F is for Family Search and Family Tree

Some of you may at this point be asking how I find the time to do all of this family research?   Well, the true confession is that I don't actually spend all that much time doing research on my own.  My mother, my grandmothers, and many other aunties, cousins, and other relatives are the ones who have spent the countless hours writing histories and memoirs, writing letters, collecting family records, and researching in libraries and archives and church and census records to find the names and dates and stories.  Much of their work has been personally shared with me through the years as I have attended family reunions and family genealogy meetings, and both my dear husband and I have quite the collection of books and records and photos.   But the biggest blessing and asset to searching out my family tree has come about in the past decade or two as the access to records over the internet has literally exploded.

There are many resources available out there, but my personal favorite is Familysearch.org.  Anyone can sign up for a free account and have access to family history records submitted and shared by thousands of people.  You can easily discover what information other people have already contributed about your ancestors and family tree to this wonderful database, as well as share your own information, details, and family's history.  You can upload photos and stories, or save photos and stories that are already there to your own files.   You can search millions of available records:  books, catalogs, genealogies, and a wiki.  You can create and print out charts showing your ancestory, your own family tree. You can create your own family history book to preserve your own family's story. You can also make a difference by volunteering to help index and make historical records more searchable online.    The Family Search Blog features posts on a variety of topics including new tools and helps, conferences, and even fun stories shared by people like you and me.

Have you ever visited Familysearch.org?  What are your favorite resources for searching out information on your family tree?