Family history expert Laura Berry shares her tips on how to continue with starting a family tree. To read the entire article hit here
Once you’ve started a family tree with the family members you know, you can search for their other sources such as census records (this article was written for a British audience). It is being paraphrase to a North American audience.
The next major tool for starting a family tree is census records. A census of the (US’s population is carried out every ten years and census records from 1790 to 1940's. 1950's will be available after April 1st this year and will be available online from all the major genealogy websites as well as FamilySearch. Mexico started counting their population in 1895. This census was considered the first federal or national census. Beginning in 1900, censuses were conducted every 10 years. The 1930 census was conducted on May 15 and was the first census in which returns were processed centrally. Because of this, most of the sheets still exist). They are an essential tool for family historians because they record families at home, giving details of both relationships and occupations (The early censuses were not as detail-only giving head of household and ages variation. After the 1850's on more detail of the household members were given). Often the census is the only record that will tell you how your ancestors (occupation, education and other details).
Once you know when and where your ancestor were born (state or country), you can search for people with a matching name and date and place of birth to see where they were living every ten years. Alternatively, you can try to build backwards from census records to find your ancestor’s birth record. You can discover more about the best places to search for your family on the census as well as what information was provided in each decade in our guide to census records.
