Discover Your Family (Part 1)

Are you a new Genealogy! Just Ask! Member, and have you decided to take the leap to discover your family? You will definitely want to make sure that you have organized what you already know, and you can have a place to record what you discover. You can also make your findings available to everyone where you will find others who are related to you. Yes, all for free at familysearch.org.

It sounds a little intimidating, but you can work on discovering your family 15 minutes here and there. You first need to go to get a FamilySearch Account. Put your username and password here:

Username: ________________________________________________

Password: _________________________________________________

Adding What You Know

Grandfather

Father

Grandmother

You

Grandfather

Mother

Grandmother

You need to record what you already know. Sign in and click on Family Tree. Start to enter direct line family names on Family Tree. Click to add each person’s name. Input everything you know especially birth, marriage, and death.

We record dates this way day, month, year:

Dates: 16 May 1956

This is the way we record places:

Places: Fayetteville, Cumberland, North Carolina, United States

New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Adding a Father

Let’s show you how I added my maternal grandfather, Emory Wallace Vance and his parents.

I added Emory Wallace Vance by clicking on “Add Father.”

This box came up, and I added everything I knew about Emory there. Then I clicked “Next.”

Adding Parents

Then I went to where his parents should be and entered them. See Lafayette Franklin Vance and Lula Johnson below.

Adding Children

Now once you have added you direct line, click on a name to add the children. For example, to add the children for Lafayette Franklin Vance, click on his name.

Then click on “Person” along the gray bar at the bottom of the person card. You will be taken to the person view. Vital details can be added anytime. Under Family members, you can add spouses and children and parents and siblings.

Do you have any questions? Many people use familysearch.org in our Facebook Group online. Come on over and ask us there.