How To Find Your Ancestors In Your Family Tree

Presenter: FamilySearch

In most modern cultures, records are created for important life events such as birth, baptism, marriage, death, and burial. Information from many of these records has been indexed and put online. This lesson shows how to find ancestors using these records. Also in this lesson is how to use Descendancy Research to find ancestors.

How do I add someone to Family Tree? 
Find a place on your line where someone might be missing, as in these examples:
• A person with no parents
• A person with no spouse
• A couple with no children 

Usually you’ll want to find the person’s full name, birth year, and birthplace before adding the person to Family Tree. This information helps you tell if the person might already be in Family Tree.

CENSUS RECORDS:
Many countries also take regular censuses. In a census, government workers count the residents of the country and record information about them, such as their names, ages, birthplaces, and occupations.
In our example, notice that the census gives the names of Samuel’s parents and siblings. As you can see, historical records often provide clues to find even more ancestors.

SEARCH:
When you click Search, you’ll see a list of possible matches. The closest matches will generally appear near the top. To see more detail on any of the matches, click the person’s name.
Tip: When a camera icon appears, click it to view a digital image of the record.

If this record is for your ancestor, click Attach to Family Tree.

When you attach a record:
You’ll then see the information from the record on the left, and information from Family Tree on the right.

What's in a name: helpful hints for finding someone

A mother's maiden name is useful for pulling up birth/death records of her children plus her own marriage record and census records before her marriage.

A wife's married name is useful when trying to locate her death and burial information.