Looking Up Family History

You can start looking up your family history by organizing what you already have. If you visit the Mormon Church's family history website, you can download sheets that you let you write down all the information on each married couple and their children. To start off, try to do one sheet for each couple, but also do one for each of their children/spouses. You will then get to download a very nice (and very free) genealogy software package called PAF (Personal Ancestral File) from their site.

After you get everything organized and verified by everyone, your next step is to go to the library and pull obituaries from the newspaper files. They're almost always on microfilm and you need to be patient, but that will give you a wealth of information. From there, go to the county building and find either the Vital Records or Clerk of the Court's office while browsing for marriage licenses, birth certificates, and death certificates. Most counties outside of the really large metro areas (like Chicago, NY, or LA) will let you see the originals and copy information for free, but others will simply make an uncertified "genealogy copy" for you for just a few dollars.

After you get as much as you can from local records, you then should start back at the library or LDS Family History Center in your area by looking for census, military service/pension, and immigration records. If you ask your local library, you'll usually find they have a public access subscription to some otherwise very expensive genealogy programs. The good thing about going this route is that they pay and you just have to use your library card to access it for free.