Laura Berry shares her tips on how to start a family tree. To read the article, hit here
How to start a family tree: First steps
1 – Write down what you know already. Take a pencil and blank sheet of paper and write down what you know about your relatives in a family tree diagram. Write your name and date of birth at the bottom of the page, with your siblings either side and a branch up to your parents’ names, adding any significant dates. Continue back as far as you can. This way you’ll be able to see where the gaps are.
2 – Track down the family archive. Gather any family documents, letters and old photographs you have lying around the house as these often provide precise dates and places for births, marriages and deaths, and can help you to start filling in some of those blanks.
3 – Make a plan. While you’re drawing up your tree start to think about what you would like to find out. This is a really important question that we ask all of the celebrities, because it will form a framework around which we can plan our research. The next step is to talk to as many relations as possible to try to fill in some of the gaps. The Who Do You Think You Are? team does this for every celebrity. Older relations are particularly helpful, since they may remember people who were alive as long as 100 years ago.
4 – Contact family members. Extended family can alert you to additional mysteries that need resolving, and have documents and photographs you’ve never seen before. Keep notes of all your conversations. As you progress in your research you might pick up on something significant in your initial notes that you didn’t think was very important at the time.
5 – Collaborate with others. See if you can collaborate with another family history addict in the family. Two pairs of eyes are often better than one. It’s also helpful if you can divide the cost of purchasing document copies and joining subscription websites. Some family history websites allow members to save their family trees online and get in touch with other tree owners who share an ancestor. We often use this method of tracing people for Who Do You Think You Are? Remember, online and even printed family trees can contain errors, so be sure to verify the facts with as many sources as possible.
6 – Get organized! You’ll need to keep well-organized notes. Archive-quality storage boxes are useful for paper copies gathered. Regularly updated records of each step you’ve taken will save you duplicating searches. There are lots of family history software packages designed to input your ancestors’ details and build trees including Legacy, Family Tree Maker and Family Historian. Many family history websites offer similar services. At Who Do You Think You Are? we also compile a Word report for each celebrity, giving an overview of the records found for each ancestor, with transcriptions of all the documents we’ve located.
