how do I find my family tree?

[TeECeE]

Every time I type in my fathers name there are no search results. Its as if he never existed. I have tried various web sites and failed to get any info. Help please.

[Hermione Granger]

Did you try ancestor.com? Also, if you are not from America or a European country, most sites do not work. Try typing in your grandfathers name, that may work.

[Noel]

The register of births marriage's and deaths in Dublin have record books that go back a long way, but if you're in UK I'm sure there are similar facilities.

[Pauline]

Are you expecting to type in a name and get a whole list of stuff? It won't work like that...

Ok, so (assuming you are in the UK)
What sites did you use?
Freebmd has transcriptions ONLY up till 1930's or so.
For most people that's grandad's era not dad's..
Ancestry has a copy of freebmd.

If you are prepared to state name, birth year and suspected birth region then http://www.rootschat.com is well worth a try.

[Wyatt Kasen]

well you can always try another one, there's no hard in trying though.

[Benthebus]

You cannot just type your name into a computer and get a full family history. What you need to do is

1) talk to your family, Parents GrandParents, Aunts & Uncles Cousins etc,

2) Gather together any Documents, Letters, Diary's, Certificates (Birth, Death, Marriage and Baptism), any Military paper work and if you are very very lucky you might just find a family bible.

3) draw out a rough tree from what you have just learnt, just so you know who fits in where.

Most of the good web sites are subscription only but you could use

http://rootsweb.com

http://www.familysearch.org

and


http://labs.familysearch.org

hope this helps

[Mental Mickey]

There's a little law called the Data Protection Act. It's name varies from country to country, but basically it means that any information available online has to usually be more than 100years old before it truly moves into the public domain. Most websites such as genesreunited routinely block any search results for people born in the last hundred years and still likely to be alive, so any search for someone born in the 20th century is doomed to failure before it has even began. Searching for your family history does not work like that. If you hope to put your parents or grandparents names into google and be presented with your tree on a plate gratis free and for nothing then you will be very sorely disappointed.

Doing a family tree is like detective work, and if you haven't got the time or patience (and be be prepared to lay out some cash at some point) then you won't get very far. The internet is great once you start working pre-1901, but for more recent stuff, life can be very difficult ndeed. To build a tree you need evidence of a persons life, the big three being births, marriages and death. Each certificate that you get will give you clues about where to go for the earlier certificates and get back a generation further. Obviously you start with your own birth certificate which tells you the name of your father and the maiden name of your mother. That gives you the clue to find their marriage, working backwards from the year you (or their eldest child) was born in. A marriage certificate will usually give you the ages of both parties involved at the time which will allow you to work backwards to a rough date of birth (assuming that both parties told the truth!) and double-check your findings with their named father and occupation. And then you keep working backwards again until records fail you. The problem of course is finding and ordering that first certificate. That depends where in the world you are researching. In some places, it is easier than others, but if you're not prepared to put the time and money in, then I wouldn't waste your effort. Many people give family history up as a bad idea and take up something easier, such as alligator wrestling. For others, it's a lifelong quest that can take over your whole life if you let it. The websites are out there for sure, but if you don't have the first clue where to begin, it is easy for the unwary to get caught out. Searching for the living is just about the biggest newbie error you can make. If you want to do that, stick to Facebook or other social networking sites. Most FamilyHistory websites only list the dead in any great detail - the long dead.