Introduction

Genealogy is one of the most popular pastimes in North America. Reasons for doing family history research include the desire to leave a legacy for your grandchildren, the fun of solving a difficult “puzzle”, the wish to join a group that requires proof of your ancestry, and more recently for Métis people, the legal requirement of documenting your Aboriginal ancestry in order to assert your right to harvest.
Whatever your reasons for learning about your ancestors, this guide will help you understand the principles and standards of genealogy, learn about the types of records you may find useful, and direct you to the best places to find those records.

You will not find your family tree already completed for you unless someone else in your family has already done the work. Be prepared to spend many hours piecing together your family’s history, step by step. Researching your family history requires patience, persistence, and an open mind. But the rewards are many. Learning the details of your individual ancestors’ lives and communities will give you a better understanding of the people whose actions shaped your own family’s history. Many people find this knowledge richly rewarding, as well as humbling. It is a valuable possession that you can feel proud to pass on to your children and children’s children.

Basic Genealogical Research Principles

Start with yourself

The first principle of sound genealogical research is to start with yourself. If your research is going to rest on solid foundations, you should start by assuming nothing. Begin by gathering your own personal identification documents. What can you prove about your own life?
Here are a few documents you might have in your own possession:
your birth certificate (the short form is a card you can carry in your wallet — it’s not as good for genealogy as the long form, because the long form includes your parents’ names)
your baptismal certificate
your marriage certificate
your driver’s license
a newspaper announcement of your birth
a newspaper announcement of your marriage
your passport

Move back in time step by step

Once you’ve gathered together all your own personal documents that say who you are, especially your own long form birth certificate and/or baptismal certificate that gives your parents’ names, move back to your parents. Do you have any of their documents? If they are living, ask them for copies of their documents. If they are not, do you have any brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles whom you could ask?
A few of your parents’ possible documents:
their birth certificates
their baptismal certificates
their marriage certificate(s, it they were married more than once)
their divorce papers
their death certificates
newspaper announcements of their births, marriage or deaths
their passports
their drivers’ licenses

Talk to relatives

It’s important to talk to all your older relatives at the start of your research. Let them know you’re researching your family’s history, and ask for their help. This will save a lot of time, as most families already have many documents in their homes, and they will also have a lot of knowledge about the family that will make it easier for you down the road.
If you want to preserve your family’s history for future generations, a really nice touch is to audio- or video-tape your visit with your relatives. This way, you will be able to show your children and grandchildren many years in the future what their ancestors looked and sounded like. If you ask your relatives to tell you stories about what their lives were like when they were young, you will have a valuable record of your family’s history for which future generations will thank you.
Keep in mind that not everything you are told will be true. This is not to say that your relatives are liars, but that no memory is completely accurate, and stories sometimes get mixed up over time. So you will need to keep an open mind, and double-check all the facts.

Make copies

When you’re visiting relatives, ask to borrow or photograph any documents your relatives might have, so that you will have copies. This will help ensure that these precious family documents are preserved in case something ever happens to the originals.
It’s always a good idea to make photocopies or take photographs of any important documents you’ve collected, and then either put the originals in a very safe place, or return them to their owners. Never take original documents with you when you are researching in a library or archives, as you do not want to lose them or risk having them damaged.
You might also want to scan your documents into your computer so you will have all your records together in a digital file that you can send to other people who might be helping you along the way.

Write it down

Start writing down every piece of information you gather, right from the start. You can do this with pen and paper or with a word processor on your computer or with a dedicated genealogical software program. Whichever way you decide to keep your records, be consistent, and write down everything. You may think you will remember it later, but eventually you will have far more information collected than you can keep in your head.
You need to record:
The information itself.
Who told you the information, or where you found it (exactly: what book, record, web site, etc.).
When and where you gathered it.
Why and how you gathered it.
How you could find it again if you needed to (or someone else needed to).

Learn from others

In the process of researching your family’s history, you will discover that you have much in common with others seeking to trace their roots. You will find yourself working in the same libraries, archives, and research centres, struggling to interpret the same old handwriting as, and often requiring the assistance of, others with more experience or knowledge in the area. Thus, in addition to reading this guide, one of the best things you can do to improve your chance of success is to join a group of other genealogical researchers and subscribe to mailing lists where you can share experiences, ask for help, and generally benefit from the collective knowledge of the members. Lists of genealogical societies and mailing lists are provided in Appendix ***.

Don’t worry about spelling

Many new genealogists think that their family name has always been spelled the same way. In fact, until the last 100 years or so, spelling wasn’t very important and few people could read and write. So names were written down as people heard them. The same name might be written a dozen different ways. This is especially true for Aboriginal names. So be flexible and open to the possibility that the name you’re looking for might be written very differently than you expect.