Genealogy: The first step

So you need a starting place for researching your family tree... Before you lay out money for anything - and at some point in researching your genealogy, YOU WILL need to layout money - gather as much information as you can for free from local sources.

Start out by recording what you already know:
Every name, date and location that you already know, for each relative that you know about should get recorded, in as much detail as possible - as well as that person's relationship to you.

For now, a notebook and pencil (with a separate page for each person is all you need. (We'll get into how to store and organize your information in a future post.)

If you have contact information for living relatives, use it! Phone, write or e-mail them and gather as much information as you can. Record all the details AND record who gave you the information. The memories of living relatives and their stories are "Primary Sources" in your genealogy search (We'll talk more about the types of sources in another post...) so make sure to keep records.