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	Welcome to the CDO Library    Main   >   Schools   >   CDO   >   CDOLibrary So, you're interested in your family's roots? Where to begin: 1. Start by talking to your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Look in scrapbooks to get names, birth and death dates, birth and death locations, marriage dates, etc. Ask about variant spellings of last names. Many immigrants changed the spellings of their surnames to appear more "American." 2. Make a chart. Go to www.thetreemaker.com and you will find a free one. 3. Choose to research one branch at a time. The process can becoming too overwhelming if you try to do more than that. 4. Try typing your ancestor's name into a general search engine like www.google.com. Also try different spellings. You will probably find several relatives this way. 5. Talk to your public library. Many, especially in large cities, have special genealogy librarians to assist patrons. Also, knowing which city your ancestors lived in will help with your search. You can call, write, or email that town's library to look in their databases for information about your relatives, including the local paper and public records. Check out what Tucson-Pima Public Library has at http://www.lib.ci.tucson.az.us/genealogy/ 6. Once you reach a place in your research where no one can remember names, this is where the real fun begins. You will need to locate birth and death certificates for more names or branches on your tree. Here are some resources: Social Security Death Index (SSDI). Available online at http://www.ancestry.com/ Ancestry.com is fee-based, but it does offer a 30 day trial for free. The Web site has lots of additional help available through links. Where to Write for Vital Records. Available online at www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/w2welcom.htm This provides the address and cost for obtaining birth, death, marriage, and divorce records. The site is indexed alphabetically by state. Other Online Resources www.ellisisland.org This site searches the 22 million records of people who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. Search results contain the names of the passenger, country of residence, date of arrival and age on arrival. www.familysearch.org The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the largest genealogy collection in the world, and it can now be accessed online. Researchers can download family history forms and search for ancestors by location or name. www.surnames.com The site has lots of helpful links but to use the genealogy service costs money. This is the site I accessed without paying using the Invisible Web. www.cyndislist.com This site is the premier Internet gateway for genealogy research providing access to 70,000 sites, each thoroughly researched and categorized. Databases The Biography and Geneology Master Index. (1980-2001). Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group Check to see if the public or university library near you subscribes to this database. This online database is a comprehensive index that covers over 200 current and retrospective sources from all fields and from all areas of the world. Books Filby, William.(Ed.).(1999) Passenger and Immigration List Index. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Fitzhugh, Terrick V. H. and Lumas, Susan. (1998). The Dictionary of Genealogy (5th Ed.). London: A & C Black. Greenwood, Val D. (200). The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy (3rd Ed.). Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company. Harris, Maureen and Harris, Glen. (1998) Ancestry's Concise Genealogical Dictionary. Provo, UT: Ancestry Publishing Kanellos, Nicolas. (1997). The Hispanic American Almanac: A Reference Work on Hispanics in the United States (2nd Ed.). Detroit: Gale Research. Luebking, Sandra. (1997). The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy (Rev. Ed.). Provo, UT: Ancestry Publishing. McClure, Rhonda R. (2001). The Genealogist's Computer Companion. Cincinnati, OH: Betterway Books. Shaeffer, Christina. (1998). Genealogical Encyclopedia of the Colonial Americas: A Complete Digest of the Records of All the Countries of the Western Hemisphere. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company. Thorndale, William and Dollarhide, William. (1987). A Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company. Other Sources Federal Census Microfilm for Oregon from the 1850 through the 1930 census. (Exists for all states.) Bibliographic information provided by Susan Irwin from The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science 7/23/2002. This document created by Beth Malapanes for the students of Canyon del Oro High School 3/1/03.