Start Filling in Your Family Tree Chart.
The basic family tree chart includes the names, dates, and places associated with a person’s birth, marriage, and death. It then includes that same information for the parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, of the main person on the chart. These charts are available online for free, or you can sign up for websites such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, or Genealogy.com. Some sites require a subscription while others may be free. These sites are also searchable and will help you grow the branches of your tree over time. Gone are the days of needing to visit the state where the events actually happened just to get a copy of the certificate.
The first thing you do when filling out your chart is to start with yourself and fill in what you know. Be careful to be as accurate as possible, or you could end up researching an entirely wrong branch and wasting a lot of time. Get copies of as many of the birth, death, and marriage certificates as you can. Vitalchek has links to order vital records for all 50 states. Be aware, if the person is living, you may not be authorized a copy.
If you are lucky enough to have a connection to royalty, they keep very good records of their pedigrees. I am directly descended from Henry Plantagenet, aka. King Henry III of England. He is my 24th great-grandfather. My 23rd great-grandfather was his second surviving son Edmund (the one who did not become king), who was nicknamed Edmund Crouchback. Edmund never became king, but he did fight in the crusades.
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