Are you a beginning genealogist, and you're not quite sure what records that you should
be researching first? Today I'm going to share with you the five record sources that I recommend
all beginning genealogists tackle first. Howdy, Fanatics! I am so glad you're joining me. My name
is Devon Noel Lee with Family History Fanatics, and we love helping you climb your family tree
and enjoying the journey. So, you're ready to start climbing your family tree. You picked up
my FREE Beginner Guide, which is linked to in the Show Notes. And now, you're ready to tackle some
sources. Well, where are you gonna do you're gonna start? At home! Yeah, you're gonna start at home!
I can't tell you the number of times that I have worked with newbie genealogists,
and they failed to look at their home sources. And they had the answers to their family tree
climbing questions all along. You're probably asking yourself ... "You want me to go into that
crazy mess of stuff that I have?" Yeah, I want you to go to your attics, into your closets,
and to your sheds. I want you to go everywhere that you have photos, documents, and possessions.
Because inside these photos, documents, and possessions, you have access to your
genealogy research questions that can't be found anywhere else or are behind privacy restrictions.
If you're an adoptee, I feel your pain. You are going to have to actually use a little bit
different strategy to tackle your biological family. But everything you see here is going
to help you with your adopted family. And don't they deserve to be researched just as much as the
people that gave you your DNA? Stay watching this video, and then when you're done, check out the
link in the description for our Adoptee Research Strategy. There's three videos in that series.
You are going to find family history in files. But you're also going to have family history
on display around your house. You're going to find answers to many of your research questions
in diaries that were kept by people. Or in family Bibles or in artifacts. Each one of these items
leads you to another recordset. So, please please look around your home. Get into boxes and pull out
the gems that tell you about your family history. The next record collection you want to tackle are
census records. Now, you can have census records from the United States, from England, from Canada.
There are a few in Mexico and other places. Census records are great because. For the most part,
they're on lots of websites, both paid and free. And if you look in ... The description box,
you'll see the Show Notes that goes with this video over on our blog. And it will
have a list of places where you can find census records. You type in a name, and you type in a
little bit of information. You do not have to fill in every box. But once you click SEARCH,
You will have some search results. And you can dive into these census records. View the image.
And find some amazing details in census records. Now, from the 1880s on in the United States, 1880s
to the 1940s for the available census records, they have relationships. So, you can see that
Mary Coleman is the wife of Neil Coleman. And they have a two sons and a daughter in this family.
You need to learn to go all across census records from the left all the way to the right. So, you
can pick up all the cool details. Every column has a fact that could be giving you more clues about
your ancestors. Can they read? Can they write? Can they speak English? All of these details help
you know about your ancestor. Now, there's a lot more to learn about census records. So, be sure
to check the link in the description to find more videos about census records here on this channel.
Now, regular Fanatics know that I love city directories. City directories are a little bit
better than census records because you can track certain relatives year by year. Because census
records came out every 10 years. City directories, in many places, came out every year. So, let me
show you what a city directory looks like. Now, this is MyHeritage. And MyHeritage has my favorite
collection of city directories. And I'll show you why here in a moment. So, I type in a name. And I
type in a location. And really nothing else. Click SEARCH. And then you get some search results.
So, I'm looking for some bit of information that stands out to me. I know that my Richard Townley
was a bricklayer. And he was in Cincinnati in this time period. So, we'll go ahead and click on the
image. And we see what we call the index to the image. It tells us he was living there at ... 110
Barr Street. He was the homeowner, and he was a bricklayer. Now, this is why MyHeritage is
awesome. Look how they have rapidly found all of the entries! nearly year by year for your ancestor
who lived at Barr Street and was a bricklayer. If your ancestor moved or changed occupation or
used some variation of their name, MyHeritage isn't going to ... pick that up. So, you would
just have to go back to the search, real quick, results page, and catch the years that was not in
that rapid discovery. But city directory should be your third stop on your introductory-level
records for beginning genealogists. Most of your ancestors are deceased. Some of your ancestors
are still alive. They're several generations above you or just the generation above. But if you have
deceased relatives that you're searching for, gravestones are a great resource. Find A Grave
can help you find those gravestones without actually visiting the cemetery. So, type in
some information to get you started. So, I have Harriet Lofton that died in 1920. Now,
if you don't know the cemetery location, don't put a death place. Because they may not be the same.
So, go ahead and leave it off. You can always filter it out later. And go ahead and click
SEARCH. So, here we have Harriet ... Amanda Farley Lofton. So, I knew her married name was Lofton.
Now, I just picked up her maiden name, the surname of her parents. And now, she's in the
Prairie Cemetery. So, I can go ahead and click on this. I've got the image, which is great.
Because you can visit the cemetery without leaving your home. It's pretty neat. Then you have a death
date and place. You have a burial location. And then some profiles have user-submitted
information that can also be very valuable to your research. What's also fantastic is when a profile
has family members attached to it. So, here we have parents, siblings,
her spouse, and her children. Now, be careful. This is not necessarily all of her siblings
and all of her spouses and all of her children. But it is a great start. And
when you're just starting to climb your family tree, it's very helpful. Now, why did I save
vital records to the end? You probably thought, "I should be in birth, marriage, and death records
right away." Well, not necessarily. There are a couple of reasons. One, a lot of birth, marriage,
and death records are restricted because of privacy laws. Number two, not every location,
kept vital records that you can access for that location. They just didn't keep them. So,
vital records should really come after you search these other records. So, let's show you how you
can find vital records over on FamilySearch. In order to search FamilySearch in the search forms,
you go to SEARCH, and that it bring up this page. You don't have to put every bit of information
into the search fields. I'm just going to start with Harry Howard Long. He is from Columbus,
Ohio. And what I'm going to do that's different is to focus on vital records. And I'm going to click
TYPE. Now, I could choose all of these other records... Some the census records. Now,
that's one I told you that you need to start with. The immigration, military, probate,
and others. So, they're a little bit later in your journey. Click BIRTH, MARRIAGE, AND DEATH. And
click SEARCH. FamilySearch will give you a lot of search results. Now, we have talked about on this
channel that you names are fluid. So, don't get too hung up if you see Henry Howard Long. It could
be inaccurate, either recorded or transcribed. We have more information about spellings
and what to do about funky spelling, and that shows up in our Show Notes. Now, here's [a] death
record. And many of you may be familiar with death records and all of the wealth of the information
that's on here. His name, his residence, where he died, what he died of- carcinoma of the lungs.
And who the doctor was, we have where he was buried- in Greenlawn Cemetery. Who the... Who
told the record keeper all of this biographical information. That's called the informant. We
have that person names of the parents as well as where they were born there are. So,
many great details here in vital records. But the further back in time you go, the less information
that are on vital records. So, depending on time and place when you're researching your relatives,
depends on how much information you may have at your fingertips. So, dive into those entry-level
genealogy records. Recognize some locations. Some countries have different entry-level records. So,
if you are researching in a non-US-specific place and you have different suggestions, let us all
know in the comments where you would start. If you would like to continue your beginning genealogy
education journey, check out this playlist up here. And if you're ready for our latest video,
which you never know what we're going to talk about, check out this video right here.
Wait! Ah! I didn't turn on the sound.