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Beginning Genealogy Research When you have decided to research your family tree, there are a few things to take into consideration. The first thing is to get a good genealogy program. Before going out and spending a lot of money on a program, check out some of the excellent ones that are free. One is PAF, available for download at the LDS website. Another, my personal preference and the only one I use at home, is the standard version of Legacy. It is very user-friendly and has many advanced options not given by other software, either free or for purchase. The next step is to familiarize yourself with your program of choice. Once you feel relatively comfortable by playing around with the program to see how it works, begin filling in the information for yourself, your spouse, then your children and grandchildren, all who are applicable. Then you can begin filling in the information for you parents and siblings. Next you will add your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Be sure that all living people are marked as "living" and those who are deceased need to be marked as such, even if you have no birth and/or death information for them. This will get you started on your research. Please email if you have any questions or problems getting started with your research. When reading certain handwritten documents you may not be able to read them as readily as you would read something more current. For help with that, please read "Reading Old Handwriting." For help in figuring out pre-Conquest names, please read this insightful e-book entitled SURNAMES. It has been quite helpful to me personally in my own research, and I'm sure it will enlighten you as well. K. J. Shelton Nelson |
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