The basics of Getting Started
Both Surnames and Christian names are very important to your family history, as they are the key to a person’s identity, and therefore their life. Although the historical term is ‘Surname’ in modern times the terms ‘Family or Last Name’ is sometimes used.
The key events of Birth, Marriage and Death of our ancestors form the outline or ‘skeleton’ of our ‘family tree.’ The details of where and how our ancestors lived fills in the story, so it becomes a ‘family history’.
The most common stumbling-blocks or brick-walls when doing family history research, is finding the correct birth, death and marriage or marriages of our ancestors.Family history is not a competition to see how many names you can collect on your ‘ tree.’
When researching your family history the place to start is yourself. You are the main person and anchor for your family history.
Did you know your family history is unique? The only other people in the whole world, who have the same ‘family tree’ as you, are your full blood brothers and sisters. If you are an only child, you are the only person who has that ‘ family tree’.
You may share ‘twigs’ and ‘branches’ with many other people, but not the whole ‘tree’. Therefore, you cannot do your family history on the Internet in an afternoon, no matter what the ‘ads’ may tell you.