How to find these records:

Correspondence. I have had great success with letters.

It takes some time, but the results can be wonderful. I once wrote to an embassy in San Francisco seeking information about relatives in Croatia. At that time, Croatia was part of the Soviet Union and I had no direct address to the archives I needed. But the embassy forwarded the letter and I waited several months for an answer. I was rewarded for my patience when, I received my great grandfather's baptismal records along with those of all his siblings. The information even included his parent's wedding date.
I have written to people all over the world and most of the time, they responded. It was not always a positive answer. Sometimes there was no relationship other than a common surname, but they answered and I was able then to discount a particular line I had been tracing. Sometimes, the letters were never answered. In that case, you just have to try another avenue of inquiry. I wrote once, taking a chance on the address, to a distant cousin whom I had met when I was a very young girl. I had not seen him since but he answered happily and quickly and got me reconnected with his entire line back in New York. I work now, by E-mail, with one of those cousins and together we are filling in spaces on that Family Tree.

E-Mail. E-mail is great for genealogists.

It is a rapid, inexpensive way to communicate and you can reach the entire world through E-mail. If, as your search progresses, you find distant cousins in some other part of the world, you can exchange information in minutes rather than weeks as with regular mail. You can exchange pictures as well as documents and anything that can be printed.
Working on the Web

: The internet is a very fast and easy way to gain information about genealogy. There are so many web sites devoted to genealogy that it would be nearly impossible to list them all. Some of them are only related to a specific country or culture. If you are, for instance, of Italian descent, you will find plenty of web sites specifically for Italian genealogy. Many of them are written in Italian though and you should have some familiarity with the language, enough, at least, to pick out names, places, and dates. The same is true of other nationalities though a good many of them have pages either in English or in both languages. So it is best to surf through the web to find the ones that will do you the most good. Keep in mind that some of them charge for dispensing information. The fees vary and it all depends on what you want and need as to whether you want to spend the money. They will tell you, up front, what the fee is and if it is yearly, monthly or a pay as you go plan.
Some of the best Genealogy sites on the web that I have found are:


WWW.Cyndislist.com . This is very extensive, has a great index, covers a multitude of nationalities and locations and it is free and very easy to use. There is just too much to list everything available on this site. Don't miss this one.

www.rootsweb.com and www.Ancestry.com
These are two separate sites but they share information and they have all kinds of databases and search engines. They offer United States Census, birth records, Social Security Death Index and numerous other sources of information. Rootsweb does not charge. Ancestry.com has some free information but you will have access to more if you join the membership. Rootsweb has a message board that is very well organized and can be extremely valuable.


www.FamilySearch.org/ This web site is organized and run by the Latter Day Saints (The Morman Church). It has excellent databases and offers, in addition, maps and guides and articles about ancestor searching. It has very good information about early American ancestors but includes some foreign records as well. They have links and can tell you how to access their local centers where you can search more databases.

www.Mytrees.com My Trees charges for membership. Currently the charge is $7.00 for 10 days, $15.00 for 1 month and $100.00 for a year. They also have some options for free service. In my opinion, it is worth the fee. They have New Zealand, Canadian and UK information as well as American. They feature Family trees.

www.distantcousin.com This site has a lot of information such as online scanned images of documents, newspapers, obituaries, ship lists and more. There are no fees .

www.freesurnamesearch.com This web site has tons of information and covers Africa,
Asia, Europe, Pacific, New Zealand, Australia and America as well as Native

American information. They have search engines and it is an easy site to use. When you go on to the site, scroll down a way to get to the basic information first. They also offer genealogical forms and charts.


www.gensphere.com This site has very early American information as well as more recent records.

CousinConnect.com specializes in queries and links to other sites. .

www.Archives.gov/genelogy Don't overlook the National Archives. They have census, military, Immigration, naturalization and land records. Some of these are online but if they are not online, they will tell you how to get them. They offer articles and publications, workshops and access to catalogues. You have to browse their website to find out exactly what you might want.

www.freesurnamesearch.com This website offers free surname searches for locations all around the world. They also offer a free daily E-mail newsletter that keeps you up-to-date- on what is new on their site.
A lot of valuable free help here.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, more sites on the web. You will probably enjoy surfing through the web to find them. Some will be more useful for you than others because of their particular content and your particular needs.

Most of these genealogy sites have a search engine. You just have to put a surname in and you will get information and/or a list of links to follow. If you put a location into a search, it will yield all kinds of web pages devoted to that area. It might take a little time to surf through and find exactly what pages are the best for you, but it is worth the time and effort.

Note: Message Boards. Many of the genealogical web sites have message boards where people can leave queries.

This can be a very good place to get leads. If you use a message board, try to be specific. i.e.--Jones , Abner Jacob b (born) 1830 in Rhode Island. m. (married) Abigail in Rhode Island 1854. D. (died) 1880. Six children: John, James, Thomas, Caleb, Jacob and Mary. Would like to know Abigail's maiden name. Sometimes you don't have that much information but use the message board anyway. Put down whatever pertinent data you do have and mention what you are looking for. Sometimes it will be only, "any information gratefully accepted." Now if someone searching the Jones message board knows about that family, they will respond with a message of their own and you might discover a new relative or a new lead to follow.
Searching locally: If your family has lived in the same area for a few generations, then your local library, city archives and local cemetery can yield much information.

My family has lived in the San Francisco Bay area since 1850. The name can be found in Holy Cross Cemetery records, in the San Francisco City archives and other local sites. San Francisco happens to have many different organizations where a search for my family would be helpful. Sutro Library, the Wells Fargo History Museum, The Irish Cultural Center, The California Pioneers Association and the genealogical section of the library are all good places to search in that city. Most cities have the same sorts of organizations. Some cities are dedicated to genealogical studies. The Fremont Library, in the city of Fremont, across the bay from San Francisco has a large section devoted to that study. The Morman Church and the National Archives also have branches close to most big cities and indexes and some information can be searched. If you know the name of the churches in your town where your family might have been worshippers, go there and ask. You might come up with baptismal certificates or marriage records.
Searching afar: I have a friend who went to Italy to see the small town where her ancestors had come from.

Beside the local church was a cemetery that was full of her family. Her search was almost completed right there. I went to Ireland and found my great grandparents burial site in an old cemetery that had been closed for years. But with the help of locals there, I did locate them. But you might not have to travel that far. I have found that cities like Boston and New York will answer your letters. They will charge for a search. If you live close enough, go and search there yourself. If you know the name of the church where your parents or grandparents were married, ask them. They might be willing to let you search for baptismal records or marriage records. They would, probably, do a record search for you, especially if you can give them a date or near-date along with the name of bride and/or groom. Local cemeteries are another story. Holy Cross Cemetery, which is the local cemetery for almost all the Catholics of San Francisco for the last hundred years or more, is fussy about searches. They charge a stiff fee and aren't very eager to help. You must have the name, of course, and an approximate date of death, within a year. In addition, what they give you is only the names of who is buried in a specific plot, the dates of death and who purchased the plot. Other cemeteries, I have contacted, seem more helpful. Some charge and some do not charge. There are a few that have published online the names of all interred and the date of their deaths. The records from these can be very helpful. Often many of the family are buried together. You might find a new name or clarify a relationship. If you have the time, it has proven helpful for me to walk around Holy Cross and note gravestones that have my family name on them. Then I can go to the office and inquire.
The internet has made the job a great deal easier. When I started, most information was only available in the local government archives where your descendant lived. Since I live on the West Coast and most of the relatives I was seeking lived on the East Coast, or had lived in Europe, it was difficult, if not impossible, to get much information. I resorted to writing letters to churches or offices that might or might answer and while the results were good, the time lag was long. The vast information on the web has solved a lot of this difficulty. There are all sorts of web sites to help now.

What Information Do I keep?


I keep almost everything. You should be very careful to document where you found some specific bit of information. For instance, John Jacob Jones, age 43, seaman, came on the ship Houston to New York. Arrived 7 May 1848. (Information from ship lists, National Archives. October 1990. (John Jacob Jones-1-3a) Note I add my number to every notation so that I can refer back to that particular person with ease.
Note: When writing dates, it is a good thing to use date, month, year in that order.

i.e. 7 October 1850. This becomes important because European records often start with the date, followed by the month and it a clearer way to transcribe dates. The form 7/8/50 could be July 8 1850 or July 8 1950. It could be August 7 of either of those years. So spell it out--7 October 1850 That form leaves no questions.

Birth records, death records and marriage records are not called vital statistics for nothing. They are vital to a real genealogical search. A birth date can fit someone into a family or give you reason to discount them as family. If you know that your great-great uncle Andy Smith was born on 8 May 1814, then all the other Andy Smiths that you find can be put into the miscellaneous file for the moment. But hang on to those other Andy's. One of them might be a son. Birth records can be obtained from the State archives, usually for a fee. Some states like California have many of them published and indexed on the web. Death certificates are equally important, and for the same reason. They can be obtained from State Archives or Depts. of Public Health. You usually have to prove that you are a relative to obtain one and there is usually a charge for them. The Social Security Death Index is published on the web but older records are usually only available in local churches or through the state. Some libraries in large cities have archives, which can be searched for death records. Marriage certificates sometimes give you the names of siblings as witnesses and they give you a location where the family of the bride might have lived. They also give you a definite fact for relationships. Marriage certificates are the most difficult to obtain. You can go to the local church, search newspapers or ask at the State archives. Some marriage announcements are published through Ancestry.com in their newspaper indexes.

The Social Security Death Index. Go to Rootsweb.com for an excellent explanation of the Social Security Index, how to access it and how to use it. Further information can be obtained from the Social Security Administration and Rootsweb has all the information you need to access this further information.

Census Records

are a most valuable tool in documenting a family. It is only in recent years that census records have been available on the web. There are many places now on the web that publish the different census records. You will find them easily and Ancestry.com,. Rootsweb and Cyndislist have them. Depending on the year, census records tell you name, age, year of immigration or what state in which they were born, occupation of head of household, names of children and their ages, where they were born, occupations of all members of the family and sometimes, if they read or write English. If you find your family on a census, print it out and be sure and note the name of the township and the year and location of the census. In some cases, the census will not list all of this information, the earlier ones didn't require some of it.
Some names of family members might not be included. If you know the name of one son and he is not listed, it might be that he is married and out on his own at some other location. You will have to follow that up with another search. If for instance, you know that Great grandfather Jim was a cook or a harness maker or whatever, and the location and occupation are correct, then this will confirm that you have the right family. There are hundred of thousands of people with the same name so you have to be careful that you are following the right line. It is sometimes much easier if you have an unusual or rare name. But unfortunately, most of us will be looking for names that are found repeatedly in many different records and locations.

Note: Census records are available for 1790 to 1930

(partial records for 1890. There is a 72-year restriction on census records so 1930 is the latest current census available.
Immigration records are a good find. They don't include a lot of information other than the date of immigration and the ship they came on. Ellis Island has opened its records. You can insert a name into their search engine and it will give you all the people with that name who came into that port. You can also get the names of the other passengers on a particular ship. That can be very helpful if a family sailed together.

If the family came to New York earlier than that, then Castle Garden records might help you. However, many immigrants came in at Boston, Canada, Savannah, New Orleans and other ports. These records are not as easy to find. But try Ellis Island first. You might get a happy surprise.

and Naturalization. I have not found naturalization records on line.

You can get them through the National Archives. Sometimes they contain a description of the person and they usually list a sponsor, generally a family member.

Military Records: Military records are often not as valuable but they are sometimes interesting and they can help you pinpoint someone. Some of the military records such as draft registration cards will give a physical description of the person--height, weight, hair and eye color. Many draft registration cards are available on the web. For most other information, you would have to contact the Veteran's Administration.

School Records: School records will only give you the name of the particular school from which your family member graduated. There are some European records that are more informative, but, in the main, a graduation list does not give you much data. It does pin down the location for a particular person and will give some insight into the life of that person. Some college lists and school lists are on the web. San Francisco has many of them published in their San Francisco Genealogy web page. Other states may have some of it published through their genealogical societies.