Family History - What does my family already know ?

Interview Your Family
It's a good idea during this initial phase of your family history search, to actually interview the members of your family that you already know. Write down the information you gather, ensuring that you record who provided this information. You will always find that there are conflicting versions of the family history, as some members get people and events mixed up. Perhaps put a question mark next to things which differ, as a reminder to investigate it further at a later time. Part of the fun of researching your family is finding out the truth when faced with conflicting versions.

At this early stage of your research it is a good idea to make sure that you have all the facts documented and sourced in a meaningful format that you can understand. Make sure you remain organized! It is a great idea to either create a "Family Group Sheet" or you can Download a Free Sheet from this link where you can enter the details of a specific branch of your family tree.

This sheet should contain the following details:-

• Husband - First Name, Last Name, Birth Date, Birth Place, Marriage Date, Marriage Place, Death Date, Death Place, Buried, His Father's Name, His Mother's Name
• Wife - First Name, Last Name, Birth Date, Birth Place, Marriage Date, Marriage Place, Death Date, Death Place, Buried, Her Father's Name, Her Mother's Name
• Children - Name, Male/Female, Birth Date/Place, Marriage Date/Place, Spouse, Death Date/Place, Buried

 The great thing with this sheet is that you can use it to record information yourself, or just hand it out to your relatives, and get them to fill it in themselves. I remember mailing it out to everyone in Australia who had my surname, which I think was about 200 at the time.

We will have a look at Genealogy Software tomorrow!

Anyway I hope you enjoyed today's Blog and that it gave you some good ideas, remember your comments are always appreciated, and I'd love to hear from you.

See you soon!
Peter Annett