HoHo Helpful hints for family tree

It’s Freebie Friday!


For many of us, it is a challenge to learn of our grandparents and their parents. Think about the challenge of locating 10 generations of grandparents, or stated another way, your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents!

While the Good Genes Genealogy cousins are only halfway there with our maternal grandparents, we, like you, will keep trying to reach the 10th generation of relatives.

Notice the fourth and fifth great-grandfathers. The fourth great-grandfather fought a battle in Georgia during the Revolutionary War to keep the British invasion at bay.

Here’s some solid advice from us and colleagues who are genealogy buffs:

  • Decide on your purpose for your family tree. Some prefer to build family tree to only link direct lineage. Others build trees for family history purposes. Both types of family trees are valuable.
  • Now begin with yourself to begin your family tree, hence the top of the Christmas tree shaped family tree that is displayed in this blog.
  • Fill in as much as you know about your grandparents and their parents, if possible.
  • Use death and birth certificates, if available, to verify each grandparents’ parents.
  • DNA results remain a huge help in filling in the names of grandparents, siblings, cousins and other relatives.
  • Do not ignore individuals that keep appearing on your ancestry lines that do not appear to be blood relatives. Their records are equally important to locate ancestors as those “nonblood” individuals may share other family relationships.
  • If grandparents have been married more than once, you have the choice to add each marriage, or directly link your blood lines to the married grandparents. It’s tricky, yet family tree-building technology is now allowing for some flexibility.
  • Build in lots of genealogy research time to achieve whatever goals you have for building family trees this holiday season.

Have fun, relax, share memories and ask great questions of your relatives to build your tree.

Happy Holidays!

Published by Learning family histories

Our genealogy traces our family from western and central Africa and western Europe. Our ancestors entered the United States at the Virginia and Georgia Ports. First cousins Mark Owen and Ann Lineve Wead (it is protocol to use the maiden names of females in genealogy searches) are responsible for writing this blog. Although Ann has been involved in genealogy research while searching for certain ancestors since the age of 10, the cousins began deeper research of their families during the COVID-19 Pandemic Year of 2020. Devoting as much as 6 hours some evenings to the methodical training and research of genealogy, the cousins completed the year 2020 by earning genealogy certificates. Join us. @goodgenesgenealogy on wordpress and fb, twitter Sign up for our blog and enjoy the journey.

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