From cemetery transcriptions to census records, millions of genealogy resources have been posted online in recent years, making the Internet a popular first stop in researching family roots. And with good reason. No matter what you want to learn about your family tree, there is a pretty good chance you can dig up at least some of it on the Internet. It's not quite as simple as finding a database that contains all of the information on your ancestors and downloading it, however. Ancestor hunting is actually much more exciting than that! The trick is learning how to use the myriad of tools and databases that the Internet provides to find facts and dates on your ancestors, and then going beyond that to fill in the stories of the lives they lived. While each family search is different, I often find myself following the same basic steps when beginning to research a new family tree online. As I search, I also keep a research log noting the places I've searched, the information I find (or didn't find), and a source citation for each piece of information that I find. The search is fun the first time, but not if I forget where I've looked and end up doing it all over again! Begin with Obituaries Since family tree searches generally work their way back in time from the present, searching out information on recently deceased relatives is a good place to start your family tree quest. Obituaries can be a gold mine for information on family units, including siblings, parents, spouses, and even cousins, as well as the date of birth and death and place of burial. Obituary notices may also help lead you to living relatives who can provide further information on your family tree. There are several large obituary search engines online which can make the search a bit easier, but if you know the town where your relatives lived you will often have better luck searching the obituary archive (when available online) of the local paper. If you aren't sure of the name of the local paper for that community, a search for newspaper and the city, town or county name in your favorite search engine will often get you there. Be sure to search out obituaries for siblings and cousins as well as your direct ancestors. For remainder of article: http://genealogy.about.com/od/basics/a/internet.htm?nl=1 Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"