First Five Steps

Hey Family,

I got some feedback from Sally and Carmen, and I wanted to post what I thought would be the good first 5 steps to starting family history research. Here goes.

1) Sign on to http://new.familysearch.org and sign-up for an account. You need the same information as when you sign up for your Church website account (membership record number, confirmation date). Go to your ward membership clerk or look on your temple recommend if you don't know your record number. The ward clerk is the best source for your confirmation date.

2) Sign-in and go through the tutorial. It is very basic and straightforward. I watched it a couple of times just to make sure I understood the basic concepts.

3) On your homepage once you sign in, click on  the button "Me and My Ancestors." Your name and any information the Church already has connected to you will pop up.

4) If you don't have any information showing, start entering information for your parents and then grandparents. Remember, this database contains information for people who have died. I had to enter information back until I hit on of my grandparents who had passed away, and then my family tree populated itself back to the 1500s in some lines.

5) Now just start browsing. Don't hesitate to click on buttons. You won't break anything. Working with this program only gets easier as you practice with it. If you have questions about combining duplicate individuals, give someone a call (eg, the New Family Search people, me, Dad, etc). The benefit of this program is that overtime we will have a basically unlimited number of editors working on the same family tree which will expedite the work and prevent duplicate ordinances in the future as has occurred often in the past.

And for posterity. Here's Mom and Dad at the Aspen Grove Talent Show. ENJOY!