Danny Giftofireland asked:


1. Genealogy is a research project. Treat it as one. Learn from the mistakes of others. Discuss your objective and targets with others who have researched family tree’s in the country that you want to. Look up online groups. Remember a good game plan will make you a more effective genealogist and give you a more complete family tree.

2. Speak to as many family members as you can. Ask them for the names of family members that they know, any old addresses or any towns that they ever heard of. Record everything, from family jobs to interests and reasons they emigrated. Look through photo albums, all personal and records that can be found in your family homes. Many genealogical searches hinge on a letter found in an attic or an old diary

3. Everything should be backed up by facts, have each lead confirmed before you follow it. Tracing family tree’s can be challenging enough without, chasing a wrong lead.

4. Make a start – write down all the family members, that you know of on a family tree. Write down the place of birth, of each person, their date of Birth etc. Keep it brief though. Further records can be made and kept in a notebook. Make sure that your records and family tree are clearly kept and well organised.

5. Potential sources include: Churches, Cemeteries, the Family history centre of the Church of the Latter day saints. There are public archives and libraries, that are focused in on family history.

6. Family names. You may find that that you come across records that give different spellings for Irish surnames. This is because up to the 1850’s, a majority of Irish people would have spoken Irish rather than English. Official records were recorded in English though, the spelling can vary as many people would not have used their “English” name often, and would often be unsure of the exact version. Remember to be aware that many Irish families would have nicknames, often in Irish, that would have described a family trait, characteristic, or just as a division between several families with the same name, such as the bui’s etc. Also a person, could be called Dan Jack pats, in day to day use, whilst not being their full birth name – Jacky being the father, Patsy, being the grandfather.

7. Birth dates should be give several years leeway both ways. Dates of Birth were often not recorded till years after, the birth and even then were often not remembered correctly.

Useful addresses:

Cork City Ancestral Project- Genealogy research for South Cork

c/o County Library

Farranlea Road

Cork City

Ireland

Mallow heritage center.- Genealogy research for North Cork

27/28 Bank Place Mallow

Co Cork

Ireland

Best of luck with your exciting and challenging exploration of your family tree and history



Gladys

Muna wa Wanjiru asked:


The creation of a family tree is like taking off the layers of memory and revealing the past in a truly mesmerizing way. The search for one’s origins can be equally captivating and interesting, yet it is not effort-free or too easy either. Nevertheless, one cannot complain nowadays about the difficulty of making the family tree, not when we are to compare the way things used to be in the past. Presently, technological development and the fact that one can use a family tree template or a family tree maker as software items definitely indicate that family charting has got a whole new dimension, and this is all thanks to the extension of the data online.

A family tree template is the perfect way to begin working on the genealogy chart, most often such programs come together with full instructions about the best way to optimize usage. Very similar to an Excel spread sheet, a family tree template needs to have each rectangle filled with the personal data and the details of the family members. The Internet is the best source to download a proper family tree template with the usage details, however, such software items are also available at local bookstores and office suppliers.

A family tree template is pretty easy and comfortable to use since it does not require any creativity at all. If you only need to create a genealogy report that looks both professional and well documented, a family tree template is the right choice, and it doesn’t require the use of an advanced software for such family history purposes. In case you need a really advanced family tree template you may have to pay more for it, since more features come for a higher price, which is only normal after all. And the Internet remains the most advantageous option here too.

If you want to purchase a family tree template for personal use, then, there should be no problem about downloading one from the Internet, sometimes completely free of any charge, but when you need to use it for commercial purposes, things do get a little more complicated. A family tree template should have a license and a registration number that the supplier needs to hand in to you when the transaction is closed. Such security elements ensure the recognition of the authenticity of a document in case it needs to be presented for public investigation for instance.



Mike

andrew.regan.2006@googlemail.com asked:


When it comes to family, there are few things in life that are more important. And if you’ve ever wondered who your ancestors were, then you’re certainly not alone! No matter how big or small your family is, finding out about your past ancestors is not only a fascinating business but could also be crucial to helping you understand yourself as a person.

In fact, genealogy has taken off in Britain in recent years, particularly as recent legislation has helped in the release of census documents from hundreds of years ago. Programmes like the BBC’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ have popularised the importance of finding out your family history, with famous TV stars and personalities – including Barbara Windsor, Jeremy Paxman and David Tennant, among others – all portraying their search for their ancestors.

In today’s world, where people are perpetually online, there are hundreds of websites that allow you to search for your family history. Genealogy search is becoming ever-more important as more and more look towards their past to find answers for the present and the future. If you’re a novice at family tree research, then it’s important to explore a variety of family search tools in order to familiarise yourself with techniques and tips that will help you find what you’re looking for.

For instance, if you’re looking for an ancestor that was born prior to 1875, bear in mind that an estimated 6 to 10 per cent of births were not registered in this period and it was only in 1875 that compulsory registration of both births and deaths was implemented. What’s more, searching for births, deaths and marriages further back than this proves even more difficult, since the introduction of General Civil Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths only occurred in 1837 in England and Wales.

Novice genealogy searchers, however, should also bear in mind census inaccuracies when trying to compile their family trees. Census records are an invaluable resource for people who are tracing their family history; in fact, census returns are crucial because they can not only tell people who their ancestors were and what they did, but also where they lived and whether or not they had brothers and sisters. This can help reunite families as people exploring their family past may discover they have uncles, aunts or cousins they didn’t know existed.

Many websites and resources that allow people to make genealogy searches will offer excellent tips and techniques in order for you to make the most effective search for your family tree. So, wherever you choose to search for your ancestors, you can rest assured you’ll find something that will afford you a glimpse into your family past!



Theodore

Kelly Liyakasa asked:


If you’ve ever pondered the question, ‘Who am I related to?’ you aren’t alone. While communicating by way of the Internet and the cell phone have brought many of us together, there are plenty of individuals who can count their family members on one hand.

Genealogy services have special family tree features that allow inquiring minds to piece their rich ancestral roots together. If you want to build a family tree with ease, keep the following in mind:

• Global connection-Even if your entire family lives in New Jersey, sites like One Great Family complete the puzzle by demonstrating where your family delineated from through their Family Tree Connection feature.

• Census Collection-Don’t settle for a family tree builder solely containing US Census Records. Ancestry is a genealogy service that incorporates UK records, as well as specialized documents, such as military records.

• Ellis Island-Many of our ancestors passed through this infamous Hudson port and sites like Kindred Konnections allow you to scour records taken during our nation’s great migration period.

• Family Tree Platform-Some genealogy services require you to download software before you research and store family tree data, but One Great Family lets you upload your family’s information directly into an intuitive database.

Though filling in every gap in your family tree may be impossible, building a virtual replica of your ancestral background isn’t the dry task it once was. 6StarReviews.com found genealogy services hosting innovative research tools, scannable records and simple data uploads, allowing anyone with Internet access to piece together their ancestral story.



Joyce

andrew.regan.2006@googlemail.com asked:


Whether you’re part of a large family or you were adopted into a family as a child, it’s likely that you enjoy a natural interest in family history. However, in recent years, the burgeoning demand for family history resources and genealogy services seems to have captured the imaginations of people in society more than ever before!

For many, the main reason for this has been the sudden expansion in the amount of information available on the internet for genealogy and family history research. As more and more people have the internet in their homes, it’s become increasingly possible for family history buffs to discover their heritage online – a process which is ten times easier than having to explore dusty library archives for hours to find only small bits of information. The ability to scour a census for births, marriages, deaths or addresses on the web takes days off a search that would previously have been undertaken manually.

What’s more, as millions of people all over the world have ancestors from the UK, the Internet allows family historians based in Canada, the United States, Australia and even New Zealand to research their family trees from home. And with some family history sites linked to modern day people finders, once you’ve researched your past, you might be able to find distant relatives in the present as well.

It’s also become easier to trace the genesis of particular names through history. If your name is ‘Churchill’ or ‘Dickens’, for instance, it’s likely that you’ll be keen to trace your genealogy back through the years and establish whether you have any family connections to these famous figures in British history. And if you live in an old house and you’ve always been keen to discover its history, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s now easier to trace the history of your home. Discovering the past of a particular house can be done by exploring the lives of its previous residents, investigating key happenings in the history of your neighbourhood and even tracing the original interior design of your house to a particular date.

If you are planning to delve deeper into the history of your family, your name, or your house, you’ll have a variety of modern and up-to-date resources at your disposal, with some sites allowing you to search for information from British family records reaching as far back as 1837. The BBC, for instance, runs a comprehensive family history advice section on its website, and the Guardian newspaper recently released its own guide to how to embark on a genealogy search. But, however you choose to embark on your genealogy search – whether it’s on the internet or by getting cosy amongst the library shelves – make sure you stay organised. Better planning is sure to lead to more discoveries – so you’ll be more able to uncover any hidden family secrets!



Cheryl

Richard Villasana asked:


What are the leading five challenges that prevent people from finding someone in Mexico or starting their Mexican family genealogy research? The most common challenge that I have come across in my research is frustration. People may feel as though there may be no hope in finding the person they are looking for.

Maybe they are frustrated because they don’t know or speak the Spanish language. This can be especially upsetting for people who are doing their Mexican family genealogy and researching to find a mother or father living in Mexico.

Some clients have told us that their biggest challenge is they do not speak Spanish, have never visited Mexico, don’t know much about the country and have no idea where to start. Some tell us they have names and some information, but have not had any luck at all finding anybody. They may be ready to stop their Mexico family genealogy research because they feel overwhelmed, confused or even depressed. They are possibly frustrated because they may have spent hours on the Internet and have come up with nothing.

Let’s talk about that for a minute. There’s a good reason why a person doing family genealogy research for someone in Mexico has not found any information. Let’s start with the Internet. For most people, the Internet is an easy way to find people. Let’s face it, if you are trying to find someone in the United States, all you need to do is put in their name, city, state, and maybe their zip code.

There are many online search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or the Internet White Pages. If a person has done something that got them listed on the Internet such as: owning a web site; have published articles; been in a newspaper; or even just have a residential listing that is online, they can easily be found through an online search just by plugging their information into a search engine. There is a lot of personal information on people living in the United States and there are several ways to search for them and it is very easy to find them–if they are living in the United States.

So naturally, when most people think about finding someone in Mexico, whether or not they are doing family genealogy research, they turn to the Internet. However, the problem with trying to find someone in Mexico by using the Internet is that very little of the information on individuals who are living in Mexico is digitized. Herein lays the problem. The information is not on the Internet including free family genealogy web sites. If you did an Internet search for Mexico, you would receive a lot of results, but a closer look at the results reveals that most of them have to do with New Mexico or Mexico, Missouri. The results you get from these online searches are almost always about people living in the United States and are not focused on the Country of Mexico which is where you want to get information.

Marie Daly, director of the Research Library at the New England Historic Genealogical Society gave this comment about family genealogy research on the Internet, “I’d say perhaps only 10 percent of the genealogical information out there is on the Web. But when people do genealogy research, they think that’s 100 percent, and they make a big error that way. Not everything is on the Web. And some of the things that are on the Web are erroneous.” – How to be a Self-Sufficient Researcher by Margaret Moen

Even though you may spend a lot of time looking for this information and have visited some of the family genealogy research web sites, it may be in the wrong direction. So rest your fingers for a minute if you have already spent an hour or more looking on the Internet. Why would I say this? Because most people have used up their own ideas of where and how to search online after an hour. There is a science to searching online. After an hour most people have used up all of their resources and ideas of how to look for information. After that a lot of people are just spending time surfing the net, bouncing from site to site, looking and hoping for some new information.

People may feel that if they keep searching, they will find that one family genealogy research web site that has the information they are looking for. There is no one magic web site that will give you a simple answer to locate someone living in Mexico. It is just not out there and this includes free family genealogy sites.

If you are frustrated because you have spent a lot of time looking for someone, have tried free family genealogy web sites and nothing you have done has worked, you are finally in the right place. In the next few articles, I am going to share with you information on what to do and how to do it. So don’t give up.



Michelle

Kelly Liyakasa asked:


For many of us, comprehending our family’s rich and diverse history may not be the easiest task at hand. Many extended families are marked by numerous divorces and separations, the conjoining of several lineages and even adoption. While figuring out one’s family tree may look intimidating, genealogy services are a reputable source in untangling even the most complex family background.

A genealogy service allows inquisitive individuals to enter their family names and scour through results in the family tree database. While every service is unique in its search mechanisms, one popular genealogy service reported by 6StarReviews.com is Ancestry.com. Ancestry gives users access to fun facts like the meaning of surnames and international record collections for paying members.

Say you’re a “Smith” and you feel like the quest for your true family background may be worthless because of the prevalence of your last name. One genealogy service, One Great Family, allows members to utilize special family tree software and link their lineage with global ancestry links. That way, you’ll be able to browse through existing records and have your family tree updated automatically for you.

There is no feeling quite like knowing where you came from and discovering a hidden family secret, such that you’re related to Abraham Lincoln or Marilyn Monroe somewhere down the line. While relying on Uncle Barry’s word that you’re delineated from royalty may be trustful on your part, a genealogy and family tree service can truly divide fact from fiction.



Constance

Stephanie Varney asked:


Are you ready to begin your own Irish genealogical quest? You’re not alone. Today, over 34 million people in the United States alone have Irish ancestry. It’s one of the most commonly searched nationalities in American genealogy! Irish roots are found in every part of American life, thanks largely to a huge influx of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Not only is Ireland well-represented among the population of the United States, it can be found throughout the world. People in nearly every nation on earth have ancestry that could ultimately lead them on an Irish genealogical quest. The people of Ireland have been fanning out throughout the world since as early as the 7th century, when monks from the “Emerald Isle” set out to bring Christianity to the masses in Europe. Emigration continued at a steady pace until the 19th century, when it exploded! The infamous potato famine was happening then, and it caused 2 million Irish nationals to emigrate to nations all over the world, but particularly England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and the United States.

If you want to identify your Irish ancestors and get to know who they were, there’s now plenty of opportunity to do so. Today, there are more records than ever that have been opened to the public, and even made available online! Lots of websites, such as the Origins Network, now make Irish genealogical records available online for a small monthly fee. You can use these websites to find such important records as birth, death, and marriage records, church registers, census records, and rosters of property owners (also known as Griffiths Valuation). These records typically go back into about the mid-19th century, but that’s just the beginning of what’s available. Keep looking, because your Irish ancestors are there!



Jim

Jean Eagloy asked:


DNA Markers for Genealogy – Mitochondrial DNA Genealogy

Who else wants to know about DNA markers for genealogy? Here is a simple scientific test to trace your ancestors. Did you know that DNA From One Generation To The Other Is Almost Conclusive Evidence. This breakthrough in genealogy research has been making headlines for the past several years with some astounding proof of kinship between some very prominent historical figures.

DNA testing for family tree is not only convenient, but also simple. You find a genealogy testing company either in the phone book of on the Internet. Next, make an appointment and go to the company on your assigned day, fill out the forms, pay the fee and your good to go. The DNA genealogy test starts with a mouth swab of your mouth near the cheek. Many companies give you a kit so you can do the mouth swab at home and mail in the results to the laboratory. After the laboratory tests the DNA, the results are sent back to testee.

Wide DNA Databases Compare

The company doing the genealogy DNA testing will obviously need to have access to DNA databases which they will use to make comparisons and once these comparisons show their results, the company will then send you the results regarding whom your DNA swab matched with. You should realize that each and every cell is sure to have your DNA and whether it is your ***** or egg cells or even the *** cells, you will be providing your own unique DNA for further matching.

Parents Pinpointed

Listen closely. Genealogy DNA testing is helpful in pinpointing an individual’s parentage and it can be used extensively when you need to know who the mother is, and also in case of adoptions. Thus, it is easy to see how genealogy DNA testing can help with creating your family tree because your DNA will have been passed from one generation to the next and the information pertaining to your ancestors will be encoded therein.

The Egg The Sperm

When your ***** and also egg cell combine together, a new cell is created that will hold DNA from either parent and when genealogy DNA testing is performed in specialist laboratories, they will help provide evidence whether you are related to another person with a matching DNA. What’s more, the chances of two persons having identical DNA are very small with the exception of identical twins which are due to the fact that their DNA is identical because the fertilized egg had split and formed two fetuses obtained from a single ***** and also from the same egg.

Cutting Edge Medical Science Genealogy DNA Testing

Just imagine, as DNA is passed from generation to generation there is very little change in its structure. This is amazing and is the primary reason to use DNA markers for genealogy testing to explore your ancestry. In no time at all, the link between families can be nailed down and makes the construction of a family tree that much more reliable and accurate. And new advances are being made in medical science to enhance and improve the DNA testing for family tree.



Shane

Muna wa Wanjiru asked:


More and more people are interested in finding out their roots and knowing who their ancestors were, or they’d simply like to leave something for the future generations to refer back to. Yet, this may look like an impossible mission at first hand particularly if you have pretty little information on your family. Nevertheless, don’t lose hope until you’ve tried the family tree maker, a special software designed to assist not only genealogists but any common user who’s eager to learn something on personal family history. Furthermore, the family tree maker also preserves data and enables the free sharing of family history world wide. What can you actually do with the family tree maker?

Due to the advanced technology on which it relies, the family tree maker allows the user to start building a family tree around names, dates and events. Documents, audio and video files as well as pictures can also be attached or uploaded. Furthermore, if information already exists on your family, but it is scarce, you can actually merge the existing bits of material with the help of the family tree maker. Moreover, the software can be easily used in combination with the most resourceful genealogy site on the web: Ancestry.com.

As a software, the family tree maker has undergone several improvement stages, of which the most comprehensive variant is the family tree maker 2008. There is an increase in the dynamics of the software that is definitely obvious with the introduction of the new model. First of all, when dealing with a particular life event, one may easily find all the lists of people associated with that particular happening, and the same feature is available for dealing with locations. The family tree maker has access to such a rich database, that the user benefits from no less than three millions locations to help him/her make the correct data entrance.

The interface used by the family tree maker is a lot faster in response, meaning that the access to data is more rapid: you can enter, edit or simply view whatever interests you in a more time-effective way. Furthermore, the best software reviews of the family tree maker are directed towards the multi-media option of the program which allows for the creation of charts and reports that have videos and pictures incorporated in the structure. Once you get to work with the program, you’ll see how much assistance it offers in routine tasks, by the many tools and panels available to the user.



Nathan