Genealogy 101: Gathering family history information

Accessing records: Let the research begin!
Finally, it's time to start filling those voids on your family tree. Let's take a closer look at the kind of public records you can uncover. Then we'll pass along some advice from the pros about the steps you should follow when searching records.

Oh, and don't give up the hunt after just one search. We all know that records can be fallible and search engines incomplete. Try and try again. Your persistence will pay off.

First, an important warning
Throughout your quest, it is important to be aware of spelling variations. Always search for other spellings of your ancestor's name. Other people may have misspelled it along the way, either in the record or in the index, particularly in the case of data that has been verbally passed along.

Choose an ancestor and an event in his or her life. Select someone for whom you know an approximate date of birth, marriage, or death, and a place where he or she lived. Then decide whether to search for a birth, marriage, or death record. If you do not know much about an ancestor, you may need to do additional research on his or her children first. Searching for the children's birth, marriage, and death records is one of the best ways to find new information about the parents.

Choose a type of record to search. Compare what you know about your ancestor with the records on the list for birth, marriage, or death. If you are looking for a birth record and you know the date of death, search the death records of the place where your ancestor died. They often reveal birth information too.

Ask the following questions:
Where and when did your ancestor live?
When and where was he or she born or married?
When did he or she die?
When and where were children born?
What were your ancestor's relationships to other people?
Are there previous places of residence?

Copy the information from the record. Make a photocopy of the pages containing the information about your ancestor. If you don't have access to a photocopier, copy the information by hand. Document where the information came from by writing the title, film, or book (and page) number on the photocopy.

Locating ancestors online
The Internet provides easy access to records, lists, and indexes. The kind of information that used to be hidden away on microfilm in library basements is now at your fingertips.

These are the kinds of things you're looking for:

Death, birth, immigration, marriage records
Military indexes
Census reports
Court transcripts and reports
Local records and family registries
Old telephone directories

The quality and quantity of information available on the Internet is improving every day. There are over 242,000 genealogy sites out there, not to mention newsgroups, genealogy search engines, databases, indexes, and digital libraries. Here is a sampling of the kind of information that's available to you, including some of the most widely respected sites.

Places to begin
First stop is the Canadian Genealogy Centre's 30 page downloadable document to get you going, Tracing Your Ancestors in Canada, find it along with three other guides. Their advice is simple and straightforward and they offer wonderful examples of genealogical charts and tools for tracing your ancestors like a blank pedigree chart and a blank family chart . The Canadian Genealogy Centre also covers genealogy in the schools, courses, tutorials and all kinds of subjects in between. Can't do it yourself? There's a list of freelance researchers, too.

Spotlight on census record
Census records in particular can form a basic foundation for your initial research. They are commonly used, easy to read, and contain more information than most other records. And they each have something unique to offer researchers.

Canadian Genealogy Centres
AVITUS, is their Directory of Canadian Genealogical Resources with links to other Web sites. AVITUS leads you to adoptions archives, assessment roles, births, baptisms, burials, cemeteries, census records, change of name, church registers, citizenship, court records, deaths, directories family histories, marriages, passenger lists, vital statistics and voters lists to name a few.

AMICUS WEB, is the Canadian national catalogue of published sources held in Canadian libraries.

General Inventory database provides descriptions of archival holdings of Library and Archives Canada.

Government of Canada Files is a database provides descriptions of files created by departments and agencies of the Government of Canada.

Canadian Archival Information Network (CAIN) allows you to search the holdings of other archives in Canada.

The Canada Gen-Web project was based on the US Gen-Web project.

They are both volunteer-run and make thousands of assorted genealogy sites accessible by organizing them by province/state, thinking of ways you would want to access the info and sorting it out for you.

The Family History Library is the largest collection of family history in the world, with over two million rolls of microfilmed records. They've also established online access to their major computer database -- FamilySearch. The online version includes the International Genealogical Index, an Ancestral File, a Family History Library Catalog, and many genealogy-related websites from around the world.

Genealogy is a great place to start your research. They have plenty of links, loads of research tools, plus a wonderful learning centre jam-packed with useful how-to information.

Lineages is a major genealogical reference library and resource centre, built and maintained by professional genealogists. It provides free access to records databases and lots of other resources. Check out the "Genealogy for Beginners" guide, complete with forms and checklists.

There are hundreds more sites worth visiting. Here are a couple of good Canadian portals to lead you: The Olive Tree lists military records, ship lists, and all kinds of ways to find how your ancestors got to Canada. If you know when and where they arrived it really helps. It will also take you to the birth, death and marriage lists as well as many other links in each province.

Calling itself Canadian Genealogy and History (A listing of Genealogical and Historical Web sites from East to Western Sea) webmaster Jessica Veinot has put together a very approachable site.