FEATURE ARTICLE
information, it was less detective work on my part.
After starting my family tree with all the information I could find, then I started to interview my dad and mother on all the information they knew, which I did before they passed on. Once your parents or grandparents are gone, there goes a lot of valuable information that would have helped you with your tree.
When I was new at this, some of the first things I did was I went to large public libraries that have genealogy departments, where I was able to look at
microfilms showing obituaries, census reports, land deeds, social security index, old phone books with addresses etc. I also located 12 relatives who share my same last name who fought in the Civil War. I now know every relative related to me in my direct line on what they did for a living and how they died, their height, hair and eye color, and in some cases, what they paid for rent per month etc. Most of this information was on census reports. For a small fee you can make copies of all the records you find in these libraries.
Also, I have visited well over 20 cemeteries to locate headstones of relatives. If you want to get the most accurate information, then a headstone will show the correct dates of birth, and also the death date. Census reports are very important, but they are sometimes hard to read and contain some errors by the census takers.
If you look at some headstones, some are easy to read while others have worn out letters because they may be too old. Some people bring chalk with them for headstone readings that can be very hard
"Some people bring chalk with them for headstone readings that can be
very hard to read. "
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