Getting Started
Talk to your family - get it all down (including who told you)
Collect photos, certificates, Family Bibles
- Looking after your family archive – http://www.naa.gov.au/services/family-historians/looking-after/index.aspx
- Preserving photographs – http://www.photographymuseum.com/archival.html
- Preserving your records – http://www.jaunay.com/conserve.html
- Preserving (printed) digital photos or documents – http://www.wilhelm-research.com/articles_pcworld.html (See also "Additional Articles by WIR" - some are very large files)
Work back from what you know
Keep a Research Log
Pedigree chart – you need to know what to look for
- Charts and records – http://misbach.org/pdfcharts/
- http://www.gsv.org.au/forms/FAMGPSHT.pdf
- http://genbooks.hypermart.net/free/forms.html
- http://genealogy.about.com/library/free_charts/bl_pedigree.htm
- http://www.ancestry.com/trees/charts/ancchart.aspx?
Genealogy versus Family History
Oral history
- Interviewing your relatives – http://programs.sbs.com.au/whodoyouthinkyouare/familytree/?type=tree&id=180
- Oral history - step by step guide – http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html
- Oral history - why do it? – http://www.marple.com/whyoral.html
- Oral history and folklore – http://www.nla.gov.au/oh/ (30,000 hours of original recording)
Keep it confidential
Write letters (send SSAE or IRC)
Don't Reinvent the Wheel
- GRD (Genealogical Research Directory) – http://members.ozemail.com.au/~grdxxx/
- Guild Of One Name Studies – http://www.one-name.org/register.shtml
- Genes Reunited – http://www.genesreunited.co.uk (free to search, costs to join & send enquiries)
- (Ancestry) One World Tree – http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/rectype/trees/owt/
- (Rootsweb) World Connect – http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/