Ready to start building your family tree, but not sure where to start? Everyone’s genealogy journey is unique, but starting off with the following 5 steps can help set you up for success, and save you time, money and stress.

1. Purchase family tree software

Family trees can be built on many different websites including FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com. However, these websites contain a wealth of misinformation, and building your tree on these sites can make it easy for your information to become linked with some of this incorrect information. There are free software downloads available online, but many of these come with limitations. For example, the free version of MyHeritage only allows users to add 250 ancestors to a tree. This may seem like a lot, but considering that you have 32 third great-grandparents, and 64 fourth great-grandparents, that limit can be reached very quickly. There are many good, moderately priced options available. RootsMagic is a software that’s highly rated, very robust and can be purchased for $29.95. In addition to family tree building, some of its capabilities include creating numerous reports, integration with Ancestry.com to publicly share your tree, a ToGo feature that allows you to continue your research on numerous devices, and the capability to easily upload your files to Family Chart Masters for printing your trees

2. Do your homework

Before you jump right into your research, read an introductory book that provides an overview on genealogy research. Begin by checking what’s available at your local library’s genealogy section. Here’s a couple excellent options I would recommend:

• How to Do Everything: Genealogy, Fourth Edition by George Morgan
• The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy 3rd Edition by Kimberly Powell

How to Do Everything: Genealogy offers a guide to starting the research process, and includes information on traditional, online, and genetic research. The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy helps you start your research online, but also provides helpful information for expanding your search beyond the internet.

3. Create a FamilySearch account

I don’t recommend building family trees online, but FamilySearch.org is a necessary resource for searching records, and the best part is, it’s completely free. You just need to create an account to search their records collections. FamilySearch also has an extensive digital library with published genealogies and local history books. You can access much of the site’s information with any computer with internet access, but to view images of many of the original records on the site, you may need to go to a family history center. You can find your nearest family history center by clicking here. Ancestry.com also has a wealth of records available online, but it is a paid subscription site, and you can likely gain access to some of the site’s features at no cost in your local library.

4. Collect copies of helpful genealogy forms and checklists

Genealogy software and websites have made many genealogy forms superfluous. However, there are still some forms you will find useful to have, such as:

• Genealogy Source Checklist
• Family Group Sheet

A good genealogy source checklist will give you ideas of records to look for and help you keep track of the records you’ve already located for a particular ancestor. I’ve created my own genealogy source checklist, which you can receive a copy of by visiting my website at www.LindseysHistories.com and signing up for my e-newsletter. A family group sheet is an important piece of an effective organizational system, which I’ll cover in more detail in a future article. A copy of this form, and others, can be found on Ancestry.com at https://www.ancestry.com/cs/charts-and-forms.

Other genealogy forms you may want to have copies of include:

• Census Forms
• Pedigree Charts
• Research Calendar

5. Establish a system of organization

Records, photographs and forms can accumulate rapidly when researching your family’s history. Having a system of organization in place when you begin will save you time and effort in the long run. There are numerous ways to organize your records. Two common methods are organizing your records by surname, or by couple. I organize my records by couple, and I’ll elaborate on this process in a future article.