Getting Started in Family History (Without Spending a Fortune)

Are you curious about your family history but don’t know where to begin? Maybe you’ve had a little “sticker shock” after seeing the price of a subscription to Ancestry.

The good news is you can get started without spending a dime. With a little patience and a few simple steps, you can begin building your family tree today—and decide later whether you want to invest more in your research.

Start With Yourself

Begin by creating a simple Profile Page for yourself.

Write down:
• Your full name
• Your birth date
• Your place of birth
• Any other important life events you’d like to include

Start with the facts you know for certain. Genealogy gets complicated soon enough—there’s no need to begin with Aunt Sharon’s three different birth dates just yet.

This profile page becomes the pattern you’ll use for every relative you research.

Next, create profile pages for:
• Your mother
• Your father
• Your four grandparents

Include as much information as you know: birth dates, marriage information, places they lived, and (if applicable) dates of death. The more details you add, the easier your future research will be.

Talk to Your Relatives

“Remember the days of old,
consider the years of many generations.
Ask your father, and he will show you;
your elders, and they will tell you.”
— Deuteronomy 32:7

Almost every genealogy guide says the same thing: talk to your family members.

Ask about:
• Names
• Dates
• Places
• Family stories
• Aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents

For many families, this works beautifully.

But sometimes it isn’t that easy.

Maybe Grandpa tears up every time someone mentions the love of his life.
Maybe Grandma now struggles with dementia.
Or maybe older relatives were taught not to discuss certain “family scandals.”

Genealogy often means navigating emotions as well as history.

So yes—ask the questions if you can. Just ask gently.

If Grandpa cries, hand him a handkerchief and ask what he loved most about Grandma.
If Grandma’s memory wanders, make it a game and enjoy the stories—accurate or not.

(My own mother-in-law once insisted she had never been married and had no children… while we were looking at her wedding photos together. Later we happily drew pictures of her favorite places.)

Stay relaxed, stay curious, and stay kind.

Even small memories can become priceless clues.

Gather Documents

If family conversations stall, don’t give up. The next step is documents.

Start by examining records already in your family’s possession.

Look for:
• Birth certificates
• Marriage records
• Death certificates
• Obituaries
• Military papers
• Family Bibles

These documents are called sources, and they help confirm the facts in your profile pages.

Sometimes the smallest items contain surprising clues.

When my mother-in-law passed away, we found her old wallet among her belongings. Inside were insurance cards, her driver’s license, her third husband’s Social Security card, and photographs of children we couldn’t have identified if their names hadn’t been written on the back.

That little wallet turned out to be a treasure chest of family history.

Old papers sometimes look unimportant at first glance. In genealogy, even a grocery receipt can become a clue—especially if Grandma wrote someone’s name on the back.

You’ll thank yourself later if you remember to flip the page and check the back side. You never know what notes may have been penciled in for posterity.

While you are handling these documents, it’s a good habit to take photos or scans for your records. You’ll also want to note where you found each document. All of these small details matter when you begin building an online tree.

Search Online Records

Eventually you’ll want to explore online records.

One of the best places to begin is FamilySearch.

This website is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religious organization well known for its dedication to preserving family history.

Their website provides free access to millions of records from around the world, including:

• Birth records
• Marriage records
• Death records
• Census records
• Immigration records
• Military records
• Church records

Cost: $0
Website: https://familysearch.org

One of the first records many researchers search is the census.

Census records can reveal:
• Where your family lived
• Who lived in the household
• Occupations
• Immigration status
• Military service
• Ages (which help estimate birth years)

Sometimes they even list income or property ownership.

Census records are wonderful snapshots of a household—though they occasionally raise new questions, like why Great-Grandpa suddenly got three years younger between census years.

Starting an Online Family Tree

You can also create a free family tree on FamilySearch.

A good approach is to start with the first deceased generation in your family to protect the privacy of living relatives.

FamilySearch uses a shared community tree. When you add a person, the system checks whether someone else has already added that individual.

This can be both good news and bad news.

Good news:
You may suddenly discover hundreds—or even thousands—of relatives connected to your tree.

Bad news:
Not all information added by other users is accurate.

If someone appears in your tree, always verify the sources before accepting the information as fact.

Genealogists constantly check and confirm their sources. It becomes second nature after a while.

The best habit you can develop is simple:

Add sources whenever possible so others know your research is reliable.

Cemetery Records

Cemeteries are an incredibly rich source of genealogical information.

If you can’t visit a cemetery in person—because it’s too far away, buried in snow, or for any of a thousand other reasons—there are excellent online resources.

Many volunteers photograph gravestones and record the information for future researchers.

Two of the most widely used sites are:

• Find a Grave
• BillionGraves

Both are completely free and contain millions of burial records.

A Word About Ancestry

A subscription to Ancestry can be extremely helpful once you are ready to invest in your research.

However, beginners should know that Ancestry often provides “hints.” These are suggestions from their database, but they are not always correct.

For example, my family includes a Mary and Patrick Kelly living in Jersey City in the late 1800s.

There were dozens of couples named Mary and Patrick Kelly in that place and time!

Remember: a computer can suggest a record, but it can’t tell the difference between your great-grandmother and the other twelve women in town with the same name.

Sometimes it’s even trickier. Those twelve Mary Kellys may appear with several spellings: Kelly, Kelley, Kelli, Keli, Keliegh, or—if you go back far enough—the original Irish form Ó Ceallaigh.

Family names changed spelling all the time in old records.

Patience is one of the most valuable skills in genealogy.

Record Your Findings

As your research grows, it helps to organize everything.

You can download family tree pedigree charts online and transfer the information from your profile pages.

Pedigree charts show your direct ancestors in a simple visual format.

However, they do not replace your profile pages. Profile pages remain valuable because they allow you to record detailed information about each person at a glance.

Some people also enjoy purchasing a printed family tree workbook that includes pedigree charts and profile pages for extended relatives.

Helpful Genealogy Tools

Researchers often need to calculate ages and dates quickly. A few simple tools can make this much easier:

Headstone Age Calculator
Determines a birth year when a gravestone lists age at death.

Headstone Birthday Calculator
Estimates a birth date using death date and age.

Age at Marriage Calculator
Calculates how old someone was when they married.

Census Birth Year Estimator
Estimates a birth year using census ages.

These tools help turn scattered clues into useful information.

Final Thought

Every family tree begins with a single name.

Before long those names become stories… and those stories become the history of a family.