How to start you family tree in 5 minutes

Your family tree in 5 minutes
Do you have a spare five minutes? Yes? Then - let's do genealogy!
Well, you will need quite a few spare five minutes, but the idea is to have a system whereby you can take advantage of clumps of time. Do you have an hour or two to spare from time to time? A day here or there? A weekend? Five minutes? Whatever "spare" time you have, compiling your family tree is an absorbing and fun way to spend it.
Genealogy (names, dates, places - the who, where and when) and Family History (social and local history) is a journey; a journey through memories, through records, through the Internet; through time. And knowing your destination is half the journey - I think organisation is the other half! Because, with organisation comes discipline, planning, adeptness - a readiness. Planned, disciplined, skilled behaviour, is very handy for a genealogist!
When you only have small clumps of time, it is a good idea to be methodical. So, what do you need? To begin, you should have some idea of where you need to travel - so download and print a pedigree sheet or two (perhaps one for each of your parents, or your spouse or partner may like to do genealogy too) at www.geniecreations.com/free4gen.htm or www.kbyu.org/ancestors/charts or http://www.kbyu.org/ or www.ancestry.com/save/charts/ancchart.htm Or make your own with a piece of A4 paper folded in half four times (credit card size) and then opened and folded longways in half and half again. You have the places to write name and birth, marriage, death dates and places for four generations across the page and eight great-grandparents down the page.
Once you have a Pedigree/Ancestry sheet you will be able to write down your birth date and place, and those of your parents, grandparents and great- grandparents et al; also marriage and death dates and places. The names and the places are your destinations. You will hope to find others researching your surnames and/or families. You will hope to find information about your places - perhaps even lists of names from parish registers or cemeteries, but certainly information about what is available for your places (maps, photo of the church, what is in the local repositories and what original records are accessible for research, etc). Later the gaps on your Pedigree Sheet will be your destinations as you try to find the missing information.
That's your first five minutes!! In your first clump of time you have obtained and started to fill in a Pedigree Sheet. Over the next few hours, days, weeks or months, depending on your supply of clumps of time, fill in the information for the names, dates and places of births, marriages and deaths.
Where to start? No matter where you are researching, follow the "CR" plan - Check Resources. The first resource to check is close relatives. Ask around your family - look for certificates, birthday books, address books, photo albums, scrap books, newspaper cuttings - anything that may place a person in a place or a time.
It will be a good idea to purchase an A5 hard covered note book (eventually you will need two of these and also an indexed A5 notebook - A-Z). Leave 12 pages in case you need to create an index. Count the number of pages left and divide by four (for the four families in the grandparent section of the pedigree sheet - or your choice of four families). Then use coloured "tabs" to mark the four families (you can buy these tabs from stationery shops). You can divide these sections again if you wish to have sections for any great-grandparents. You now have a Check Resources note-book. (You could use a ring binder and loose leaves instead if you wish). You could create an electronic file too - directions to in Part 2 next month.
In the appropriate section, make a note of everything and anything you find as you check the resource of close relatives - which cousin has a photo of which great-grandmother; who has her birth certificate; her birthday book; her school report, etc. Find long-lost cousins ( http://www.whitepages.co.nz/, http://www.teldir.com/ - worldwide phone books). Have an expanding 12-pocket file for any papers you collect. Twelve pockets means three pockets for each of the four families - one for certificates, one for information about places, names, etc and one for letters (or emails) you receive and copies of any you send. You should check resources for community repositories too, as you may find information about your families there. Community repositories are your local museum, libraries and archives. Here you may find your family in directories (usually trade geographical directories, but with a nationwide alpha-betical index - great to find where in the country siblings might live! A good example is found at sil.otago.ac.nz/oni/default. html), also in electoral rolls, newspapers, scrap books, photo collections, etc. The following sites are just a small selection of what is available, and just for three countries, but enough to use quite a few clumps of time! If you need to write to any repository, do enclose an SAE (stamped address envelope - at least DEL size or A5) and copy your question onto a new page, so the reply can be quickly written there and posted back.
New Zealand Museums On-Line will help you find museums throughout the country (http://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/). Choosing "History" gives a full list of museums. The Australian National Maritime Museum Research Library also has 17 interesting Pathfinder books (www.anmm.gov.au/libhome.htm). Australian Mus-eums & Galleries Online (amol.org.au/guide/guide_index.asp) has similar information to NZ Museums On-Line.
Museums Around the UK on the Web a huge directory is at vlmp.museophile.com/uk.html
The Auckland City Library has a very well organised site with some searchable data bases including cemeteries (http://www.akcity.govt.20nz/library/family/family.html). For links to Libraries in New Zealand, see tepuna.natlib.govt.nz/web_directory/NZ/libraries.htm
For libraries in Australia, see www.nla.gov.au/apps/libraries
Familia is the UK and Ireland's guide to genealogical resources in public libraries (www.familia.org.uk/main.html). I hesitate to mention Britain's 24-Hour Museum (http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/), as it may take more than your clump of time! But have a look sometime. Archive New Zealand's regional offices are listed at www.archives.govt.nz/archivesnz/offices/offices_frame.html, the National Archives of Australia at www.naa.gov.au/the_collection/family_history.html and the Public Record Office for England - national archives for England, Wales and the United Kingdom - at http://www.pro.gov.uk/
Finding information in community repositories is good because you can often go back to the original source - the newspaper, the directory, etc. Always check the original, if possible. Note any interesting Web sites, and your comments about them, in your Check Resources notebook. As you find more information, you may like to download and print Family Group sheets (www.byu.org/ancestors/charts). Here you can record the information you find about cousins, aunts and uncles even third cousins twice removed (www.janyce.com/gene/cousins.html)! Always look for a clue as to the when and where of events, so that you can check resources in those places for your families too.
A note of caution: The Check Resources notebook and the expanding file are just fine as you begin this hobby, but you may find you will need a more flexible and comprehensive filing system as your journey progresses. Use the A-Z notebook to create your index to the Web sites you found worthwhile, so you can find them again quickly. For example, you could enter Auckland City Library under Auckland and Libraries, Australian National Maritime Museum under Australia and Museums (you could Bookmark them too). Grab some clumps of time and do your genealogy - and see what you can find to write in your Check Resources book!
To "do" your genealogy in five minutes (or a clump of time) you need to be organised, and have discipline and planning, especially if you plan to use computer resources. You need to be able to pick up your Internet Diary (which could be called your Computer Resources book), your Check Resources book and your A-Z of Web Sites book and see just where you stopped last time, what you would like to do this time, and make the most of those clumps of time!
In your Check Resources book you will have made notes of anything of interest you have found for your 4/8 families. You will have filled in all you know on the Pedigree sheets. You will have noted Web sites of interest in the A-Z book.
Use your Internet Diary in a similar manner, as you check the resources on the Internet. Count the number of pages in an A5 hardbacked notebook. Leave 12-14 for an alpha index. Write the day's date on the next page, and write what you do and where you go - as per instructions to follow. When your "five minutes" is finished, write the surname searched in the alpha index with the day's date. Next time you want to search that surname, you can start searching again, productively, straight away, instead of wasting time wondering where you went last time.
You can then spend "five minutes" surfing the Net. Decide where you want to go - to choose someone on your Pedigree sheet who was born middle 1800s or earlier is a good start. We are looking for people, persons, places (people researching your names, the person you are looking for, the place where this person lived). The farther back you can start, the wider the net you cast. There is a much better chance that you can find descendants of siblings of great-grandparents or great, great-grand parents who may have gone to live in other parts of the world. Note: Responsible genealogists do not publish personal details of living people, so may not include the names of family born after 1900.
In your Internet Diary, write the name in quotation marks and as proper nouns, ie: "Edward Bridges" rather than edward bridges. A search for the latter returned around 169,000 hits (number of Web sites found to match my search query!) but "Edward Bridges" returned 529 hits (we lost all the references to bridges around the world!). Make a note of which search engines and the search query you used. See box for suggestions.
Remember, less is best. Do the widest search first to see just what is available. Two of my favourite search engines (http://www.alltheweb.com/ and http://www.google.com/) offer Advanced Search facilities. This saves you using "Search Engine Maths" - the "plus" and "minus" signs - in your search query. Instead use "Must have", "Should have", "Must not have". Look for the choice "Exact phrase" too, as this ensures that the words "Edward" and "Bridges" are side by side.
After your first wide search, add must have born or +born. Some "minus" choices would also reduce the number. In my example, my final Alltheweb search query ("Edward Bridges" +born +england -University -Austen) resulted in 11 Web sites to look at.
Remember, as soon as you open a suggested Web site, hit the CTRL+ F keys, to bring up the Find Function window, so that you can type the name or place you have searched for and so find just where on the page these words appear. Make sure you "find" on each of the pages. When you find something that looks good, make sure there is an email address and phone number too, so that you may make contact with the compiler and verify the accuracy of the data.
Some searches are just not successful, particularly if you have a common name. Try searching with the surname in capitals; try forename SURNAME; surname, forename; SURNAME, forename. Just keep checking resources in the hopes of finding a sibling with a less common name, or an uncommon occupation or place name. And keep trying again with the search engines; millions of new pages are added to the WWW every week.
You should also search Genealogy Gateways - search engines searching only genealogy pages. Try http://www.gendoor.com/, http://www.rootsweb.com/, http://www.ancestry.com/, http://www.genealogy.com/, http://www.gengateway.com/ (will take you to other specific Gateways), http://www.coraweb.com.au/ (Australian Gateway), http://www.cyndislist.com/, http://www.genuki.org.uk/
If you wish to track your progress electronically, you could use a program such as TreePad (www.treepad.com). The free version is TreePad Freeware, so this is the one to download. TreePad looks like Windows Explorer, but you create the folders, sub-folders and "files". You create nodes (folders) and child nodes (sub-folders) and articles (which can be text, links etc). Create Internet Diary as a node and the date as a child node. In the article, paste your search engine, search query, Web sites found and add your comments, etc. Search will quickly take you back to where you last searched for a particular family. Go to www.genealogy.net.nz to download a node listing the Web sites mentioned - it will save lots of typing!
These are just a few of the ways to look for People, Persons and Places. And you must find a spare "five minutes" for http://www.familysearch.org/ , The Mormon Church Web site. To look for your Persons (ancestors) go to "Search for your Ancestors in our vast record collections". It is best to begin by using the International Genealogical Index database to look for your ancestors. For hints on ways to make the best use of www.familysearch.org go to Genealogy on the Internet Web site - http://www.genealogy.net.nz/. For your Places, see "Search the Family History Library Catalogue" - go to Places and see just what original records the library holds for your places. Films and fiche may be ordered into your local Family History Centre - under "Find a Family History Centre near you".
If you have very few names on your Pedigree sheet, you will need to access contemporary records to find the missing information - records that were created at the time of the event. These include civil registration (the legal requirement to register births, deaths and marriages), church registers (vital records - christenings, marriages, burials as noted in parish registers), cemetery records and census returns (mostly every 10 years since 1841 in England, Wales, Scotland). There are others - newspapers are one.
Filling the gaps will require visits to libraries, repositories, Family History Centres etc. However, you can make a start! If you have NSW events, go to http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/ This index of births to 1905 and deaths and marriages to 1945 is online and free to access. In Victoria, there is a charge to look at the index (births to 1924, deaths to 1985, marriages to 1939) - 99c per screen of around 10 records (www.justice.vic.gov.au/bdm). Click on Births, Deaths & Marriages, then Family History, then VicHeritage Family History. Then you must go to the section headed Search Births, Deaths & Marriages on the Internet and click Maxi, then Continue. These indexes have parents' names on birth entries, spouse's name on marriages and parents' name or age on death entries. Certificates are available - cost $17-$26. These indexes and those for other Australian states are available on fiche and CDs too. Look at http://www.rootsweb.com/blahausbdm - the Australasia Births, Deaths and Marriages Exchange. This is a free resource to share information about details contained on civil and parish records registered in Australia and civil records registered in New Zealand.
A growing resource, as volunteers around the world create the database, is freebmd.rootsweb.com , the index to births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales from mid 1837 to eventually 1901. The indexes on fiche or film held in libraries and Family History Centres can be up to the 1990s. A brief index giving person's name, registration district and reference number - though age at death (since 1866), spouse's name (since 1912) and mother's maiden name (since Sep 1911) are a great help. Go to www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/civreg for information. To order a certificate (and so find more information) go to http://www.research-uk.co.uk/ - scroll down to page end and click on "Direct to BDM Order page". For Scotland, a pay-to-view site, but with a free surname search - http://www.origins.net/GRO
Use the search sites already listed to search for your church or parish registers, cemetery records and census records. Always search on the Internet, just in case. To see what can be available, look at http://www.wirksworth.org.uk/
What do you do with all the information you have collected? You do need a genealogy program.
Three popular programs are: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/, http://www.familyorigins.com/, http://www.familytreemaker.com/.
For thoughts on choosing a genealogy program, go to www.beehivebooks.co.nz/id39.htm
Do try to follow the suggestions for organisation and for keeping track of your searches, so you can have some worthwhile "five minute" clumps of time as you "do" genealogy!