First steps
Start your tree, one generation at a time
Start with yourself and work backwards one generation at a time. Your first goal is a documented relationship, rather than a large number of ancestors.
Read the guide ↗ROOT & GENEALOGY
Guides & methods
First stepsReading recordsEstablishing relationshipsOrigins & migrationSharing family memoriesDigital genealogy
First steps ↗
Begin with people you know. Collect memories, organise records and choose a specific question before entering the archives.
Aim for a first documented relationship, a family-paper inventory and a precise research question. Use the log to retain unsuccessful searches too.
First steps
Collect family memories
An interview preserves a voice and reveals clues absent from indexes. Prepare a few themes rather than a list of dates.
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Prepare an archive visit
Plan a visit around a question and record references, rather than a name alone. Know what to request and how to record results. Check repository information shortly before travelling.
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Research siblings and cousins
A dead end may be resolved by researching an ancestor’s siblings. Look for records explicitly connecting people, then return to the original question.
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Write a useful archive enquiry
A precise enquiry helps staff identify a collection or copy. Prepare verified information before contacting the service instead of sending your entire tree.
Read the guide ↗Reading records ↗
A transcription makes searching easier; an image lets you check what was written. Learn to read a certificate, a census and historical handwriting in context.
Produce a complete citation and checked transcription for useful items. Choose records for the question: parentage, household, property, occupation or life history; note their limits.
Reading records
Read a civil registration record
A birth, marriage or death record was created for a particular administrative purpose. Its registration date may differ from the event date.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Find a household in census records
A census describes a household at a particular date. It helps track addresses, occupations and people living together, but does not prove every relationship.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Decipher historical handwriting
Palaeography reads handwriting in context. Compare difficult letters with words written by the same person instead of guessing the surname you hope to find.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Explore notarial records
Contracts, inventories and wills can reveal property, alliances and household life. Contents vary by place, period and record type.
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Research military service
Military research depends on country, period, force and status. Records are not all held in one place.
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Research parish registers
Religious registers may record baptisms, marriages and burials. Contents and availability depend on denomination, place and period. Do not automatically equate baptism and birth.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Search newspapers and directories
Newspapers and directories can add addresses, activities and announcements to a life history. Use them to develop questions; a name mention needs further identifying evidence.
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Analyse a marriage record
Marriage connects two families for comparison. Content varies by place, period and register type; never fill an absent fact by assumption.
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Read a death record critically
A death record documents the end of a life and may suggest birth or family information. Biographical details may come from an informant with limited knowledge.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
From an index to the original record
An index locates a document. To establish a relationship retrieve the record or image and check what the index omitted.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Probate, wills and heirs
Probate records may name heirs, spouse, creditors and property. They complement death records and put relationships in context.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Land, cadastral records and owners
Land records follow property and its holders. They may clarify residence or transfers but do not replace kinship evidence.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Children, guardianship and care records
Research on a child must distinguish parentage, guardianship, placement and adoption. Record terms depend on their period.
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Find a burial and verify identity
A burial, memorial and death are different documentary events. Inscriptions are clues; burial registers and death records help verify dates, place and identity. This general method draws on an Australian guide; its repositories and access rules do not apply to every country.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Use school lists to trace a family
A school list can place a child in time and space, sometimes alongside siblings. It does not replace a birth record. Archives New Zealand identifies primary-school class lists as a lead; availability elsewhere requires verification.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Read henkikirjat: Finnish tax lists
Henkikirjat supplement family research where parish registers have gaps. Their fiscal and later administrative purpose requires checking who was recorded and how households were arranged. This method concerns Finnish lists; a tax list does not necessarily represent the entire population.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Poland: find vital records by place and denomination
Szukaj w Archiwach specialist search locates creators and registers. Guidance uses locality, denomination and dates without personal names. Turn a family lead into place, event and interval before choosing a volume.
Read the guide ↗Reading records
Luxembourg: move from indexes to full records
ANLux organises civil-record guidance by municipality. A ten-year index locates events; the record remains necessary for people, relationships and annotations. Use the portal announced in 2026 rather than old Query addresses still present in some help pages.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships ↗
A shared name does not prove a relationship. Build a timeline, compare clues and make conclusions traceable by citing the records you used.
Your result is a reviewable conclusion with evidence, conflicts and open questions. Leave uncertain relationships unresolved and identify the record that could confirm or reject them.
Establishing relationships
Separate people with the same name
Matching first and last names are not enough to attach a record to an ancestor. Treat each candidate separately until several clues agree.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships
Cite sources so evidence can be found again
A useful citation lets another researcher locate the same record. It is also needed for negative findings or uncertain readings.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships
What to do when research stalls
A stalled search often involves scope, coverage or identity. Return to proven facts before searching every website.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships
Build a timeline and resolve conflicts
A timeline brings events and evidence together without hiding conflicts. It helps distinguish people and identify the next record to seek. Keep one row per statement, even for conflicting dates of one event.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships
Trace women in archival records
Name variations and household-head descriptions can obscure a woman’s life. Reconstruct it from several sources, preserving each name form in context.
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Study witnesses, neighbours and godparents
A person’s network helps distinguish namesakes and interpret moves. It gains evidential value when independent records connect the same people.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships
Document an unsuccessful search
Finding nothing is useful when the search scope is known. It prevents repetition and supports choosing another source without prematurely denying an event.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships
Historical dates and calendars
Preserve a date as written before normalising it. Calendar, language and year conventions may explain differences between documents.
Read the guide ↗Establishing relationships
Austria: choose central or local archives
Choosing the repository comes before name searching. State Archives guidance identifies central administrative traces and distinguishes public career, parish records and residence. These needs do not necessarily lead to the same holder.
Read the guide ↗Origins & migration ↗
Find the place of departure and arrival first. Borders, place names and administrations change: identify the jurisdiction at the date of the event.
Link departure and arrival records through relatives, exact place, dates or occupation. Keep a place record and timeline to follow jurisdiction changes.
Origins & migration
Reconstruct a migration journey
Reconstruct migration by linking departure, transit and settlement events. One passenger list is not enough to identify a person.
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Names, variants and places of origin
A surname does not establish geographical origin or kinship. Its spelling can change with the clerk, language and period.
Read the guide ↗Origins & migration
Find naturalization records
Arrival, residence and naturalization are separate events. Start with the country, address and period of proceedings; settlement alone does not establish naturalization.
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Identify historic places and jurisdictions
The right repository depends on the place and authority at the event date. Municipality, parish and district can cover different areas. Identify the place before expanding surname searches.
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Locate a family on historical maps
A map locates places, routes and territories at a particular time. It informs archival research but alone cannot prove a family occupied a house or plot.
Read the guide ↗Origins & migration
Using passenger lists
A passenger list documents a recorded journey. It becomes useful when connected to established places and relatives.
Read the guide ↗Origins & migration
Trace addresses in Australian electoral rolls
An Australian electoral roll helps trace a registered person’s address at a given date. It does not list all residents or all household members. National Library of Australia guidance explains collections and territorial searching.
Read the guide ↗Sharing family memories ↗
Family history brings together evidence, voices, images and objects. Preserve context and uncertainty to pass on a faithful account.
Prepare an inventory linking objects and files to provenance. Add captions, citations and certainty, then adapt public versions to permissions.
Sharing family memories
Identify and preserve photographs
A photograph preserves a scene, not necessarily a certain identity. Notes on the back, the studio and visible objects are clues to document.
Read the guide ↗Sharing family memories
Write a documented family history
A family account is more useful when it separates documented events, memories and hypotheses. It can remain engaging without inventing an ancestor’s feelings.
Read the guide ↗Sharing family memories
Organise family letters and papers
Private papers preserve provenance and relationships between documents. Useful organisation retains those links while improving access. Describe the collection before rearranging individual sheets.
Read the guide ↗Sharing family memories
Read a family photograph album
An album preserves order, captions and associations as well as images. Document the whole before removing a print or rearranging pages.
Read the guide ↗Sharing family memories
Preserve original papers and photographs
Digitisation facilitates access but does not replace the original object. Preservation depends on materials, condition and storage.
Read the guide ↗Sharing family memories
Documentary photographs: what they show
This guide explains how to study a real photograph and its catalogue record. This page’s illustrative image is fictional and is not genealogical evidence.
Read the guide ↗Sharing family memories
Tracing occupations and their context
An occupation places a person in a local economy and may distinguish namesakes. It alone cannot identify a family.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy ↗
Choose tools for portability, privacy and source preservation. A synchronised tree replaces neither a backup nor relationship checks.
Finish with a tested export, findable media and a restorable backup. Record software versions and file transformations to track preservation or loss.
Digital genealogy
GEDCOM: export without losing context
GEDCOM exchanges genealogical data between applications. Images and some fields may still need separate export.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy
Organise and back up research
A useful backup can be restored. Synchronisation may spread deletions and does not replace a separate retained copy.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy
Choose software or an online tree
Choose an application around your needs: solo work, family sharing, collaboration or record access. A records subscription and tree software solve different problems.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy
DNA and genealogy: understand the limits
Documentary genealogy and genetic ancestry answer different questions. A genetic result alone does not name, locate or date an ancestor.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy
Check OCR and AI-assisted transcription
An automatic transcription is a proposed reading. Compare it with the record, especially names, numbers and relationships. Keep the source image and correction history.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy
Digitise without losing evidence
A good copy supports rereading and recovering context. Separate the preservation file from cropped or enhanced reading copies.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy
Back up and verify research files
A useful backup restores files and preserves references alongside images. Organise first, then verify copies; synchronisation alone can propagate deletions.
Read the guide ↗Digital genealogy
Preparing a family tree for sharing
A sharing copy needs its own review. Choose audience, included people and genuinely needed documents.
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