Charleen Buswell <buz1011@yahoo.com> wrote: > Trying to trace the family tree. I know that my father > Charles Jay Fulton was born near Hamberg, Iowa. He did > not keep in touch with his parents. We don't have the > names of his parents. How do I get started? Dear Charleen, Your query came to me as listadm as an error - you need to send your query to fulton-l@rootsweb.com rather than to fulton-l-request@rootsweb.com I would suggest you re-submit your query, but please give more details about your Father's dates of birth, marriage, death, name of spouse, names of children, where he lived, names of any of his brothers or sisters. Someone on the list may know of the family. I am assuming that you or any of his living relatives do not know of any of your father's brothers or sisters and that his obit and death certificate were filled out by relatives who did not know his parents. If that is true, then I suggest you try to obtain his birth certificate instead. I could not find a place called Hamberg in Iowa, but there is a Hamburg in Freemont Co, Iowa. Addresses for writing for U.S. vital statistics can be found at: http://www.vitalrec.com/ Another source is the National Center for Health Statistics at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/w2welcom.htm Or Go directly to the web page http://www.vitalrec.com/ia.html to fill in an order form for requesting birth certificates from Iowa. Event: Birth or death Cost of copy: $10.00 Address: Iowa Department of Public Health Vital Records Section Lucas Office Building 321 East 12th Street Des Moines, IA 50319-0075 Remarks: State office has had records since July 1880. Check or money order should be made payable to Iowa Department of Public Health. To verify current fees, the telephone number is (515) 281-4944. This will be a recorded message. Information on how to obtain certified copies is also available via the internet at Iowa Department of Public Health. Also there are several free online education lessons to help you get started. I suggest the following: 1) ROOTSWEB'S GUIDE TO TRACING FAMILY TREES Links to the 30 interactive lessons. Index page: <http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/> 2) Family Tree Maker Lessons at: http://www.familytreemaker.com/university.html 3) Dear Myrtle Lessons at: http://www.dearmyrtle.com/lessons.htm 4) Genealogy 101 Keely's Lessons at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~mskeelyk/keely1.htm 5) Cyndi's Tips for Getting Started http://www.cyndislist.com/faq/newbies.htm Good luck in your research. Please keep the list informed of your results. Roberta R. (Fulton) Hirth Harriman, New York 10926 Fulton web page at: http://www.frontiernet.net/~elisa96/hirth/fulton.htm\ Search Fulton-L archives at: http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl