How do I start researching my family tree?
Start at home, not online
The strongest genealogy begins with what your family already has. Before you open a single database, gather the paper: birth and death certificates in drawers, marriage announcements, funeral cards, military discharge papers, old letters, photographs with names penciled on the back, and family Bibles with dates written inside the cover. These items carry information that never made it into any public record, and they anchor everything else you find.
Then talk to your oldest living relatives, soon. Ask open questions — where people lived, what they did for work, who their siblings were — and write down or record the answers, including the parts that sound like legend. Family stories are often wrong in the details but right in the outline, and the outline tells you where to search.
Work backward, one generation at a time
The cardinal rule of genealogy is to work from the known to the unknown. Start with yourself, document your parents, then their parents, proving each link before moving on. Skipping generations to chase a famous or distant ancestor is how trees end up attached to the wrong family entirely.
The National Archives maintains a practical overview of the federal records most useful to beginners — census, military, immigration, naturalization, and land files — on its Resources for Genealogists page. It is worth reading early, because it explains which questions federal records can answer and which belong to state and county offices.
Your first record group: the census
For most American families, the federal census is the workhorse. It places a household in a specific place every ten years and, in later decades, lists ages, birthplaces, occupations, and relationships. Our guide to finding an ancestor in the census covers the mechanics; the short version is that you should locate your family in every census taken during an ancestor's lifetime, not just one.
Write down where everything came from
From your very first fact, record the source: what document, held where, found how. It feels like bureaucracy when your tree has six people in it. It becomes indispensable when it has six hundred, and it is the difference between research someone can build on and a pile of assertions. The National Genealogical Society's free resources include charts and guidance on sound research practice that are worth adopting from day one, and the FamilySearch Research Wiki is the best free reference for figuring out what records exist for any given place and time.
A realistic first milestone
A good early goal: fully document your family back to 1900, with a source for every name, date, and place. That usually means home sources, interviews, three or four censuses, and a handful of vital records. Once you can do that cleanly, you have every skill the harder problems require — the Record Coverage Checklist on our home page will show you what to tackle next.