Where is your family tree?

I spent most of today piecing bits and pieces of information together to form my own family tree. Recently an aunt of mine found me from my father's side of the family. I haven't heard from anyone on that side of the family in 17 years and I realized how little I actually know about my family.

Researching your genealogy can be expensive, time consuming and frustrating for those who have an interest in knowing where they came from. Also, just because you have no interest in your heritage doesn't mean your children or their children wont!

Everyone should make up a family tree, it's entertaining and it will help your relatives, besides there is nothing worse than feeling like you don't know anything about your family!

I found a very good/ free family tree building program called Family Tree Builder that I downloaded and put all my bits of information into. When I was finished I exported my family tree file and then uploaded it to a pretty cool site called myheritage.com that allows you to upload your partial family tree to the database, search the already uploaded data, connect with other users and much more. I was drawn to this site over more popular sites like ancestry.com and others because it was easier and free to use.

Myheritage.com is free as long as you don't have:

more than 1000 entries on your family tree
more than 15 people you want to invite to the site
more than 250 MB of data to store.

Another genealogy option is GenCircles. This site is a little less user friendly but it is 100% free and only will return search info based on user submitted data (so you wont be baited with search results that you need to pay for). I like GenCircles also because it's accessible to everyone on the web so long lost family members (who have some sort of info on our family already) will be able to fill in the blanks if they want to.

With GenCircles you will need to download the above mentioned free family tree software, plug in what info you have, save it and then upload it to the GenCircles site. Don't worry your personal data is safe, using the recommended privacy option will keep all living relatives info hidden! Only birth dates and death dates are shown for deceased relatives!

If you don't have a family tree you need to get started on one! If you already have one keep up with it and consider uploading it to one of the mentioned websites! Happy researching!

---- article with republished with premission from: http://www.harvestofdailylife.com -----

Comments: 13

Lori F. Feb 20, 2008, 11:44pm EST

One of my relatives traced my family tree back for many generations it is facinating. I am a direct decendant of William the Conquer.. Earl and Lady Gates in England are my aunt and uncle.

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Birdee F. Feb 20, 2008, 11:53pm EST

I am a part of that website too & I love it ;o). I have that thing downloaded too. My Russian ancestors will be hard to trace due to my great grandfather coming over on a dead man's passport when he came to America...We do know they lived in Kars, Turkey & that they were Russian Orthodox & they would bury their pope where ever they moved...it was very interesting. ;o)

My mother's side of the family is English & mostly French. Related to Charlamagne ;o) I am not sure how far back that family is researched, but I am sure someone in the family has done it. My family is members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints & our church has a HUGE family history library & they are all about family history & ancestory. Anyone can go & find their ancestors. They don't have to be members of the church. It's a great resource ;o)

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Birdee F. Feb 20, 2008, 11:54pm EST

Oh & my Russian family is almost all gone (the original family) and they hardly talked of Russia & I think it was for fear they would be sent back......It's so hard watching a link to your history die & not being able to know more of where they came from because of fear! :o(

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Priscilla (wishing I was in Costa Rica) ~. Feb 20, 2008, 11:54pm EST

I've done some work on my family tree.....need to get back to it again someday

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Emma L. Feb 21, 2008, 12:22am EST

My mom is such a geneology freak- we can trace back to Charlemagne, Edward I, Eleanor of Aquataine, a famous Cherokee chief, original Mayflower passengers, and a lot more- it is pretty cool once you get into it. Like I said, it's like doing a big massive puzzle!
Hope you are getting some good info :)

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Steph-in-NE ..... Feb 21, 2008, 12:28am EST

my aunt and I have been working on our for awhile,,,,

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~Lady Neeetah of California~Obama #44 W. Feb 21, 2008, 12:53am EST

There is only so far that peoples of slave descent can go. My father's paternal side carried no slaves, so it was easy to follow his tree.

My cousin/Godson's tree was probably the most interesting -- back 350 years to Persia. His ancestor was a ruler/conqueror in Persia, but was a very "bad actor." Uh, we do not want to go there; he is definitely in the history books, though; what a barbarian.

The best source I have found are Mormon records. Oh Brother, but do they keep excellent records. How they do it, I do not know, but they are certainly quite good at it.

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Ellie !. Feb 21, 2008, 1:10am EST

i conncected to distant relatives through internet searching...all based on one statement from my father who shared very little.

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Danielle P. Feb 21, 2008, 6:37am EST

sounds interesting. My family is from all over: England, France, Canada and now the US. Amazing.

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DIANE D. Feb 21, 2008, 9:29am EST

I took a class on it in collage. It is very interesting, got an A+, traced my Sewish side back to the 1700 hundreds, Indian side was very hard, they did not keep many birth and death certifates.

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