This session covers foundational steps and sources. We’ll start with some amazing, helpful websites—then it’s on to tips for gathering details and records from close and extended family members, learning how to analyze those items and items already in your possession.

We move on to ways to keep track of those names, places, ages, relationships, and other details, and ways to store them electronically or on paper. With this information, we’ll start our own family reference timeline. Next, we delve into the importance of state and federal censuses and where to find them online and elsewhere. Following that, we discuss online family trees, published family, town, and county histories and how they can provide clues. All these records aid in our research planning and what steps we take next.

We’ll look at migrating families and common U.S. migration routes, as well as reasons, maps, and records for these movements. We’ll talk about the value of old newspapers and city directories and where to find them. Then, we’ll discuss records related to courthouses and other state and county offices, including birth, death, and marriage records, naturalizations, and criminal and civil court records. We’ll discuss where these records are found today—online and in other places. We’ll add to our timeline and research plans.

We’ll get back into organizing strategies and learn about some programs that may work with individual mindsets. Then, we’ll dive deeper into land and probate records. Church records of various religious denominations may provide details not found in other records. Also, we all have those special situations somewhere in our family trees—some good, some problematic. These situations include adoption, unknown parentage, guardianships, missing people, divorce, and imprisonment. Learn about some free search sites for locating records that may not be in the expected locations.

Some of our ancestors may have served in the military or associated job. Records are phenomenal for many wars and during peacetime; records exist online, in archives, and with historical societies. Education was vital to some families and later became a requirement for all. We’ll learn about the types of school records and where to find them today. But what about your own education? We’ll cover genealogical continuing education and networking with societies, webinars, seminars, conferences, institutes, social media groups, libraries, and study groups. We’ll add in tips for solving a problem case, including when and how to hire a professional and an overview of ethics and copyright. We’ll conclude with a brief overview of DNA and where to learn more about this wonderful tool.