Step 1: A simple tree

A simple tree is a misleading title. What we are creating is going to start out as simple, but will become complex over time. Take out a sheet of blank paper and a pencil. At the bottom of the page draw a small box. In it write your name and date of birth. Draw two boxes above your box. Connect them with with a line. From that line draw a line down to your box. It should look like mine:
Enter your parent's names into each of the two boxes above your own. Then from their boxes extend two more boxes. Everyone's family tree is different, but typically you should have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grand parents, sixteen great-great-grandparents...and so on. Fill in as much as you know from your own memory. If you don't know dates, skip them. You can use middle names, middle initials, maiden names, married names, just first names, or any other variation that works for you. DON'T be discouraged by limited information.

Once your finished with your basic tree you will probably want to go paperless. You could spend money and by a program that creates a tree and stores information for you. You can go into various computer programs and draw one. My local library actually had a program available "Family Tree Maker." Before paying for anything, find out what your local library has available or try one of the many free web based family tree makers. Here are a few that I have liked the best:

www.Ancestry.com allows you to create and save a tree for free. Ancestry also allows you to upload photo's of people to your tree. Overall it is a pretty good system to work with. The only problem from this site is that it will tell you that it has found information on members of your family tree, but you will have to pay to view that information. If you do sign up for an account with ancestry you should know that there is a setting that will allow other members to see or not see your tree. Any living people (those who don't have a date of death) will be show to others as having their first name replaced by the word Living and their birth date will not be listed.

Genealogy.com has a much more basic set up for storing your family tree. It is basically just a step above the drawing that you made. If you're just starting out this might appeal to you, but if you want to add siblings, aunts, uncles, or cousins this tree might not be what you want. You can add an extended family to this tree, but all of the information will not be viewable at once.

myheritage.com has similarities to both Ancestry.com and Genealogy.com. Myheritage lets you fill in your tree and offers you matches like ancestry.com, but unlike ancestry you can view corresponding information of other people's trees without a paid account. However, you should be warned that myheritage has a limit on the number of people that you can enter into your tree without paying for a Premium Account. However there is a way around this, if you upload a tree using a Gedcom file (we'll talk about these later).

Rootsweb is a derivative of Ancestry.com, but can be used as a stand alone. The ads on the site, as well as some of the search features, often lead you to Ancestry.com, but you don't need to use those. Rootsweb is a pretty good source for connecting with others and finding information, however the downfall is that in order to submit a tree you need to use a Gedcom file. (There it is again, I swear I'll explain it soon.)

FamilyEcho looks is more basic like the Genealogy.com family tree but also allows for you to upload photos. If you are just starting out, or are not very computer/internet savvy, this might be your best bet. In addition it doesn't prompt you to pay for anything. Also, you can send a link to your tree to family and friends so that they can see your tree. The major downfall is that you can not use it to find additional information. In addition you can use this program to make a Gedcom file.

Alright already, stop asking! I'll explain it:

A Gedcom file is type of file created and used by family tree programs and websites. A Gedcom file would have .ged at the end of the file name. Like how your documents are represented by the .doc extension. It's not very complicated but you can not open a .ged file on your computer without a program or web page designed to do so. You can create a Gedcom file in a family tree or genealogy based computer program or at the Family Echo website.

So this is all you need to create your simple tree. Next time I'll explain how to start finding additional information. In the meantime put all the knowledge you have into a tree on at least one of these sites (or another one, if you want to.)

Homework Assignment (don't complain, it's not hard):

After you're finished entering in the information you know off hand, ask any family members if they have additional information. Pick the brains of many family members, even younger family members might be able to remember something that you could not.