5 Steps to Start Building Your Family Tree

Everyone begins this journey the same way. Something sparks our interest genealogy. We decide we want to build our family tree. But we don't know quite what to do.

We write down our name, add our parents and siblings, and enter what we know about our grandparents. Then we realize we don't know where Grandpa was born. We're not sure of Grandma's mother's name. We have no idea when our immigrant ancestors arrived.

That's when the search for records begins. But how can you be sure this record—this ship manifest or census page—is showing your ancestor? This might be the moment you get frustrated and feel ready to give up.

I see people online every day who are getting started with genealogy. They ask vague questions and seem to expect a distant cousin to hand them their family tree. That's not a good way to start. Instead, identify the closest ancestor for whom you are missing basic facts. Let's say it's Grandpa. Do you know his date of birth? If not, ask your parents and cousins. Do you know his parents' names? If you don't and your relatives don't, you need to search for records. You can't go any further with your family tree until you establish the basic facts for Grandpa.

Using family tree building software on your computer has many advantages.

Now, before you go any further, you must decide how you're going to record all the facts and data you find. Your family tree will be meaningful to you, of course. But it can be important to your relatives and descendants, and to distant cousins you've never met.

How will you record, preserve, and share your family tree? Here are 5 steps to start building your family tree.

Step 1. Choose Your Software

Writing or drawing your family tree on paper is not a good option. You can't share it unless you want to photocopy all the pages. You'll have to keep redrawing the tree when you discover new information. You can't add new facts without squeezing them in and making the whole thing hard to follow. You need computer software.

Don't build your tree online only. This may seem like an easy option, and it is, with all the guidance and hints. But easy can lead to an incorrect family tree in a hurry.

Some family tree websites leave your information open for strangers to edit. Do you want that? Do you want a stranger to decide your grandmother is their grandmother and not yours? Professionals don't put their research in a place where it can be overwritten.

You can search online for family tree software that meets your needs. Find a program that runs on your type of computer and fits your budget. There are plenty of free ones, but even the paid ones are not expensive. Here are some of the most popular family tree programs in alphabetical order:

• Family Tree Builder. Written for Windows, there is no native Mac version. Download and use for free at https://www.myheritage.com/family-tree-builder.
• Family Tree Maker. Works on Windows and Mac. Synchronizes your desktop tree with your tree on Ancestry.com. Download for $80 at https://www.mackiev.com/store_us.html.
• Legacy Family Tree. Written for Windows, there is no native Mac version. Download and use for free at https://legacyfamilytree.com.
• RootsMagic. Works on Windows and Mac. I've downloaded RootsMagic 8 for free at https://www.rootsmagic.com/download/rootsmagic-8. RootsMagic 11, the latest version, costs $39.95 at https://www.rootsmagic.com/rootsmagic. You can download a free trial to see if you like it.

A reader of this blog highly recommends Family Historian, currently in version 7. I've never heard of this product, but it's worth a look; for Windows users only. There is a free trial. Note: The link is to a UK website, but I'm seeing the price in U.S. dollars.

Step 2. Search for Records

You can use free or paid genealogy websites to find records and documents for your family tree. I subscribe to Ancestry.com. I've found tons of vital records for free on the New York City Municipal Archives website. I get my Italian vital records on the free Portale Antenati. But if I don't find what I need on those sites, I check the free FamilySearch.org. There's also MyHeritage.com and Geneanet.org, but you'll need a subscription to search.

Wherever you search, take these steps first:

• Establish some basic facts about your closest ancestors. Ask your relatives for your ancestors' birthdays and birth places if you don't know them.
• Find out which records are available for your place of interest, and what years they cover. Your parents or grandparents may be too young to find in a particular collection.
• Don't assume someone else's family tree is correct because it's online. And never pull their data into your own tree. This can cause a terrible mess and waste your time. You need to treat each of their "facts" as a hint and find out for yourself if they are correct.

When you find a record and you're confident it's your people, download the document image. That way you can add it to your family tree. Decide right this minute what type of file naming and storage system you will use.

Before you move on from that downloaded document and its facts, create a source citation. Without it, you don't have verifiable facts. Without it, your family tree is hearsay.

Wouldn't you love to find your ancestors in a well-sourced family tree?

Step 3. Create Source Citations

Anyone who has ever skipped the step of creating source citations regrets it, or will regret it soon. Let's say you entered a 1909 naturalization date for your uncle. But you didn't cite the fact that the date comes from the 1910 census. Now your cousins want to know how you know their father became a citizen in 1909. They want to apply for dual citizenship. But you can't answer the question because you failed to cite your source.

A source citation relieves you of all the drama. And it doesn't need to be difficult. Sometimes you can copy a source citation from the place where you found the record.

At the most basic level, your source citation must include three things:

1. The title of the record holding this information. For instance, 1910 U.S. Federal Census.
2. Where you found it. For instance, a record from the 1910 United States Federal Census collection at this URL.
3. Certificate number, page number, or line number. You need a distinguishing fact about this record to help someone else to find it. Include a certificate number and state for a birth, marriage, or death certificate. Include the year, place, and even the line number(s) for a census page.

Your goal is to allow anyone who finds your family tree online to be able to go see the document you used as a source. And if you don't see source citations in someone else's family tree, don't accept any of their "facts" as truth. They are unproven hints.

Step 4. Preserve Your Research

Always imagine the worst-case scenario. Your computer gets stolen. Your home goes up in flames. What can you do today and every day to preserve your family tree research?

First, digitize everything. Paper can burn, tear, or get lost. Scan or photograph any paper documents in your possession. I keep my originals in a fire-proof safe.

Establish a logical, practical file naming and storage system. Stick to it and you'll always be able to find what you need with little effort.

Make a habit of creating backups of your work. I work on my family tree every day, so I make backups of my Family Tree Maker file at the end of each day. Each Sunday morning I copy the week's backups onto two external hard drives. I'm also storing my work on the cloud (Microsoft OneDrive) at all times.

Leave yourself a note of where you left off for the day. That way, even if you don't get back to your family tree for a week, you won't waste any time.

Step 5. Share Your Work

I love when a 6th or 7th cousin contacts me after seeing their grandparents in my family tree. My goal is to allow distant cousins to follow my links to the original documents and grow their own family tree. That's why I share my family tree on Ancestry.com and Geneanet.org.

I've also told some of my close cousins how to go to my tree on Geneanet and print out trees for themselves. Geneanet makes it so easy to create the printout you want. And the website is free.

You can also create a "book of life", like the ones on PBS's "Finding Your Roots" with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. I created one especially for my mom's first cousin on her 80th birthday. Plus, I filled an accordion folder with census pages and ship manifests for my ancestors.

Let your relatives know about your genealogy research. They may have documents to share with you. They'll contact you first when there's a new baby in the family. And they'll turn to you for answers once lost to time.

Take these five steps to heart. Build a thoughtful, well-documented, thorough family tree that will live beyond your lifetime.

Taking the Next Step in Family Tree Analysis

Last week I showed you how to use a spreadsheet to gain insight into your family tree. If you're a Mac user, be sure to see the useful comments beneath that article from Mac user Mick.

In the article I challenged myself to tackle a bigger project. I wanted to use Microsoft Power BI Desktop software to further dissect the data and look for trends. I've always been a frustrated programmer, meaning I want to be good at it, but I get so frustrated! This time I got clear step-by-step Power BI instructions from Microsoft Copilot—what a lifesaver.

Working with the Data from Your Family Tree

The first step was to import my spreadsheet of everyone in my family tree into the program. The spreadsheet I exported from MyHeritage Family Tree Builder last week had problems. It wasn't possible to use that file because several rows didn't follow the format. So I exported my people from Family Tree Analyzer (old reliable). Once I imported the spreadsheet, I could see all the category names in Power BI Desktop. These include ID, LastName, FirstName, BirthDate, BirthLocation, etc.

How many ways can you think of to analyze your family tree?

Next, in Power BI Desktop's Report view, I created a table to hold all the data. I gave it some visual formatting to make it easier for me to understand:

• Bold column headers with a color background.
• Alternating white and light green rows like some ancient, pleated computer printout paper.

Note: I'm using the town of Colle Sannita in these examples because it's so complete in my family tree. About 95% of the available vital records are in my tree. The other 5% are records of people from out of town or who I can't identify.

Then I used the Filters column to the right of my table and added one data field: BirthLocation. I chose Advanced filtering, not Basic filtering. This let me filter down to any birth location that contains a certain town name, like Colle Sannita. When I click Apply filter, I can see that it's working. Hurray!

But I want to see how many people that filter includes. How many people in my family tree have I documented as being born in Colle Sannita?

I consulted Copilot to find out how I can do this. First I had to add a new function to my data fields to count the rows. The Copilot guidance used the generic title of RowCount for this. Next, to show the row count, I had to add a "card" to display it on. I did that and formatted it until I got what I wanted: a whole number with a comma to show thousands. My total count before applying a filter is 85,362 (bigger than it was last week). To make it more straightforward, I changed the function's name from RowCount to People. Now my card says 85,362 People.

Let's put it to use!

• When I filter BirthLocation to contain Colle Sannita, I have 25,120 People.
• When I filter BirthLocation to contain Baselice, I have 17,335 People.
• When I filter BirthLocation to contain New York, I have 902 People.
• When I filter BirthLocation to contain Bronx, I have 293 People.

I can do this with MarriageLocation and DeathLocation. I can do it for last names. I'll clear out my filter and drag LastName into the Filter section. I'll type my name, Iamarino, in the search box, and I see right there that I have 815 people with that last name. When I click Apply filter, the main screen shows the filtered list of people and the card says 815 People.

Getting More Specific

Now let's try two filters at once. I know there was an earthquake in Colle Sannita in 1805 that killed many people. I'm going to drag both DeathLocation and DeathDate into the Filters area. Using Advanced filtering, I'll choose:

• DeathLocations that contain Colle Sannita, and
• DeathDates that contain 1805.

Combining these filters leaves me with 54 people. I know the earthquake happened on 26 Jul 1805, thanks to Colle Sannita expert, Dr. Fabio Paolucci. I see people in this list who died well before the earthquake. I'm going to change my DeathDate filter to "contains 26 Jul 1805" or "contains 27 Jul 1805". This brings the list down to 28 people. (I can't add more than two dates, but a visual scan of the dates showed that all the victims seemed to die on these two dates.)

I created another filter to find years with very high or low death counts. I added a filter for DeathLocation that contains Colle Sannita, and one for DeathDate. I can keep changing the year and clicking Apply filter to see how many deaths there were. Here are a few results:

• 1810 had 113 deaths
• 1811 had 165 deaths
• 1812 had 145 deaths
• 1813 had 88 deaths
• 1860 had 126 deaths

I wanted to find a way to export or graph these numbers, but FRUSTRATION! My only choice would be to keep changing the filter and jot down the results in another spreadsheet. (Any programmers reading this are laughing their heads off.) I tried creating a dashboard that could show the results of various filters, but it didn't work. If I do make a separate spreadsheet, I can use Excel to turn the data into line graphs and bar charts. I have started doing this. See the image below.

It didn't take long to enter facts into a new spreadsheet to make these line graphs.

Going Deeper

Next let's try a 3-part filter. I'm wondering if the girl babies outnumbered the boy babies in my ancestral hometowns. I'll create a filter that contains a BirthLocation of Colle Sannita and a BirthDate of 1810. I'll include Gender, which shows me the Female/Male split without my having to touch it. Then I'll keep changing the year.

• In 1810 there were 199 births: 103 female and 96 male. Girls win.
• In 1820 there were 170 births: 79 female, 91 male. Boys win.
• In 1830 there were 177 births: 93 female, 84 male. Girls win.
• In 1840 there were 139 births: 71 female, 68 male. Girls win, but it's a close one.
• In 1850 there were 210 births: 114 female, 96 male. Girls win.
• In 1860 there were 206 births: 113 female, 93 male. Girls win.
• In 1870, 1880, 1890, 1900, and 1910 the boys win. Change in the water?

Now let's take a quick look at the marriages I've documented in Colle Sannita. There are two main churches, but the one in the heart of town is much older. I'll filter the MarriageLocation to those containing the older church: San Giorgio Martire. Wow! I've got 4,119 people who I know married there. I'll change the filter to show the location of the newer church in the area called Decorata. I've got 245 people who married there.

How are these both odd numbers? My guess is because of people who had more than one marriage. Only the preferred marriage appears in this database.

One more filter for the road. Italians have a tremendous reverence for the Virgin Mary, so they use the name Maria a LOT. Even the boys got Maria for a middle name. So, how many people in my family tree from Colle Sannita have a first name that contains Maria? 21,491 people!

I'd love to hear your suggestions for other ways to dissect the facts in my family tree.

Use a Spreadsheet to Analyze Your Family Tree

My family tree is an enormous database with 85,363 people. People often write to me to ask why their great grandparents are in my tree. They want to know how I'm related. Many times I'm not an actual relative.

That's when I have to explain the purpose of my family tree. I've connected entire towns through blood or marriage. Everyone in there has some type of connection to me. It's a jigsaw puzzle with no border pieces. It never ends, and I love that.

When you export your family tree to a spreadsheet, you can pull out statistics you can't get any other way.

I need to find a way to create statistics about my family tree to help explain why their people are in there. I don't see any reports in various desktop family tree software that would do the trick. The Ancestry.com version of my family tree gives a few stats in its tree overview:

• People 85,363
• Photos 11,233 (at least 10,000 are document images)
• Documents 13 (these are PDFs)
• Records 1 (no idea what that is)

That isn't what I want. If only I could use an Excel spreadsheet to sort and filter these stats to the surface.

I won't use Family Tree Analyzer today because readers point out it doesn't have a Mac version anymore. But a lot of software doesn't have a Mac version. I've been saying that since 1984.

I downloaded MyHeritage Family Tree Builder, and then found out it has no Mac version. {sigh} Let's get on with it.

Choose Your Software

First I found an article titled "5 Best Free Gedcom to Excel Converter Software for Windows". It recommended these programs you can download:

1. Gramps. This one may work on your Mac and on Linux, too.
2. MyHeritage Family Tree Builder. This has tons of features, especially if you sync it with your tree on MyHeritage.
3. ScionPC. Last updated in 2016.
4. Oxy-Gen. Last updated i 2023.
5. GEDxlate. This is so old it may not work on your Windows computer.

Export Your Data

I imported my latest complete GEDCOM file into MyHeritage Family Tree Builder. Every day I export two GEDCOM files from Family Tree Maker (my program of choice). One excludes media and notes, and one includes everything. Then I went to the Edit menu in Family Tree Builder and chose Export to Excel. I clicked Export list of people, but you can create a custom export if you wish.

The export to Excel command in any software creates a .CSV file. CSV stands for Comma Separated Values, and you can use any brand of spreadsheet software to open it. Even though your software says "Export to Excel", it is not creating an Excel file that you may not be able to use.

Open that CSV file with whatever spreadsheet software you have—even if it's Google Sheets. Then save it to your preferred format. I have Microsoft Office 365, so I saved my file in Excel's .xlsx format.

Make Your Data Easier to Use

Now you can view the results in your preferred software program. The first thing I always do is make the top row (with the column header names) bold, and freeze the top row. That way the headers are always visible as I scroll. I went ahead and made some columns wider so I could see their contents. Next, I hid a few columns I'm not going to use:

• ID
• Prefix
• Married Name (No!! Birth names only.)
• Death cause

I rearranged a couple of columns, too. I moved Last name before First name, and Gender after Suffix. I clicked Sort on Excel's Data menu and sorted my 85,363 people by Last name then First name.

Now we're ready for some statistics!

Start Filtering

On Excel's Data menu, I clicked Filter. This puts an arrow (indicating a menu) beside each column header. I clicked the arrow beside Birth place and typed Colle Sannita in the Text Filters search box. That's my paternal grandfather's hometown.

This tells me my family tree has 25,122 people born in Colle Sannita. (I can look at the bottom of the Excel window to see how many records fit in this filter.) The beauty of the filter is that it will select any place, any address, that includes Colle Sannita. That's something I can't do any other way.

I can change that filter to see that my tree has (listed from most to least):

• 25,122 people born in Colle Sannita (repeating this for comparison)
• 17,335 people born in Baselice (my maternal grandfather's hometown)
• 10,409 people born in Pesco Sannita (birthplace of a 1st great grandmother)
• 2,789 people born in Santa Paolina (birthplace of a 2nd great grandmother)
• 2,696 people born in Circello (birthplace of a 3rd great grandfather)
• 1,962 people born in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo (this town's records begin in 1861, keeping this number low)
• 935 people born in Apice (birthplace of a 3rd great grandmother)

I had no idea what these totals would be, and it's exciting to see them. I've been working hardest on Colle Sannita for a long time because I have the most ancestors there.

Now I'll use the filter on the Marriage place column. This shows me I have recorded (listed from most to least):

• 8,200 marriages in Colle Sannita
• 4,400 marriages in Baselice
• 3,914 marriages in Pesco Sannita
• 1,502 marriages in Santa Paolina
• 1,314 marriages in Circello
• 538 marriages in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo
• 338 marriages in Apice

I've been busy, haven't I? But what I see is how much work I need to do in many of my ancestral hometowns.

Filter Out More Facts

Another fact I can filter is any date (birth, marriage, or death) that includes a particular year. I typed 1855 into the text filter search box and found that my family tree has 542 people born in that year. In most of my ancestral hometowns, record keeping began in the second quarter of 1809. So how many people in my family tree were born in the first full year of civil record keeping? I'll type 1810 in the text filter search box to see that it's 581 people.

A big part of my family came from the town that started keeping records in 1861. So how many people in my family tree were born in that year? I'll type 1861 in the text filter search box to see that it's 539 people.

If I wanted to take the time, I could track trends in my towns by using two or more filters at once. I can filter to show one town and one year. This shows me that in 1860 the town of Colle Sannita recorded 206 births and 126 deaths. I've taken the time to work ALL this town's available vital records into my family tree, so those numbers are good.

Take the Next Step

I could use this data in more powerful software to report on birth, death, and marriage trends. For instance, there's Microsoft Power BI (BI = Business Intelligence), which I've used before. I've noticed that some years have a much higher death count than others. This could point to a terrible disease sweeping through the town, or an earthquake. If I were to create such a report, it would give me more insight into the lives of my ancestors.

It's been a long time since I used Microsoft Power BI to analyze my family tree. Now the software has AI features to make it easier to use. It sure sounds like I need to try it again.

Wouldn't you like to know where your family tree has the most roots? What other details would you filter for?