Magna Genealogy

It begins with one person

A family tree or pedigree chart is an easy way to show the ancestors of a specific person. That person is the base or foundation of your tree, and the chart will grow with each generation of relatives you add going back in time.

To begin your Family Tree you’ll need to pick someone to be your STARTING PERSON, maybe yourself, a parent or a spouse. It’s best if you know some basic facts about the person, like where and when they were born, who their parents were, and whether they were married.

When you’ve decided who your starting person will be, print your blank Family Tree, sharpen a pencil and start filling in all of the names, dates and places you know. Once you get some information on paper, you can move the information to a computer but we recommend using old school methods as you start. Here are some tips to make it easier:

Start with what you know

Just like a house, genealogy builds from the bottom up. The foundation of your family tree is built on the names, dates and places you know or can find easily. Fill in as much as you can, then ask family members and look through family papers, photos and scrap books to get more.

Document Consistently

You want others to be able to use what your work, whether they are looking at it tomorrow or 100 years from now. To help make sure they can read and understand what you record, we suggest you use “Granny’s Rules”:

• Write on paper. Technologies change and can’t be accessed. Remember floppy disks?
• Use a pencil (mistakes happen!) and print clearly.
• Use full name, and for women, use their maiden names.
• Dates are written date first, full month, then the year with 4 digits. Example: Jan. 5, 2025 should be 05 January 2025.
• For places, include the city, county, state and country. Example: Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, PA, USA.

Once you move beyond what you know and start researching for more details about your family, you’ll be amazed at all of the sources you can use to discover facts and stories. Whether your learned something during a conversation with a great aunt or in a census record, write down the source. If you don’t, we promise you, you’ll forget it (ask us how we know!). Family Group Records are an easy way to keep all of your facts and references organized. You can learn more about them below.

You can find family details in many different places, particularly online. But, all of it will NOT be correct. While there are invaluable sources of genealogical information easily accessible, even complete family trees, you should question whether it is accurate. If you want to ensure your chart is completely correct, find an official record for each event such as a birth, marriage or death. It’s up to you how much information you want to verify, but that will be essential if you want to join an ancestral society recognizing your connection to a specific person or group.

Finding the next step in your family line can seem like a mystery that has to be unraveled. Think about where you can find more facts or confirm information you’ve found. Often knowing where a family lived can be very helpful to help focus your research on the records available in that location, like county records, church records and cemeteries.