New to Genealogy?
Starting your family history journey is exciting but can feel overwhelming. This guide will walk you through exactly where to begin and what to do next at every step.
Before searching any records or databases, talk to the oldest living members of your family. Ask about full names, birthplaces, birth years, immigration stories, occupations, and any old documents or photographs they might have. Record these conversations — they contain irreplaceable information that exists nowhere else.
Collect your own vital records: birth certificate, marriage certificate, and passport. Then gather equivalent documents for your parents and grandparents. These form your documentary foundation. Check family bibles, boxes of old papers, and photograph albums for additional records that family members may have saved without realizing their research value.
Open a free account on a major genealogy platform and create a basic family tree. Enter yourself and work backward. Do not worry about gaps — they are your research agenda. A simple digital tree with your name, parents, and grandparents is enough to get started with DNA match analysis.
Take an autosomal DNA test from a major consumer testing company. Follow the kit instructions exactly. After four to eight weeks, your results will include an ethnicity estimate and a list of DNA matches. Your closest matches are the most useful starting point for a beginner.
Once you have names and approximate years for your grandparents and great-grandparents, search federal census records. The 1940, 1930, 1920, and 1910 censuses list each household member by name, age, birthplace, and relationship to the head of household. These records often confirm family composition and can lead you further back.
Search for birth, marriage, and death certificates for each ancestor you identify. Vital records confirm or correct the oral history and family memory you collected in step one. State and county archives hold these records, and many have been digitized and made searchable online.
New genealogists frequently copy other people's unverified online trees without checking their accuracy. Online trees can propagate errors rapidly because researchers copy from one another. Always verify claims in original records before adding them to your own tree. Another common mistake is searching for only one spelling of an ancestor's name — historical spelling was inconsistent, and phonetic variations can differ dramatically from modern spellings. Search census records for all plausible phonetic equivalents. Finally, beginners often stop researching when they hit a brick wall in one line. Instead, work all ancestral lines in parallel — breakthrough evidence often comes from researching siblings, cousins, or neighbors of the difficult ancestor.
Many outstanding genealogy resources are available at no cost. The US National Archives makes millions of federal records searchable online including census records, military service records, and naturalization files. The FamilySearch platform, operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, provides free access to billions of historical records worldwide. Many public libraries offer free access to premium genealogy databases including major newspaper archives and vital record collections — check your local library's digital resources page. State archives throughout the country maintain vital records, land records, and probate files, many of which can be requested by mail or researched in person at no cost. County genealogical societies often maintain local research libraries and can connect you with volunteers who specialize in the area where your ancestors lived.
Genealogy research is a long-term endeavor that rewards patience and systematic effort. Most researchers spend months or years researching individual family lines. Records are incomplete, damaged, or never created for certain populations, time periods, and locations. Some ancestral lines will be documented thoroughly; others may be impossible to trace beyond a certain generation due to the destruction of records, the experiences of enslaved ancestors whose legal status prevented documentation, or the challenges of researching in countries with different record-keeping traditions. Progress in genealogy often comes in bursts — weeks of searching followed by a significant discovery, then more searching. Connecting with a genealogy society or local research group provides encouragement, expertise, and sometimes access to resources not available online.