Religious Education

Lesson 3.1
Research (FHLC, Internet)
The Five-Step Research Process

As you do family history research, you will typically follow five steps. These steps, taken in sequence, are called the "research process." They are:

• Step 1: Identify What You Know About Your Family

This step includes filling out a pedigree chart and family group records with what you already know about your family, gathering additional information from home sources and relatives, and organizing your records for easy access. Use your PAF file to compile this information.

• Step 2: Decide What You Want to Learn About Your Family

This step involves selecting a specific ancestor about whom you would like to know more, determining what you would like to know about that ancestor, and preparing a research log.

• Step 3: Select Records to Search

This step involves identifying the category of record you need to search in order to find out what you would like to know. This record category might be a compiled record, an original record, or a reference source. The step then involves identifying the specific record to be searched next, and describing it in your research log.

• Step 4: Obtain and Search the Record

This step involves obtaining the record from the Family History Library, or another repository, searching it, and recording the results of the search on your log. You may also make an extract or photocopy of that information.

• Step 5: Use the Information

This step includes submitting names for temple ordinances, submitting information to Pedigree Resource File, posting information on the Internet, writing family histories, and other uses of the information.

Refer back to these 5 steps whenever you are doing research. The sources below will assist you with steps 3 and 4 of the Research Process.

Types of Family History Sources
Sources of genealogical information about ancestors can be divided into two basic categories: compiled records and original records. When doing genealogical research, you should check compiled sources first to determine what has been done by other people, and then search original records. Always work from the known to the unknown.

• Compiled Records:

These are records of research on individuals and families already done by others, such as family histories, biographies, or genealogies with pedigree charts and family group records. Though compiled records are very helpful, some information may be inaccurate or incomplete. Always carefully evaluate the information you find. Examples of compiled records include Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File.

• Original records:

These are records created at the time of important events in your ancestor's lives. For example, a local church or government may have recorded your ancestors' births, christenings, marriages, or burials.

Sources for Research

• Family History Library Catalog (FHLC)

The Family History Library Catalog lists and describes the records, books, microfilms, microfiche, maps, and other materials available in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. These records will be of great use to you in your research. You can use the FHLC to identify and order records to use in a local family history center. To learn more about ordering records, go to Lesson 3.2 Family History Centers.
To use the FHLC:

1. Click here to open FamilySearch.org.
2. Click the Library tab.
3. Click Library Catalog in the blue bar at the top.
4. Choose from the various searches including:
• Place: used to locate records for a certain place such as city, county, state, etc.
• Surname: used to locate family histories which include that surname.
• Keyword: used to search for a record using any word or phrase.
• Author: used to search for a record by author.
• Subject: used to search for a certain topic.
• Call number: used to identify the corresponding book.
• Film/fiche number: used to identify the corresponding film or fiche.
• Title: used to locate records or books according to their titles.

To do a surname search:

5. Click Surname Search.
6. Type in a surname or last name, click search.
7. A list of family histories with that surname will be shown. Click on a title to see the detailed information.
8. Review the notes to decide if this history is one that would include your ancestor.
9. Click View Film Notes to see the microfilm number for this record.
10. To print, follow the instructions at the bottom of the page.

To do a place search:

11. Click Place Search.
12. Type in a place of interest. Search either by town/city, county, state/country. Each jurisdiction has different records available, so it is important to search all jurisdictions for your area (i.e. both the city and county records).
13. Click Search.
14. Click the correct place from the search results.
15. Click on the topic you are interested in.
16. Click the record you want to see.
17. Click Film Notes to see the microfilm number.
18. To print, follow the instructions at the bottom of the page.

Search in the catalog for your surname and various places that your ancestors lived, looking for information that might be relevant to your research.
Note: There are other versions of the Family History Library Catalog. If you are interested, click here to see a comparison chart.

• Internet Research

There are more than 9 million websites having to do with Family History research. Some sites charge a fee to search their database, while others are free. Here is a list of some of the most-used web sites and how to use them.

• Ancestry.com - This Web site finds personal family history web pages submitted to Ancestry World Tree, U.S. Social Security Death Index entries that contain your ancestor's name, and records within Ancestry's "fee" databases. "Fee" databases include census indexes and images, birth, marriage, and death, military, immigration, newspapers, biographies, and more. Type in a name and see what you get!
• CyndisList.com - This free web site provides links to other family history web sites by categories. It is the "card catalog" to family history on the internet. Search by subject, surname or place.
• Genuki.org.uk - This site serves as a "virtual reference library" of genealogical information that is of particular relevance to the United Kingdom and Ireland. Click Enter this large collection... and then pick a region.
• USGenWeb.org - This volunteer project provides family history websites for every county and state in the United States. Other projects they are developing include archive, census and tombstone databases. Try the project state pages to find a website for a county of your choice. A similar website is WorldGenweb.org which covers records for countries around the world.
• EllisIsland.org - Search for immigrant ancestors for the years 1892-1924.
• Immigrants.byu.edu - A project of the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University, this website contains a database of over 60,000 names from the British Isles, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. You can also volunteer to help index the records available.
• WorldVitalRecords.com - Is a site that provides records and databases to its users through various types of networking with many companies. Records include birth, marriage, death, parish, and census. This site is a paid subscription site.
• Footnote.com - This site uses social networking in combination with historical records to help with users' research. Records that are available include war records, naturalization papers and information on US Presidents. This site is also a subscription site.

Visit these sites to see what they have to offer.

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