How to trace my family tree by MartinCura

"Illuminating"

How I did it: You could say... I am curious. I breeded the idea and wanted to know more about my family, not the closest, but the big family. You may say I haven't completed it FULLY, but I've done pretty much, that has set ways for all my family to communicate, which I think was my main aim.

I started by asking my father, mother, uncle, grandfather and grandmothers, all who I could came close to in my vacations (where most of us go to the same place) and ask them for people. Though I realized my grandfathers had a little shortage of memory, especially with some names. I could gather quite a few people, mostly a lot of uncles and cousins, all in a piece of paper I kept put links on.
Now here's the important part, one of the first days after coming back, I found, almost accidentaly,  a GREAT family tree making site:
geni.com      (it's like a family facebook)
I spent ALL that same night, in that site, passing my sketch to a quite impressive family tree, with incredible links, complete information on the ones I knew best and inputting birth (and death) dates, mails, photos, etc (at morning I had gathered a respectful 115 people on my tree). And here's where the sites geniality kicks in (other sites may do the same, I don't know). Invites were sent to all of those mails, so everyone in my family with a mail could now enter and do their own bidding for the tree!
Thing is, truthfully, that day was the most active one I really did in that site, but I kept adding some things, correcting others (from what my noticing family noticed was wrong or missed, I once accidentally put a living person as dead!), and looking at others help. So everyone could put his own photos, information about him/her and and who he/she knew most (of).
After all this, around a month later, I had around 190 people on my Forest (Geni was very new, and was evolving, calling many trees a Forest), mostly added, I must say, by a cousin and his just married husband of my father.

To round this all up, I was astonishing how many in my family would help.

Inevitably, I have to add that I tried over the Internet for ancestry, but had no luck, as I am from Argentina, and I didn't really put an effort on it; but know my father family is from India, Italy and Spain; and my mother is mostly... uh, just forgot, jajaj. And I also found out the meaning of my mother's last name.

If you're merely thinking of MAYBE doing, this, or more (as more further research on earlierf generations), you can group as much close relatives as you can, cook and share the idea, and build it (if you want to).

Footnote: With only info from my family, I could only as far as to get to the name of my mother's mother's father's father (the father of the father of the mother of my mother, my grandmother's grandfather).

Bye, and GOOD LUCK! KEEP THOSE GOALS COMING!!!

Lessons & tips:

  • Ask your family
  • Look in ancestry sites
  • Look for other from others in your family, who are also looking for their family! (I have found more than one)
  • Do the basic thing: Google all the last names you can think of 

Good luck! 

Resources: Geni.com

My family


1 person found this helpful
 

Feb 16, 07:47PM PST | 6 comments | 5 cheers


Comments:

xanbel888

thanks!

for the great tips :) I actually checked out the geneology site you mentioned and it is really great!! I’ll definitely send invites to my family members so maybe we all can “grow” our family tree/forest together ;)

Apr 07, 09:23AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 1 cheer

MartinCura

Great! Many people should do that….

Apr 12, 01:04PM PDT | Respond to this 1 cheer

sankah is studying

Thank you!

I’ve been tracing my family tree for a while now and though I’ve found a lot of information thanks to my eldest family members, but I just want to keep going! I don’t know where to stop, or just where to consider I successfully “traced my family tree”. I also tried over the Internet but had no luck..:! I’m from Spain and I haven’t found any Spanish sites regarding genealogy that were worth the while. It’s illuminating indeed. I loved watching my relatives dig into their memory and hearing anecdotes and all sorts of stories from the past. Apart from the useful tips you gave in your “how I did it” I felt especially identified with your steps! wanted to let know! :D

Apr 14, 09:18AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

MartinCura

Spanglish

Thank you! I felt the same when asking my grandparents, though they were somewhat memory-short… Wait, te escribo en castellano, or in english? Me dijiste que sos español/a, pero igual escribiste en ingles… mmm…
Bueno igual, suerte con tu árbol!
Ok, anyway, good luck with your tree!

Apr 15, 03:29PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

sankah is studying

Jaja!

Como guste! como tu entry original era en ingles preferi comentar en el mismo idioma :)
Gracias! espero ir completandolo poco a poco.
Por cierto, si tienes algun apellido poco comun te recomiendo poner una alerta en google para que te avise cuando aparezca el apellido por la red! yo lo hice con algunos como “Carcar” o “Aramburu”, porque supongo que si me apellidara “Perez” el google se volveria loco mandandome alertas!

Apr 18, 04:30PM PDT | Respond to this

MartinCura

If you have time, read this other entry I wrote:

http://www.43things.com/entries/view/3923920

Just a tad long (jeje) and a bit repetitive but I think it’s worth the read, if you don’t think the same, just don’t read it.

Apr 15, 03:36PM PDT | Respond to this


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