Heritage Album - Tracing a family tree?

Tracing a family tree?

I was thinking of tracing my family tree but I don't know the names of my ancestors. Is there anywhere where you can just put in a name and it will show you that persons' parents? This would make tracing parents much easier.

Public Comments

There is a website called My Heritage www.myheritage.com You can put in names of your grandparents, etc and if someone else happens to be looking up the same family, you can see how far they have gone back. I actually found someone yesterday that had my grandfather in their family tree....with all his parents and brothers and sisters. Kinda weird!
I don't understand this, firstly you start with your grandparents name and then presumably you have an idea where they lived and then it is a matter of tracing the family line back through the parish registers of births deaths etc. You can try the online census site but you will need a little more information than just a name. Sorry!!
the Mormons you got to ask the Mormons
There are many free web sites such as ancestry .com. The 1880 U.S. census in online and free. Some of the websites that charge are free at your public library. You could start by googling a name along with what you know { birth date/county / state} Once you start you will be directed to many sites. You also could go to rootsweb/message board. Very easy to use.
I got a long way with mine on www.ancestry.com They offer a free trial and seen as they have birth records you can often find out the names of parents and work your way back that way. I hope this helps and good luck!
I think you have to go to the birth registry of the city in which your great-grandparents lived, and read the names of their parents. than you should do the same thing again, working backward. I think you can find some information about them jobs also in the marriage registry. Maybe you have to ask an authorisation in advance to consult the registries.
http://anderszerne.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/ed_tree01.png Working on mine... in the beginning ask your parents for as much information as they have, ask your grandparents if they are alive... look at family documents, Bibles etc, There is considerable information on the Internet The Social Security death index is a useful tool, the LDS site has a lot of information... and many other sites... One line of my family is Kistler... there is a lot of good information on the Kistlers... you might get lucky that way.. good luck.
Get your parents birth certificates, that will give you your grandparents names, talk to other family members, once yo start the information will come thick and fast Good luck and good hunting
Genealogy is not easy. There are websites, free and paid, but they have errors in the family trees. The Family Trees are submitted by folks like you and me and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even when you see the same information by many different submitters on the same people, that is no guarantee at all that the information is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. The information should only be used as clues as to where to get the documentation, not as absolute fact. Good documentation means original records, births, marriages, deaths, censuses, obituaries, wills, deeds etc. It does not necessarily mean what is found in a published book or definitely not what is found on the internet. First of all get as much information from living family as possible, particularly senior members. Tape them if they will let you. It might turn out they are confused on some things, but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might be very significant. Go to your public library and see what all they have in the genealogy section. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can use. Ancestry.Com has lots of records and seems to be getting more all the time. They have all the U. S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have U.K. Censuses also. Still be wary at taking as fact everything that is in family trees that have been submitted to them. A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Famiy History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee. You will need vital records, births, marriages and deaths. These records usually will have the names of both parents including mother's maiden name. The death certificate will usually also give the place of birth of parents. The application for a social security number that i have seen also gives the names of both parents including mother's maiden name and their places of birth. If a person was drawing social security at the time of death and on their own social security number, they willl probably be on it. Two free sites, Rootsweb and FamilySearch.org has the Social Security Death Index. Also Ancestry.Com has the Social Security Death Index. You only need the name of the person as they were listed on social security or the social security number. You don't need both, even though you will see a place for both. In the U. S., each state has its own laws regarding who and when a person can obtain a copy of a birth or death certificate. In Texas, it use to be if you were not immediate family, you had to wait 50 years after the person's birth to get a birth certificate. Now it is 75 years. States are clamping down due to identity theft. Also, in most states, it was not until the first quarter of the 20th century before governing bodies(states,counties, cities) starting recording vital information. Still some people in the early years that were born at home or died at home did not get recorded. When you get back before the information was recorded, you need to turn to Church Records, Baptisms, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriages and Deaths. These frequently have the names of both parents. Good Luck!
Tracing your family tree is never easy. Many times over the past three years I've been doing my tree I wish I'd started when my grandparents and great grandma was still alive and I could have asked them all kinds of questions about the early half of the 20th century, but alas, all the old generations have died out in my family and I have to rely on my mum, dad and my various aunts and uncles. In the beginning that's all you can do. It's like detective work - you have to go around and start asking questions and hope that someone is just as interested as you are and is prepared to talk. As you start interviewing people, start compiling the tree, yourself, your parents (make notes of maiden names, when they think they married, possible names of children, where they lived, past addresses, etc.), grandparents etc. Sooner or later, human memory will fail you and you'll come unstuck, probably some time before 1901. This is the magic year in the UK when you can start to make use of online resources like the census (1930 in the USA). This is also the point that you'll need to start purchasing birth marriage and death certificates to prove your theories. Each certificate you order will allow you to get one step further back on your tree. If you're really unlucky, you'll have to start from scratch and get your own and then work back through your parents one certificate at a time. As I said earlier, it's all detective work and has to be viewed as one giant jigsaw puzzle. The four things it is not are free, cheap, quick or easy. Often these days you'll find a third or fourth cousin at somewhere like Genes Reunited who may have researched a small portion of your tree already - if you're really really lucky then a first or second cousin might have researched a larger section of your tree and will share it with you. You'll be surprised too at where some of those old photos end up - you can find some really good matches with fellow researchers this way. The main word of caution though is that any information you are given is only as good as the person doing the researching. If they've done a proper job they'll have the paperwork to back up their research - if they haven't, then be wary of taking anything as gospel without checking it yourself. Websites like Ancestry are useful for sure once you have made headway with your research, but it is starting that quest that is often the most difficult bit. It can be very frustrating at times, especially in the recent years of the 20th century when almost everyone will quote the "Data Protection Act" at you or when you realise that the records you are after were never kept or burnt down in a fire or lost in a flood, but these things happen. You have to take the good with the bad. Genealogy is a great hobby, but shouldn't be entered into lightly. I've got one uncle and three first cousins all registered on Genes Reunited and not a one of them really knows what they are doing or how to get any further, and it's a similiar story here on Yahoo - once people realise how much time, effort and money is involved, they quickly give up. If you don't want to be one of them, then get yourself a book - there's lots of them about for beginners - and just sit and read for a moment about how it all works and what is out there. If you still think it's for you, then dive right in and make an appointment with your aunt and get out granddads old tin with his WW2 ration card, letters and photos. That's what I did. Don't leave it too late, because once this stuff goes, it goes for good! Some of it is pure gold and makes the whole thing worthwhile.