has noticed that both of those activities can become somewhat addictive. 

Well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. 

Anything you’ve felt before is mere cooked spaghetti compared to those who have become hooked on something the computer and World Wide Web have made astoundingly accessible to all: genealogy. 

Now, you may think genealogy is a strange exercise in ancestor worship by elderly retired people who have nothing better to do than dig through musty old books and records or tramp through ancient cemeteries. 

Wrong. 

For one thing, it seems to have become quite a popular activity with the Baby Boom generation (and, being a charter member thereof, I shall thank you very much for not immediately saying, "well, yeah, like we said "old people"). 

This is in no small part thanks to the dedicated efforts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) to compile family records—not just of Mormons, but of virtually every family in America and extending back as many generations as possible. In fact, you may want to begin your own familial adventure at the LDS Family History Resources page at http://www.lds.org/en/2-Family_History/Family_History_MAIN.html. 

And don’t worry—while information about their church is available online and at the numerous Family History Centers scattered around the country, I’ve never had anyone ever say or do anything even remotely resembling proselytizing; the genealogy service comes without strings. 

Although no date has been announced, LDS reportedly is planning to make all of its records available online—for a fee—in the near future, which will be a remarkable thing for researchers. In the meantime, if you don’t want to take some blank disks and notebook paper and travel to one of the LDS centers, you also can bring equivalent material to your home computer with one of several computer genealogy programs. 

The most complete, to my mind, and the one my family has been using for years is Family Tree Maker from Broderbund (http://www.familytreemaker.com). Now, you can buy a very basic edition of this for $29.99 or one with four data-filled CD-ROMs for $59.99. However, I strongly recommend you go for the full-bore 10-CD deluxe set (Version 5.0), which, at $89.99, gives you instant access to 1.5 million names already linked into more than 27,000 family trees. 

Sound a bit too much? Heck, you haven’t even started. Broderbund offers hundreds of additional CD-ROMs, some focusing on marriage or death records, some on military service, some on immigration and so on. In fact, if you want to own your own complete library, you can buy a 156-disc Family Archives library from them for a mere $3,858. 

For the more thrifty among you, you also can buy any CD-ROM by itself (most are $30 or $40) or special bundles of four to 12 discs for $50 to $200). 

Still too much? 

You can find specials at the main Family Tree Maker Web site every month, ranging from discounts and special pricing to limited time subscription access to specific archives (usually about $20, which can be applied to the purchase of that archive if you later decide to add it to your collection) to free limited time access to some databases. 

The program itself is so full of wonderful capabilities there simply isn’t room here to do them justice. Suffice it to say you can see the information you enter—or import—in just about any fashion you may desire. And that includes a "relationship" report that will tell you how everyone in your database is related to any individual you select. 

You also can scan documents (birth, marriage and death certificates, commendations, and so on) into the database and attach them to the appropriate person. Likewise photographs, sound—even video. I have a wonderful video interview I did with my 80-year-old mother telling her side of just how she and my father got together. I only wish I had gotten something similar from Dad before he passed away in 1988—his version, as I recall, had an entirely different perspective. 

Obviously, adding files of this type to your document—which FTM helps you turn into a book, electronic or print—definitely will bulk it up, memory-wise. But, hey, computer memory is cheap—family memories are priceless. 

Perhaps one of the most valuable resources you will find at the FTM Web site is a page of links (http://www.familytreemaker.com/links) to nearly 46,000 online genealogy Web sites. Now, if that doesn’t keep you busy, nothing will. For a somewhat less daunting but nonetheless quite useful list of online resources, you may want to try http://www.ipa.net/~trapper/geneal~1.html, compiled by a colleague who has devoted considerable time to the subject. 

Among other things you will find there, is a link to one of Trapper’s favorite online resource sites, GenServ, which is available to one and all for a $12 annual subscription fee (half that if you are over 60 or attending school full time). You also can try a limited-access version free for two months. 

The GenServ site also provides a listing of other PC and Mac genealogy software, much of which is interoperable—you can import and export among them—because they use the LDS-developed GEDCOM (Genealogical Data Communications) standard file format. This greatly improves your chances of sharing files and information with others you encounter in your research, no matter which software they have chosen to use. 

In that regard, I offer the following testimony from the aforementioned Trapper on both online research and working with others: 

"Genealogy on the Net is a great tool. For example, a few months ago a new Net acquaintance sent some information that pinned down exactly where my great-great-grandfather is buried and gave details on a second family I didn’t know existed. That was fantastic. My mom looked for this guy for about 15 or 20 years and never found anything on him. That information does not provide the proof of his existence or the proof of our relationship, but it does provide an exact place where I can go for records to begin the process of documenting his existence and our relationship. That is the real value of Internet research at present. 

"But of all the resources on the Net for researchers, e-mail lists may be the most valuable. You have e-mail lists on specific surnames, you have them on genealogy methods and techniques, on Internet links of interest to genealogy and a variety of other related topics. If you learn to use those effectively, you will find lots of help, may find direct links to other researchers working on your family lines and can always post a request for assistance when needed. People on the Net are generally very helpful." 

You can find links to many newsgroups and mailing lists at Trapper’s Web site.

One note of caution, however: Remember you are still dealing with people you don’t know and who may not always be what they claim. Take the same precautions you would in any real-world situation when it comes to handing out personal information such as your telephone number, Social Security number, home address, and so on. The odds are high the people you encounter will be normal, law-abiding, helpful, sincere and generally good folk. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take a little reasonable precaution.