How Do I Start Tracing
My Family Tree?
Note: This overview is geared at those with roots in the US since at least 1930.
- Begin with Yourself. The first rule in genealogy is to go from the present and trace the past. Some make the mistake of assuming kinship from a famous family and in working their way from the past to the present, efforts are wasted tracing the wrong lineage. The initial step is usually taken at home, where you have the basic information about yourself and your immediate family. Family documents and mementoes – from birth and marriage certificates, newspaper clippings to diplomas and old photographs and letters – give important clues for reconstructing a family tree.
- Interview Relatives. The next step is asking relatives what they remember about deceased members of the family, though your questions need to be specific. Relatives will not always recall exact dates of death, but sometimes estimates are determined by your approach. (For instance, “How old were you when your grandmother died?”)
- Search the Social Security Death Index, which contains more than 78 million names and generally covers from 1962 to the present. An online search of the Social Security Death Index
 , freely accessible, provides the name of deceased, birth date, death date, last residence, and state in which the number was issued. For a fee, you may request a photocopy of the actual application, which usually gives the applicant’s birthplace and names of parents (including the mother’s maiden name).
- Search the 1930 U. S. Census, the last-released federal enumeration. Identifying more than 123 million individuals, information recorded in columns includes the address, name of each individual, their relationship to head of the household, sex, race, age, marital status, birthplace, birthplace of parents, citizenship, and occupation, among other details. Relatives are increasingly easier to find with online every-name indexes now available. For a discussion of earlier census records, see Understanding the Census Records. Search US Federal Census Records
- Locate Vital Records. Confirm the information recorded in census schedules by getting copies, when possible, of vital records – births, marriages, and deaths. Accessibility of vital records varies by state. Abstracts of vital records and cemetery records, among other sources, are added to the Internet rapidly on such sites as USGenWeb.
- Consult Compiled Genealogies. Has someone already researched your family history? The largest collection of published family histories is housed at the Family History Library, in Salt Lake City. The Family History Library is making thousands of these family histories accessible online by participating in Brigham Young University’s digitization collection, the Family History Archives. But not all compiled genealogies are limited to book form. WorldConnect, an on-going project of RootsWeb has more than 312 million user-contributed records. Similarly, two of the Family History Library’s projects are freely accessible: The Ancestral File has more than 36 million names, while the Pedigree Resource File has more than 80 million names. Both of these databases are linked into families. Use compiled pedigrees with caution; they are only as reliable as the compiler and every effort should be made to verify the information before adding it to your own pedigree.
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