I want to start looking up my genealogy. is there a good place to start?

the first place to start is with your own parents.

You are not looking up all Murphys in the world..they won't be related anyway. And you HAVE NO REASON for putting your personal information online, in order to have info coming in. Not needed.

Knowing the BASICS of genealogy is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than websites. Consider that yelled, with no offense meant. In a nutshell... looking up your parents by the use of a document, IS the first step because it is YOUR genealogy, and USES A DOCUMENT. After that..you use a record(s) to verify your grandparents. Hint..ONE of 4 grandparents is named Murphy at birth. Think about that. Genealogy is not surnames. It is PERSONS who ARE your ancestors.

Keep going, ONLY looking for those who are linked directly to specific persons (yourself, parents, on back). At some point, it will flash on you blindingly..that grandpa Murphy was born in 1883 in Florida, has a sister named Mabel..and you need to be looking in Florida documents/ sources. Not for any Murphy on the planet.

Genealogy existed before computers...because it USES RECORDS. That is my biggest point. All genealogy is not online. It is not someone elses family tree online, since many of those have mistakes. Some are good, but unless you have done actual research, you won't be able to spot those errors.

http://www.cyndislist.com/beginners/

I very purposely left (a) website until last. Cyndis list has thousands of genealogy sites..and NO SITE IS BEST. Except the ones with your ancestry and information.

I dislike ancestry.com's commercial.."you don't have to know what you are looking for...". YES, you DO have to know what you are looking for, what is reliable and what isn't. I do get a bit aggravated that everyone seems to think it is genealogy mecca, when it is misleading to think you can find all your ancestors in one place. Ancestry.com is worth the money, but only after you are familiar with the process, and avoid using the submitted family trees, instead of original documents such as the census.

I reccomend hanging out right here, and notice the regulars who have combined decades, if not centuries of combined experience. We cost 5 pts per question. As you go, you will learn that the more specific your question, the better the results. IE, include the name, locality, and time frame of your specific problem, so that we can help search. Then look closely at the sources we use.

Before you rush to the internet and start looking for websites to find your ancestors.

Do your groundwork first or you just won't know who you are looking for, where they are from and if who you do find are your ancestors or not. Read this first, http://familytimeline.webs.com/recordsinyourownhom... then.....

Collect all the information you have in your own home and in your living relations homes is the first place to start , its free and it will encourage your family to look for more and help you, it teaches you the principles and good habit of record research and the details you can find on records while there are still people alive to ask further questions of, which helps you later on as you are familiar with records, understand what can be found on them, you understand the importance of citing your research to prove what you have found and can generally see very clearly the very basic mistakes/errors that many people make by only trusting online resources, especially when one mistake can mean you are no longer researching your family.

These records are primary information, so it is more likely to be correct and you will achieve an impressive start with your family tree, also learn/hear a lot about your family which will help you when you do start looking at records in the Records Office or on Internet cited databases. These are your best resources by far living people and the records they hold, FREE, primary and will get you back 3-5 generations of proved, cited ancestry which is a great foundation for your research.

You should first take a look at the resolved questions on here. Then print up some Family Group Sheets from the web, and go to work; one person at a time. Then download Family Tree Maker or a free program. Others will come on here to help you. It would help for us to know what area of the world most of your relatives have inhabited in the last 100 years or so. Most of us will suggest you look for records, not what others have put online. Remember, this is a lifetime hobby, not something you spend a few days on, and it is finished. Family History is never finished.

Follow the basic research process for genealogy:

1. Interview your living relatives.

2. Examine your documents and those of relatives that will allow it.

3. Prepare for research by learning about basic genealogy, genealogy specific to your known ancestors.

4. Organize your data. Free software is available.

5. Research one document at time for one generation at a time for one person at a time.

Resources will vary depending on where and when your ancestor lived, what records they left behind, and what is available for that place/time. Not everything is online and/or free. Since you didn't give us any information to narrow down the best ones for your specific search, we can only provide a few general ones.

Avoid user-submitted trees/pedigrees except where they have sources cited, and go to the sources. Indexes and transcriptions are better than trees but still likely to have errors. Indexes are better than trees, but used to get you to the original source. Try to find and work with original documents.

Some helpful starting places:

http://www.cyndislist.com/

https://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.censusfinder.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

http://www.deathindexes.com/ (U.S.)

Here -- Many of us have resources or knowledge specific to certain documents, times, places, and groups.

Google -- Look for local libraries, archives, agencies, and GenWebs.

Offline -- Libraries, archives, museums, genealogical societies, Family History Centers, etc. BIG note: some of the paid subscript

K Mom,

In case you missed it, identity theft is the Number One crime in the U.S. ... and worldwide. Posting your real name along with that of your parents is very risky.

But, yes; all the big genealogy sites allow for posting. Me, I would only post the names of ancestors from several generations ago. (ID theft: remember?) My Grandma's half sister now has more than a thousand living descendants: anonymity in numbers!

So, thousands of descendants is only 2 generations (she was my grandmother's sister) and millions of living descendants for those descended from Germanna (7 - 8 generations ago) or the Mayflower (9 - 10 generations ago) so obviously if you can go back to your grandparents there are thousands of relatives who just might belong to the same tree.

As to which site: remember, that depends upon your particular ancestry. Me, I am one of those very rare individuals not only descended from Colonists (Plimouth Plantation, Germanna Colony, etc.) but also Indians (my grandfather rode with Red Cloud, etc.) and there still are thousands of living "near relatives", although out of more than 300,000,000 Americans, "just a drop in the bucket". So, where you post will depend upon whether your known ancestors are English, Welch, Irish, Scotch, Spaniards, Frenchmen or just what.

My astonishing granmother was Cherokee, and allow me first enable you recognize that the Cherokee u . s . a . does now not have princesses. she could have been the daughter of a frontrunner or shaman. I even have my important different and toddlers traced lower back to the 1700's besides the undeniable fact that its tough considering that they only wrote down mens identify lower back then. verify the Dawes Rolls. Please think of loose to digital message me approximately this section. I even have information an inch thick. Its humorous how i will hint my dad's section lower back virtually 3 hundred years, besides the undeniable fact that are actually not waiting to get lower back to 1800 on my mom's section. And so some distance because of the fact the German ingredient is going, verify out Bavarian on your searches and additionally Italian. I even have greater advantageous to proportion in this section besides the undeniable fact that do not care to place up it publicly because of the fact it does recommend declaring finished names of persons, etc., for somewhat somewhat some privateness subject concerns.

Genforum or Ancesstry. Free sites to look up are irishgenealogy, lds, nationalarchives.ie, dublinheritage+libraryireland. Good luck

ancestry.com

or you can go to your local library and they will most likely have books that have their names in them with some info, and librarians will help with whatever you need. The library I work at has a genie room with microfilm, and a very knowledgeable librarian

you can also go to court houses, cemeteries, ect.

here's a good place to start.

www.sinpaid.com

ancestry.com