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| Linking the Branches |
Welding the links of my family tree proved more time consuming that I had thought. There are three pieces of information needed to link one generation of a family to the next: birth, marriage and death certificates; in the case of women, maiden names are required though not always easy to obtain.
The best way to research the family history is to begin with yourself and your parents, gathering any existent vital records for birth, marriage, and death. Then work backwards to where and when grandparents and great grandparents died, married, and were born. Each document links the person to the next or previous generation.
After completing that research, secondary records come into play: federal census records starting with 1850, working forward to 1920, and if available to you, 1930; and obituaries which can often be found at local libraries. Last, but not least, are the word-of-mouth stories passed on by living relatives.
I have collected copies of birth records and certificates of marriage wherever possible, along with death certificates of ancestors. Each document lists the name of the family member and often includes the names of their parents (and of great importance, the maiden name of the mothers) to connect one generation to the next. In this way, the links are welded together to form an unbroken chain that winds through history, back to the homelands of my ancestors.
