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Whether you read a how-to book, click on a website with beginner's tips, take a course on family-history research or join a genealogical club, you must first decide on a collection system. You can use notecards, three-ring binders or software, but each new twig on the family tree must be documented, with notes on its source. That's why computers, which can organize massive amounts of data, are ideal. Remember that for each generation back, the number of parents doubles; by the time you hit 20 generations, it's up to more than a million. In two decades, genealogolist Cyr has collected data on 88,000 relatives and in-laws--going back to 17th century France--and stored the information on his desktop, using Family Tree Maker software (see box, next page).
If you're computer phobic, rest assured: you can do without. Working with a vintage Smith-Corona, Ida Quintana Foraci, 70, explored her family, discovered a French-speaking Pawnee grandmother and traced her ancestors through families intertwined since New Mexico was part of Spain. She delved into archdiocesan records, statistical abstracts and old Spanish histories at the Denver Public Library. On a monthly pension of $400, she sold most of her furniture so she could publish her findings: 22 volumes documented back to the arrival of conquistador Don Juan Onate in 1598. It is now a valuable resource for Hispanic genealogists. "I spent the past seven years looking," she says, "and I found me."
The first step is to write down everything you know about your family. Then interview relatives, oldest ones first. Videotape or tape-record them if possible. Ask for exact names, dates and places, and as many details of your ancestors' lives as they can remember. Copy all documents: birth, christening, marriage and death certificates, school and medical records, family-Bible inscriptions, military papers, old letters. "Everyone has a little piece of the puzzle," says Estelle Guzik, director of the New York Jewish Genealogical Society, who set out to trace relatives killed in the Holocaust. In one family a cousin had saved a 20-year-old invitation list to a son's bar mitzvah. An elderly invitee from Israel still lived at the same address and referred Guzik to her son, a rabbi, who provided a family tree stretching from Australia to France.
One happy by-product of your search is that it's likely to open new avenues of communication. Says Carl Davidson, a Chicago computer consultant: "You didn't use to talk much with older folks at family reunions, except maybe 'Pass the potato salad.' Now they take you home, get out these old Bibles and dig out ancient maps, and you get to know them in a whole new way."
ROOTS SURFING
Genealogists disagree on whether to begin by searching the many rich websites devoted to genealogy or by traveling directly to a source for documents, whether it's the local branch of the National Archives, a well-stocked genealogical library such as the Newberry in Chicago or the Clayton in Houston, or the closest Mormon Family History Center. In some cases, the Web is a clear time saver. George Warholic, a Rockville, Md., economic consultant, set out in 1983 to trace his Ukrainian relatives. "It was a chore," he remembers. "I spent weeks at the Library of Congress, searching hundreds of telephone books for people with the same name. Now this information can be got in a few hours on the Internet."