In recent years, people have become more interested in their family tree. To begin your family tree, you need to know some basic facts. Start with yourself. You likely know your name, birth date and birth place. If you are adopted, you may need to find this information. If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have been sealed to your adoptive family, you may choose either your birth parents or your adoptive parents to follow. As a reminder, always use your full name given to you at birth (most family tree programs allow you to record name changes), your day, month and year of birth, and the city, county and state/country of birth. In the United States we put the month first but world-wide, and in most computer programs, the day comes first. It resolves the confusion concerning whether 2/3/56 means 2 March 1956 or February 3, 1856. Always write the year in full too. If you are married, you should know your wedding date and place. Women should always use their maiden name.

Let’s talk for a few minutes about how to arrange your family tree information. Most of us use computer programs, and there are lots of them out there. Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is a free one you can download from www.familysearch.org. Please feel free to talk to someone with some experience in different programs before going out and purchasing one. If you plan to submit names for temple work, make sure the program you purchase is compatible with Family Ordinance Request, which replaced TempleReady.

New FamilySearch is a relatively new program designed to help put people in their family tree into context. Relationships and missing temple ordinances are brought to light. Paul Nauta, public affairs manager for FamilySearch, said, “New FamilySearch is where you can build your personal family tree and prepare names for temple ordinances.” (http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_living/family_history/?id=12891).

If you want to use paper and pencil to record the information on your family tree, there are pedigree charts (which show only direct-line ancestors) and family group sheets (which record siblings and their spouses). You can print these from www.familysearch.org or purchase them at bookstores or family history centers. Whichever way you choose to record family tree information, organization is of the utmost importance. Even when you’re well organized, intermarriages or many ancestors with the same name can be very confusing. Don’t start out that way!

Once you have recorded your information, do the same for your parents. If they have died, add death dates and places (or burial dates and places). Talk to your parents or other living relatives and ask them for information. Use what they tell you as a guide but try to verify it. You can do that by visiting cemeteries, ordering birth, marriage and death certificates, or looking for photos, newspaper clippings, or letters in the trunk in the attic.

Do the same for your grandparents and head on back. Make sure you verify all information. Complete dates and places for your siblings, your parents’ siblings (your aunts and uncles), your great grandparents’ siblings (your great aunts and uncles) and so on. If ancestors married more than once, make sure you have the right children with the right set of parents. When you get back far enough, you may not find birth dates and places but you might be able to find christening dates and places in church records. The same thing goes for deaths. Churches recorded burials instead. You may be able to find your ancestors in census records as well, which will give you information leading you to places where your family lived, and the paperwork that recorded their life events.

As you write down information on your family tree, be sure to look at their ages when they married and died. Record causes of death, if known, and see if they could have served in the military. Look where they lived to see what historical events they may have witnessed. Knowing your family tree is more than just recording dates and places – they were living people with joys and sorrows of their own. They lived their lives too!