What Is Genealogy?

What is genealogy? In short, genealogy is the study of your unique family history. When conducting genealogy, there several key things to consider.

Conducting genealogy

When researching your family history, start by interviewing family members. Usually, it is best to interview any living members of older generations. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and even older cousins are valuable resources who can tell you about their parents and grandparents. This portion of your research usually includes oral history, such as recollections by family members about other family members. After you have specific names, you can start to study physical records, such as gravestones, coroner's records, birth certificates, wedding announcements and more. Today, there are several websites, such as FamilySearch.org, where people can post their genealogical research and make it accessible to others. Many people who use these websites find relatives who are also conducting genealogical research and combine findings.

Important information

While most people want to eventually find out as much as possible about their family tree, it is best to start with some basics. Start by going up the tree from parents to grandparents to great-grandparents and so on. Then, see if you can determine when this person was born and when he or she died, when he or she was married and any children's names. These are good pieces of information to look for. After you have established the basics, you can attempt to gain more information, such as occupation, other marriages, schooling, whether he or she immigrated and more. When it comes to conducting genealogical research, never give up on finding out more, you can come across clues almost anywhere, at any time.

Genealogy is a fun and rewarding pursuit. Most people want to know how they fit into their family tree and enjoy learning about their ancestor's origins and culture.