Step E: Start a style guide and make some decisions.

Since genealogy is basically the accumulation of data about your relatives, it is important to keep track of this data in an organized, consistent way.

The way to do this, is to keep a "style guide", a simple document that is basically a list of rules that you follow when you record data.

My sample list of questions that you should answer in your style guide is here:
http://genealogyideas.blogspot.com/p/ten-stylistic-decisions-to-make-in-your.html

My advice is NOT to write up a style guide by answering all those questions before you start your research!  Instead, as you start your research, think about these questions as they come up for you.  If you come up with an answer that works for you, then use it and add it to your style guide.  If it continues to work for you as you continue your research, then continue to use it.  If it start to cause problems, then change it or remove it in your style guide.

You should keep your style guide up to date by reviewing it every now and then, and making sure it accurately describes what you are actually doing.  (And does not represent a wish list of what you think should be done.)

Step D: Choose Software

Choosing the software you will use to store your genealogical information is an important decision.
The good news, is that there are several good, safe choices for you to make.  That bad news, is that the longer you work with one piece of software, the harder it is to change.  

You've got two decisions in front of you:

Decision 1: Should you use a web site to store your genealogy information, or should you use software installed on your own computer.

Decision 2: Which exact web site or software should you choose to use?

Web sites:

• familysearch.org
• geni.com
• ancestry.com
• etc.

Software systems:

• Rootsmagic
• Legacy
• etc.

How To Choose

Step 1: read about each of the systems above on the internet.  Do Google searches, look at screen shots and strengths an weaknesses.  Decide which are candidates for you to use.  Every system has a free trial you can use.

 

Step 2: for each serious candidate:

1. Take the data you wrote on a sheet of paper and enter it into the system.
   
2. Generate a report or two.
3. Generally explore the software or web site, and see if you like it, and it does what you want.
   

One you have done this for each of your candidates, you should have a good idea of which one you like.

Check Your Answer

After you have spent about a month doing genealogical research, and you have some "real world" experience using your software, then spend a few hours generating the reports you want to see, and generally thinking about the question: do you like your software.

If so, you've made the right decision, and if not, repeat the "how to choose" section, and try again, now that you have more experience.

Step C: Write what you know on one sheet of paper.

If you started with "Step A" then turn that sheet of paper over, and do the following on the back side:

In order to get started in genealogy, I recommend that you start by writing down, on a single piece of paper, everything you know about the person you want to start researching.  This information might include:

• Their full name (including maiden name, if known).
• Where and when they were born, died, or married.  Approximate locations or dates should be used if exact dates are not known.
• Names of spouses, siblings, and children.

At the bottom of this page write something like "Source: [Your Name] Personal Knowledge" and if you called someone up and asked them for the data, write "Source: [Their Name] Personal Knowledge" next to those items.

Your goal should be to get some information on 5-10 people, covering 2 or 3 different generations, and connected to each other.  If you need to check your birthday/anniversary lists or make a few calls to get information, then do it, but don't spend a lot of time on this.    

This page is NOT part of your genealogy records.  It's just something to help you get started researching.  In the next step, you need to select what genealogy software or web sites you will use.  It often helps to enter a little data into the free versions of different software to see if you like it, how it works, and what reports it can generate.  You can use this data to test these programs and web sites.

Step B: Understanding the basic genealogical data flow.

Before people have started doing genealogy, they often think of it as "building a family tree", but that is a serious mistake, because a family tree is simply one presentation of the genealogy information you have.  The important thing is to store as much information as you can, including the source of that information.  Once you do that, you can (using software described later) generate all sorts of reports.  Generating the family tree is easy once you have the data behind it.

On the other hand, if you view genealogy as just filling in one report, that one report is all you will ever have.

Here is the basic genealogy data flow:

Source of information about your family (such as obituaries, census data, birth announcements, stories that people have remembered)   

-- flows into --->

Your genealogical records (which are usually a database which is

part of a genealogical software package)

-- flows into --->

Reports, charts, and paperwork that you can share with others (and

which are usually created by your genealogical software)

I'll come back to this data flow repeatedly, and use it to help explain and justify a lot of the advice in this blog.  However, right now, I just want you to understand these ideas:

First, all information in your genealogical records comes from a source.  That source might be an on-line web site, a paper record, someone's memory, or someone else's research.  But no matter what it is you need to link the data in your record with the source it came from.  Genealogy software makes this easy to do, but you still need to do it.

I know when you start researching genealogy, you think these things will not happen or be rare.  Maybe.  But they are more common than you think, and they are the most interesting parts of genealogy.  I've got three or four different birthdays for one grandmother, and still don't know which is accurate!

Second, once your data stored in genealogical software, it is easy to generate all kids of different reports and charts.

Third, especially early on, it is worthwhile to generate the reports that you are interested in, and see if you like the way they look.  If not, it is often true that you can enter your data differently, and it will be put in the reports differently.  So it makes sense to see how the reports come out, and tailor your data entry so that you like the reports which end up being created by your software.

A Digression on Sourcing

The process of linking your information to the source it came from is called "sourcing", and in my opinion the most important rule of genealogy is to always source your information.  Even if it is your own knowledge, or something someone else told you, you still source it.

This is important, because there is often conflicting information.  My family tree database might say that Jane Doe died in 10-Jan-1910, but then some relative will send me a family tree that says she died on 10-Jan-1911.  Which is it?  If my tree does not have source information, and the other tree doesn't ether, then there is no way to know which is right, or even how to start researching which is right.  However, if my tree has sourced the information to a birth certificate, which is available on line, but the other tree has sourced it to an interview with another relative done in 1980 (ie. 70 years after the event).  Now we know who is more likely to be right (written records over memories), but even if we are still not sure, we can go back to the original sources and can start re-researching there.

If someone send me a family tree, with information that I don't already have, if there is no source information on the tree, when I add it to my own genealogy database, I have to say "source: tree from relative X on date Y".  Basically, I'm just trusting that person, that there research was good.  It might be, it might not be.  But if they have sourced their information, then I can see their sources and know the quality of their information.  If needed, I can double check it.

Starting Step A: The Question

The first step is to think about and write down a "focus question" for your genealogy research.

Genealogy usually starts out with a question.  Often this question is as simple as "what can I learn about my mother's family?"  Or "who wrote this diary that I found in my grandmother's apartment when she passed away?" Or "why did my ancestors come to America?"

Whatever it is, it will focus the early part of your research, so spend a few minutes thinking about this question, and write it down somewhere.

As an example, my starting question was:

I would like to know something about every ancestor of my daughter, who lived in the United States (or precursor colonies), a little bit about their schooling and education, and if they had type-1 diabetes.

The question should include something about who you want to learn about, and what you what to learn about them.

Since changing your "focus question" is easy, and can be done at any time, you don't need to worry about getting this question perfect.  All you need is something to start you on your Genealogical journey.