It’s Freebie Friday!
For many of us, it is a challenge to learn of our grandparents and their parents. Think about the challenge of locating 10 generations of grandparents, or stated another way, your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents!
While the Good Genes Genealogy cousins are only halfway there with our maternal grandparents, we, like you, will keep trying to reach the 10th generation of relatives.
Here’s some solid advice from us and colleagues who are genealogy buffs:
- Decide on your purpose for your family tree. Some prefer to build family tree to only link direct lineage. Others build trees for family history purposes. Both types of family trees are valuable.
- Now begin with yourself to begin your family tree, hence the top of the Christmas tree shaped family tree that is displayed in this blog.
- Fill in as much as you know about your grandparents and their parents, if possible.
- Use death and birth certificates, if available, to verify each grandparents’ parents.
- DNA results remain a huge help in filling in the names of grandparents, siblings, cousins and other relatives.
- Do not ignore individuals that keep appearing on your ancestry lines that do not appear to be blood relatives. Their records are equally important to locate ancestors as those “nonblood” individuals may share other family relationships.
- If grandparents have been married more than once, you have the choice to add each marriage, or directly link your blood lines to the married grandparents. It’s tricky, yet family tree-building technology is now allowing for some flexibility.
- Build in lots of genealogy research time to achieve whatever goals you have for building family trees this holiday season.
Have fun, relax, share memories and ask great questions of your relatives to build your tree.
Happy Holidays!