My family history - where do I begin?

• Step 1

  • Your family history is made up of four key ingredients

    • The four keys will unlock stories about your family and friends

    • Stories are the telling of family events that are meaningful to youT

    • The four keys will remind you of stories you heard and suggest stories to look for.

    • The four keys will unlock stories about your family and friends
  • Stories are the telling of family events that are meaningful to you
    • The four keys will remind you of stories you heard and suggest stories to look for.

  • Try to find four key pieces of information

    • names

    • dates

    • places

    • relationships

  • You will use these four keys to identify people in records by:

    • their names

    • the dates of events in their lives

    • the places they lived, worked, traveled

    • their relationships to others

• Step 2

  • Where do I find the keys?

    • Look  in your home

    • Find letters, a family bible, birth certificates, and other official records

    • Find photographs

    • Talk to older relatives

• Step 3

Now that you have gathered some information about your family, it is time to organize and preserve what you have found. One way to do this is to make a family album or scrapbook. We are not talking about old sticky photo albums!

Next you can explore the steps for making your own family history album. Family album pages contain all of these!

• photographs

• important documents

• your written comments that tell the history of your family