I do when I have time, but had some good beginning points so it hasn't been too difficult on my side of the family- but DHs'has been a bear!

Just my opinion but for online stuff, the Mormon Church site is tops and a big plus is that it's FREE. I think it was thru them I located Ship Manifests & tracked a couple of branches from there. Check with your librarian or phone book to see if they have a local Morman Geneology Library (I used it in St. Louis & they were super helpful!) Here's a place to begin it; even offers a "personal" online Guide to assist you.

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

If I can help in some way, I'll be glad to try. I also keep hand written Pedigree and Family Sheets- lady who showed me how to begin used them, so I started that way & found it less confusing. The computer program my niece has (sold at a lot of places) offered mostly Census Records & what I printed out was far too tiny to be read by ANYONE. What a waste of printer ink & paper.

Suzi

Vannie, start with your self and go backwards. The family sheets are a big help for organizing. I had it easy on my paternal side 7 generations all lived in the same town, so info was at the local library. My maternal side is kinda of stumbling block, but I'll get it.
What kind of info are you looking for?

It takes a lot of time and patience but when you finally hit on something you feel it was well worth it. I have my husbands family back to 1524, the information fills two big notebook binders, by big, I mean the spine of the books is about 4-41/2 inches. I put it aside for a little while to have a rest before I start on mine. msmarion gave you some good advice. Start with yourself and work back, using family sheets. Make sure you keep your information in order, if you get records or papers mixed up it could take awhile to get it all straightened out, I speak from experience. Have fun. vique

I haven't done much since I moved to FL. No excuses, there is a LDS library about a mile from the house.
When I go to New England to visit (it's been a while) I spend a week getting my notes together on what documents I would like to see etc. I allow two days for research and copying documents.
Vannie it also depends on how indepth you want to search. If you wanted to find all the info you could on your dad, for instance, you'd look for birth records, marriage records, a death certificate, deeds, wills. I've added photos of headstones if I found them.
If your parents are alive, take a tape recorder on a visit and ask all the questions you can think of. Same with any other members of past generations. They are a wealth of knowledge. I have lots of funny stories recorded from my Dad and his brothers. It's amazing how each one remembers the same store differently!

I've been searching for years for an woman who was supposed to be an indian princess from Canada. I think I found her but after she changed her name and married in England. I may never know anything more. I have also found cousins searching for the same woman.

There are also genealogy web sites that have message boards by last name. You can post questions and see if anyone else is doing or has done research. They will share sometimes and sometimes they share and never respond again. LOL

Hope this helped some. It really is alot of fun. Ask away if you have more questions.

I forgot to add this link. On the right side you can find forms to print out that will help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Family Search

AltaVista, Google, and TopoZone have been very helpful for on-line searches. The basic TopoZone was free, but now is only available by subscription. That is unfortunate because TopoZone was very good for locating land holdings and obscure, abandonded cemeteries. Towns and villages that no longer exist can be found if those had a post office in the past, or were of note in their day. Where available, TopoZone can show section numbers. With this inforamtion and the legal description of land, one can locate exactly where the land holdings of your ancestors were. This can be very helpful and it adds to the knowledge of living conditions of your ancestors.

As an added bonus, TopoZone can show the topology (elevation lines) of the land and this gives one the idea of terrain hilliness or flatness. Major peaks, hills, gullies, and streams are readily identifiable which is an additional aid to finding "the old home place".

The GLO (goverment land office) has records of land patents. Some of these are duplicated in state, on-line achives. A land patent is the first official record of land ownership, many of which were purchased by homesteading. Military warrants was another instrument of purchase. However, beware that a military warrant (grant) could be sold to another party - some were sold at 10 cents to the dollar, thus a particular plot of land could be recorded in the name of the warrant but was held by different person. In the majority of cases, warrants were executed by the person who earned those.

Ancestry.com. .It is so worth the membership fee. Then get a program called Family TreeMaker. .you can download your family tree from Ancestry.com to Family TreeMaker. .it's really easy. Once you put some family members names in at Ancestry.com it will also pull up any other trees with those names in it so you can compare and add them to your tree. It's lots of fun and so addictive. .Debbie

I have a full worldwide subscription to Ancestry.com. I would be more than happy to look stuff up for you.