Creating a Family Tree

Getting Started

1. Compile as much information as possible about your family. Start with yourself, parents, and grandparents. Get names (don't forget siblings), dates (birth, marriage, death, and military service), and locations (town, county, state or province, and country).
   
   
2. Ask your relatives about your family history. Often, family members remember stories or information, or possess documents, that can help start you on your way.
   
   
3. Look in family records (letters, family Bibles, scrapbooks, diaries, photographs, baptisms, new clippings, etc).
   
   
4. Consult non-federal local sources for records such as births, deaths, marriages, obituaries, deeds, and wills. Start with the Public Library's Local History collection (open M 530-8, Th 1-5) or the New Haven Colony Historical Society (open T-F 10-5; note: there may be a fee to use the Library). New Haven's Bureau of Vital Statistics, which issues certificates for birth, death, marriages & civil unions that have occurred in the city of New Haven, provides copies for a fee.
   

In addition, the National Archives has some good tips and links to tutorials and guides help get you started.

Software

I recommend Family Tree Builder. It's free, easy to use, and has looks of cool features, including publishing your results to the web, photo integration, and Smart Matches, which compares your results to those of others, allowing you to easily extend your research.

Websites

There are a number of good websites for doing family research (just Google 'genealogy'). These include:

• Family Search
• Connecticut Research Guides
  
• Ancestry.com [note: 14 day free trial requires sign-up an cancellation of subscription]
• RootsWeb.com
  
• National Archives
  

Other resources

• African American Quick Guide (PDF)
  
• Finding African American Ancestors (PDF)

Federal Records

The next step is to consult available federal records. Records most often used by genealogists and family historians include:

• Federal Population Censuses
• Military service and pension records
• Immigration records
• Naturalization records
• Land records

Note: few of these are freely available online. Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest Online have digitized many of these, including census records. These web sites are subscription-based, but access is free-of-charge and unlimited from certain libraries such as Yale.

In any case, use of federal records requires considerable time and/or trips to different institutions.