I am researching my family tree.........any suggestions on where to start?

The best way to start is to take a genealogy class. There are several free classes online:

Brigham Young University has several free online courses on tracing your family history.

BYU Broadcasting has several free podcasts on the Questions and Ancestors site - you can listen online, download to an iPod or burn to a CD.

Roots Television is a website that provides many free audio-video resources for learning about genealogy.

Hewlett Packard has a free online genealogy class.

Any of these can help you get started.

You should start by asking family members about your ancestors. If you are in a big city, then the library there will more than likely have a genealogy section. Some small towns don't have much genealogy at all, if any. You can go to www.rootsweb.com, www.familysearch.org, www.genealogy.com, www.ancestry.com. You have to pay at ancestry though. If you are looking for your ancestors in the United States, then go to www.usgenweb.com.......there you can go to the state and county where you want to go to and look at genealogy there. You can also look in family records (letters, family Bibles, scrapbooks, diaries, photographs, baptisms, and new clippings, etc). And you can consult non-Federal local sources for records such as births, deaths, marriages, deeds, and wills. If you have any questions or comments you can email me at kdltx@sbcglobal.net

Well if you live in a small town you may want to try the local library. That is how I started, but it didn't go very far from there because my family was the only ones there, but it gave me some good leads and people to call. Also talking to your family can help, and it is the days of Internet, you can find out almost anything you want, just type in your name and family tree, i guarantee you will find something!

Best place to start is your family's local County Clerk's office. They should have census records and land absracts. If you go back far enough most census records will even have the amount of livestock or other possessions owned by the family.

Also check for birth certificates, marraige licenses and obituaries.

Surrogate or probate courts are a great source of information for divorce records or wills. Be wary of information you find on-line.

download a blank family information form from Rootweb.com. (under news room)

then start with yourself, and then slowly work backwards. Make sure you document where you get your information from (source: interview with uncle/aunt/grandparent.). and the date you talked with them) if you get the info from the internet, document the url, and try to find other sourses of the info.

There is a great article at the following link. As a genealogist myself, I think it gives good ideas. It is imperative that you start from yourself and work backwards.

http://genealogy.about.com/cs/beginnerscorner/ht/f...

Welcome to a hobby that is personally satisfying and rewarding!!

WWW.FAMILYSEARCH.ORG is a terrific free website. You can also download PAF (Personal Ancestry File) for free. It is a great way to track your work.

Go to the Mormon church. They are the experts on this sort of thing because ancestory is so important to their beliefs.

Start at the root of the problem, and branch out from there.

All the links start here:

http://www.cyndislist.com/