The study to trace family lineage is termed as genealogy. It entails for you to collect the names of your living and departed relatives. Additionally, you are to establish the relationship among every member on primary, secondary or incidental facts. An individual studying genealogy is referred to as a genealogist.
A genealogist who wishes to seek familial information must have an understanding of genealogical facts. The facts you need to be familiar with and study are the following:
Family Name
The family name (surname or last name) serves as an important tool in genealogic research. For some genealogists, it serves as the stepping stone to start the search.
Commonly, a family name originated from the name of the father itself, the location of your ancestors, the employment of the individual, and/or the nickname of the individual itself is needed.
To locate your ancestors' family name, you may want to look at documents of birth, marriage and death certificates. Census returns and trade directories are also helpful.
Location
Locating the place of your ancestors is an essential part in finding out your lineage. To locate the place names, you need to search into vital, land, court, probate and estate records.
Sometimes the place's name is puzzling due to the order of location being cited. Hence, if you are starting with your own family tree, it is important to follow the standard place name writing protocol. You need to record names of places from the smallest to the largest location. For example, the town should come first before the county. After listing the county, the state will follow and country is the location last entry.
Given Name
Long-ago, the given name is not duly important in genealogy study. However, given names or first names are now considered as an essential tool in a genealogy study and search.
Given names are said to be a representation of deliberate choice of parents. Some of the common naming patterns are:
- First name of a son obtained from the paternal grandfather's name
- First name of a daughter obtained from the maternal grandmother's name
Date
Dates in genealogical search vary. It may pertain to the birth, baptism, marriage or the death date of either your living and deceased relatives.
The above-mentioned dates can be found in the following records: vital, church, bible, military, and census. Newspapers are also a tool for you to be able to find dates. Other helpful tools are Social Security Death and International Genealogical Indexes.
Employment
The type of job your ancestors have is a good tool to help you in your family lineage quest. Aside from knowing what your ancestors did for a living, the kind of occupation of your ancestors will also help you to distinguish between two similar surnames.
You can find the type of employment in the birth, marriage or death certificates of your ancestor. Other sources are the city directories, obituary records, and the Social Security Administration.
Family name, location, given name, date and employment are five key factors that will serve as a great help for you as you trace you family lineage. It is important however, that as you find out facts regarding the five factors to take into account its reliability.
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