The Basics - 01: Getting Started

This document is still under construction.  I'm posting it tonight so that it can be used before I'm completely finished with it.  More to come!

This is for people who are just beginning to create a family tree.  Perhaps it might be a reminder for others who have been doing it for years!

We'll start with a couple of basic principles:

A - Work from the present backwards, one generation at a time.  Don't try to begin by looking for your great-great-grandfather.

B - Document every bit of information as you find it!  Note where the information came from.

C - If you have a computer available, use a genealogy data base to keep track of all the information you will be gathering.  It may seem unnecessary when you are dealing with only 20 or so people, but as your research turns up new people, you will soon have so much data that without a program, you will never be able to know who belongs to which family.

You can use an online program like Ancestry.com, WikiTree (free), Familysearch.org (also free).  Or you can buy a genealogy program like Ancestral Quest (Links below), RootsMagic, or FamilyTreeBuilder. All of these programs allow you to attach sources to your data.  They will also allow you to add stories and photos to make your family history come alive.  And some will even allow you to print books of all the descendants of a single ancestor.

D - Evaluate your sources.  Do NOT simply copy information from other people's family trees!  What they have might not be correct.  (Is their José Garcia, born in la Habana in 1910 the same as YOUR José Garcia, born in la Habana  in 1910????  Maybe not!)

• Primary Sources:  These are the best.  They are documents created at the time an event occurred.  A birth or baptismal record is a Primary Source Document for the birth or baptismal event.   A death record is a Primary Source Document for the death event, but if it contains birth information, it is a:
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• Secondary Sources:  These are sources which contain vital information but which may have been created after the event.  Obituaries, Birth announcements in the newspaper, Marriage records giving the date of birth (Primary for the marriage, secondary for the birth). 
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• Compiled Sources: This category encompasses everything else: Published genealogy books, newspaper genealogy columns, Online Family Trees, and so forth. Be wary when you use Compiled Sources.  Double check to verify that what is found in them is backed up by a Primary Source before adding the information to your own tree.

1 - Begin at home!  Start by going through the house.  Gather up every single thing which might have a scrap of family information.  This includes

• Letters
• Bibles with births & deaths 
• Funeral notices
• Birth or marriage announcements
• Photos with dates and names on the back
• Journals
• Passports
• Social Security cards
• Newspaper clippings
• Cemetery ownership books

2 - Organize all of this and write down the information you find in each source.  If you have original documents, you can scan them and attach them to your program - online or at home (or both!)

3 - Visualize the next step: In your genealogy program, add every bit of information you have so far discovered.  Then print out a Family Group Record and a Pedigree Chart.  These will allow you to visualize what you already have and what you next need to do.  Now, make a list.  Here are a couple of my examples:

• Obtain death record for my grandfather, Candido Arango Garcia.  (He died in la Habana).
• Obtain marriage record for my grandmother, Manuela Estrada Suárez and her second husband, José Villamil.
• See what the parish church at Camajuaní has for my tio abuelo, Juan Arango Garcia and his wife, Maria Concepción Gutierrez Rodriguez.  Are there baptismal records for children born after 1900?

4 - New information: Now that you know what information you need, Spend a little time thinking about where that information might be found.  Remember, you are working backwards.  Before you  try to find Abuelo's birth record, try for his death record!  It is the event which happened most recently. And the death record may give the age at time of death (which will give you an approximate year of birth), and the place of birth.

So where are you going to look for this information?  In Cuba, the churches are usually more accommodating to researchers than are the municipal registry offices, so perhaps obtaining Abuelo's burial record from the local church might be a good goal.

Now that you have decided upon the record you actually need and the place where it is likely to be found, how are you going to get it? That was my question when I started trying to obtain records from Cuba 18 months ago.

5 - List of Researchers:  From time to time, people in our Cuban Genealogy group would give someone the name of a researcher they had worked with to locate records.  And because I'd lose track of that information, I started to keep a spread sheet in my personal computer of people who live in Cuba who are willing to do searches for people.

So, to find a researcher, you can either ask other members of the group for their recommendations, or you can shoot a note to me (via Messenger).  I won't share the entire list because I must protect the privacy of these researchers, but I will be happy to give you a name or two and some contact information.

https://www.ancquest.com/index.htm

https://www.rootsmagic.com/

https://www.myheritage.com/family-tree-builder?
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